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Servant Leadership

How to run a successful surveying business with a servant leadership style

By: Trent J. Keenan, PLS

How to run a successful surveying business with a servant leadership style.

Success as a business owner requires you to possess more than deep
expertise as a Professional Land Surveyor: you must also be an effective
leader.

As the generational transition occurs, millennials will comprise 75 percent
of the global workforce by 2025 and are already emerging as leaders in
technology and other industries. They want to work for companies that
promote innovative thinking, develop their skills, and contribute to society.
Additionally, many millennials are of the opinion that businesses are not doing
as much as they could to develop their leadership skills and that leaders need
to be nurtured, especially as they cannot wait for senior positions to become
available to them.

The larger your business grows, the more important leadership skills become.
Yet even when you run a business as a sole proprietor, you likely rely on the
services of contract employees or a long-time mentor to help you—making
leadership skills a valuable asset at every level.

While traditional views of leadership are characterized by a top-down, authoritarian approach, there is another style of leadership that
has gained increased popularity in recent years: Servant Leadership.
What is Servant Leadership?

At its core, servant leadership takes the approach of putting team members and employees first.

Think of the patriotic call of John F. Kennedy urging Americans to “Think not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your
country.” Similarly, servant leaders don’t prioritize business gain above all else; instead, they look for where they can lend support to
employees so that every individual—and therefore the business as a whole—can truly thrive.

While there have been servant leaders throughout human history, the concept was coined in 1970 in an essay by Robert K. Greenleaf .
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Definition of a Servant Leader in Greenleaf’s Words:

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to
aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to
acquire material possessions.”

Greenleaf recognized that there is a spectrum of leadership styles. On one end of the spectrum are people who are “leaders” first, and
on the other end are those who are “servants” first. Every business owner falls somewhere in between those two extremes.
Next, we will explain the value of the servant leadership approach and how you can begin to cultivate
servant leadership traits in your own business.

The Value of a Servant Leadership Approach

Servant leadership is valuable because it places focus on the holistic well-being of employees,
companies, and communities.

This is particularly relevant to land surveying businesses, which literally help to shape the physical
form of communities and serve local cities and residents with quality work.

When done well, taking a servant leader approach isn’t just good for society as a whole, it’s good for business. Engaging team
members, building trust, and improving team relations are all benefits of leadership that ultimately benefits
businesses as well. That’s because servant leadership also has the ability to: CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE u

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