week 7

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SAMPLE PAPER Week 7 Assignment

Servant Leadership in Manufacturing Environments

Student Name

American Public University

MGMT605: Leadership

Dr. Edward P. Sakiewicz

September 24, 2023

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Abstract

The present study of Servant Leadership and the possible effects on manufacturing practices and

efficiencies. Through the explanation of the newly created and widely adopted practices of

Servant Leadership methodologies, a comparison is made to typical leadership practices in

manufacturing environments. A comparison is made of both applications of both Servant

Leadership and Typical leadership styles directly related to organizational structures and

employee’s creativity. The use case for implanting Servant Leadership methodologies in

manufacturing is made through the increase of unrealized gains in both employee satisfaction as

well as increased efficiencies in manufacturing practices. Additionally, personal relationship to

leadership policies and methodologies experienced in current manufacturing environments.

Keywords: Manufacturing, Servant Leadership, Manufacturing Leadership, Personal

Leadership in Manufacturing

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Servant Leadership in Manufacturing Environments

Servant Leadership is a leadership philosophy that sets behaviors and practices that set

the employees or those being lead above the needs of the leader. Practicing Servant Leadership

is not an entirely new philosophy, putting the ends of the team above oneself. The term “Servant

Leadership” was originally introduced by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970 when he published an

essay titled The Servant as Leader. Although the philosophy is applicable in a wide range of

leadership or command structures, the application of Servant Leadership is mostly applied to

leadership concepts in business. The practice of Servant Leadership has become successful in a

wide range of industries, but several industries continue to push back on practical applications of

the concept. One such industry that continues to resist the concept of Servant Leadership is large

scale manufacturing. An argument can be made that the introduction of Servant Leadership in

large scale manufacturing can be extremely beneficial and practical. The following examines

Servant Leadership and the application of the concept to manufacturing that includes the

following: a brief overview of Servant Leadership Methodologies, typical leadership structures

in manufacturing, personal experiences in manufacturing environments, research conducted on

effects of Servant Leadership, and the application of Servant Leadership in the Manufacturing

Environments. These topics of interest will provide a better insight into the application of

Servant Leadership in manufacturing.

Overview of Servant Leadership Methodologies

Servant Leadership is a style of leadership that mainly focuses on the advancement and

fulfilment of team members versus satisfying the induvial needs of the leader. Although the

Servant Leadership style is relatively new, the idea has gained great traction due to the ability to

positively influence a series of individuals and organizational outcomes. An increase in both Job

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Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment have been recognized as favorable outcomes from

implementing Servant Leadership (Canavesi & Minelli, 2021). The application of Servant

Leadership to a group has experienced increased job satisfaction and employee career

fulfillment.

The Servant Leadership philosophy is depicted by the practice of individuals interacting

with others to achieve authority rather than power. Achieving authority over subordinates allows

for a more legitimate practice of leadership versus compelling employees to work. This practice

of individuals interacting directly embodies a decentralization of traditional organizational

structures. Leaders who follow the Servant Leadership styles allow customer-facing employees

the ability to make decisions. Granting customer-facing employees the ability to make decisions

on the spot can increase efficiency as well as minimize wasted efforts. These decision-making

employees have a close relationship with both the organization and customers to make decisions

more effectively to better serve and retain customer satisfaction (Kenton, 2022). Granting the

autonomy to make business decisions to employees allows for greater employee buy in and care

in the work the company conducts.

Decentralization of Traditional Organizational Structures

Implementing Servant Leadership practices allows for the introduction of Decentralized

Organizational Structures. Decentralized Organizational Structures give individuals and teams

through different levels of an organization a higher level of autonomy without needing to

continuously seek team approval for business decisions (Kenton, 2023). In comparison, a

standard or Centralized Organizational Structure has a clearly defined chain of governance and

requires certain levels of approval that can sometimes be timely. Decentralized organizational

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structures allow for faster and more agile responses compared to standard or traditional

organizational structures that can cause lag in responses in obtaining guidance.

Encouragement of Creativity

Increasing certain levels of employee creativity can also increase the overall quality of

assignments or product outcomes. Implementing creative ways in accomplishing goals or

methods of accomplishing targets can increase team morale as well as overall team effectiveness.

Encouragement in allowing an induvial to become more creative leads to overall team mechanics

to become more creative (Yang et al., 2017). Although increased levels of creativity do not

always lead to favorable outcomes in different scenarios, allowing employees to exercise their

prowess can increase favorable outcomes for the team overall.

Typical Applications of Leadership in Manufacturing

Manufacturing environments typically discourage individualism and creativity when

manufacturing a standardized product. Historically, manufacturing environments have been

extremely dangerous and unfavorable for workers. Although dangerous manufacturing practices

have been mostly phased out, unfavorable working conditions and practices continue to give the

entire industry less than a favorable demeanor. What is now considered the ideal manufacturing

practice, strict organizational structures and extremely precise views on leadership practices are

encouraged to optimize overall production.

Personal Experience and Application of Servant Leadership in Manufacturing

The practice of Servant Leadership is a rather new concept that has become a more

widely accepted or standardized methodology for young and new leaders. This concept of

putting the needs of the team above the needs of the leader emphasizes that the team is more

important than the individual leader. Having had personal experiences in the past that put the

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team and individual team members below the needs of the single leader became an extremely

negative experience that resulted in poor team performance. Early in my professional career, I

worked at a shrinking company that continued to fail. My position was created to fill gaps in

personal and grow the business through team expansion and technical experience. The position

was destined for failure before the start due to prevention of changes to allow employees to be

more agile as well as poor leadership methodologies from upper management. Although my

entire experience dealing with poor performing leaders was negative, the worst part of the

experience came from seeing an effective and high performing team struggle with basic team

dynamics and completing tasks.

