Servant and Competency Based Leadership

SERVICE AND COMPENTENCY BASED LEADERSHIP 2

Servant based Leadership and Competency based leadership

Competency based leadership is where there is a set of skills that are used to determine

the effectiveness of leaders chosen. Organizations attempt to identify the competencies it

believes are most important for leadership in their organization. These people believe that is the

best avenue to take. The weaknesses of this type of leadership is that the standards are often ambiguous and subject to interpretation.

The approach to servant leadership is to focus on the ability to create value for all

stakeholders in an organization, as well as to the environment and society. This model is based

on serving the greater good. The servant leader is not necessarily to just lead, but to lead and

serve. This type of leadership is based on willingness and a desire to lead.

Some of the characteristics identified by Greenleaf are foresight, listening, and persuasion.

Greenleaf defined servant leaders as those who believe they must put other people's needs and interests above their own needs and interests.

The Bible's greatest example of servant leadership is that of Jesus Christ. He was prophesied to be the servant. He was to come and give the ultimate act of service. By laying down his life, he opened the doors of salvation so that you and I could look forward to the Kingdom of God.

Churches or religious groups usually use servant based leadership as their choice of leadership and corporations and businesses usually go with competency based leadership.

In many organizations competency based leadership will need greater awareness of diverse factors and new sets of competency characteristics that will lead to success on the job. For instance the Army recognizes

SERVICE AND COMPETENCY BASED LEADERSHIP 3

two leadership levels, junior and senior and the two modes that they use are direct and indirect leadership.

In competency based leadership it can cause some to be unethical in order to be the next leader, while others may do the minimum amount of what is required, just enough to provide value to the team.

Competency based leadership is popular in many organizations because they believe that they can identify the competencies if feels are best for its leadership in their organization.