Now that I am currently in a position of leadership in a small technical department that

supports a large-scale manufacturing plant, I want to make my team as effective as possible. I

strongly believe that low performing teams can become high performing if giving the proper

tools and leadership. Through the application of methodologies that originate from Servant

Leadership, my small technical team can effectively support an entire manufacturing plant with a

ratio of two hundred employees to one technical team member without downtime or impacts to

the business. Through putting my team’s needs above my own, I can honestly say that I have

gained their respect and can quantitatively see performance increases in the team.

Research on Servant Leadership

Since the original introduction of Servant Leadership, research has been broken into three

main phases. The first is the Conceptual Development phase, developing the practices and what

Servant Leadership means and entails at different levels of an organization (Eva et al., 2018).

The second is the Measurement phase, investigating and testing the relationships of fundamental

outcomes of previously performed research. The third is the Development phase that focuses on

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more in-depth research designed to be utilized to go further than basic relationships and

outcomes (Eva et al., 2018). The third Development phase is the latest form of research in

Servant Leadership, contributing to new studies being conducted on the impacts associated to

individuals’ creativity as well as the effects on an organization’s leadership at different levels.

Observations of Servant Leadership on Creativity

A study was created with the intended purpose of exploring the influencing mechanisms

of Servant Leadership on employee and team creativity. A survey on leadership and creativity

was conducted on 154 teams in both Indonesian and Chinese organizations that are in various

industries. The surveyed employees provided information for independent variables that

included induvial expression and team efficiency. The resulting survey concluded that the

adaptation of Servant Leadership would present an additional 10% of theoretical variance in

team performance over transformational leadership styles. The findings of the study concluded

that Servant Leadership can be more strongly related to an expected enhancement of

psychological needs of subordinates while transformational leadership is more so related to being

perceived as a traditional leader (Yoshida et al., 2014). Although the survey was able to shed

light to certain ideological examples of Servant Leadership styles, actual application of the

practice would allow for less theoretical outcomes and provide more sufficient data.

Observations of Servant Leadership on Employees

Through the introduction of modifying an organization’s stance on leadership and their

view of employees, the Servant Leadership style of leadership has started to become widely

adopted in growing industries. Through the direct introduction of Servant Leadership in smaller

organizations, the employee’s view on leadership has resulted in favorable outcomes.

Observations noted in employees that work in environments that utilize Servant Leadership

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practices include increased employee performances, commitment to work, and increased trust

levels in leadership (Tenney, 2023). Because leadership depicts cultural norms in any

organization, leaders that put their employees first experience the greatest positives outcomes.

Application of Servant Leadership in Manufacturing

Directly applying the practice of Servant Leadership in Manufacturing practices seems to

be an interesting concept that has not experienced full scale adoption yet. I currently work in a

manufacturing environment and continue to see very traditional methods of leadership and

applications of resolving issues, far from the principal concepts of Servant Leadership. While

typical leadership styles in manufacturing practices have always presented employees as a cog in

the machine, Servant Leadership would allow for more creativity and unorthodox solutions to be

applied in unrealized efficiencies. The application of Servant Leadership can introduce semi-

centralized organizational structures to increase agile manufacturing practices. Additionally,

through the direct application of Servant Leadership, creative solutions to issues as well as allow

for employee innovation that had not previously been realized.

Semi-centralized Organizational Structures in Manufacturing

Servant Leadership is in favor of decentralized organizational structures, but complete

decentralization cannot always be achieved in industries such as manufacturing. Due to the

demand for exact measurements and product exactness, manufacturing practices have been

created to accomplish the exact outputs that are needed. Normally, the thought of introducing

decentralized forms of leadership or business decisions in the manufacturing industry would

cause chaos. Changing the way that one thinks about decentralization of business decisions, a

wide range of gained perspectives can be achieved from allowing employees to modify

schedules or applications to best suit the needs of the company and employees. Semi-centralized

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organizational structures maintain key elements needed in manufacturing but allow for autonomy

of employees to create the necessary decisions to best suit the overall needs of the company.

Employees that can autonomously make decisions can more accurately adjust product needs due

to their direct involvement and knowledge that is not always passed through to leadership.

Creativity in Manufacturing

Through the application of Servant Leadership in a manufacturing environment, allowing

employees to become more creative can lead to modifications to workflows with performances

outcomes. Even though the manufacturing environment is very rigid and discourages individual

creativity, allowing employees to work inside the bounds of what is possible can create an

overall better experience for both manufacturing efficiencies and for employees. Allowing

employees to exercise certain levels of creativity inside the scope of their immediate control can

effectively increase employee trust in leadership and create previously untapped potential in the

overall manufacturing process.

Conclusion

Servant Leadership is not a new concept, it is the ability to put the good of the leader

behind the good of the employees. Servant Leadership is the practice of instilling all possible

advancements in employees so that the team can benefit. Introducing the Servant Leader

methodology to an organization can increase employee effectiveness as well as employee

relations with leadership. The case for introducing Servant Leadership in manufacturing

environments will allow for increased effectiveness of employees as well as increasing the

overall efficiency of the company in manufacturing practices. Through serving the employees, a

leader can obtain better working experience for all employees to allow them to better perform for

the organization.

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