Learn how to communicate better with your team by adopting a servant leadership approach. Servant leaders listen, empathize, coach, and empower their team members, leading to better outcomes.

Servant leadership can be a game-changer when it comes to improving communication with your team. By embracing a servant leadership mindset, you prioritise listening, empathy, and understanding the needs of your team members. You shift from being the centre of attention to being a facilitator of communication and collaboration. Through active listening and genuine concern for their well-being, you create an environment where team members feel valued and heard. This fosters trust and openness, making it easier for team members to share their thoughts, concerns, and ideas. By leading with humility and a focus on serving others, you build stronger connections and enhance communication within your team.

Servant Leaders start at the end that may be the end customer, stakeholder or employee. " Working backwards." When you start with the end in mind, and it is most often the customer, it creates alignment to serve. Putting yourself in others "shoes" and perspective brings respect, humility, and openness to listen and learn.

You're having trouble communicating with your team. How can servant leadership help you improve?

Communication is vital for any team to succeed, but it can also be challenging and frustrating. If you're having trouble communicating with your team, you might want to consider adopting a servant leadership approach. Servant leadership is a style of leadership that focuses on serving the needs, interests, and goals of others, rather than imposing your own agenda or authority. Servant leaders listen, empathize, coach, and empower their team members, creating a culture of trust, collaboration, and mutual respect. In this article, we'll explore how servant leadership can help you improve your communication skills and overcome some common communication barriers.

1 Listen actively

One of the most important skills for effective communication is active listening. Active listening means paying attention to what the other person is saying, without interrupting, judging, or jumping to conclusions. Active listening also involves asking open-ended questions, reflecting back what you heard, and summarizing the main points. As a servant leader, you should practice active listening with your team members, showing them that you care about their opinions, feelings, and concerns. Active listening can help you build rapport, understand different perspectives, and identify the root causes of problems.

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Sean Kennedy

Sean The TA Guy | Lover Of All Things Employer Branding | Content Creator | Remote Working Advocate | Talent Attraction Expert | Principal Talent Acquisition Partner @ BenchSci
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Servant leadership can be a game-changer when it comes to improving communication with your team. By embracing a servant leadership mindset, you prioritise listening, empathy, and understanding the needs of your team members. You shift from being the centre of attention to being a facilitator of communication and collaboration. Through active listening and genuine concern for their well-being, you create an environment where team members feel valued and heard. This fosters trust and openness, making it easier for team members to share their thoughts, concerns, and ideas. By leading with humility and a focus on serving others, you build stronger connections and enhance communication within your team.

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Marva Bailer

Board Director | AI, Cybersecurity, Future of Work | Rapid Growth | M&A | P&L $100Mil to $1Bil | TEDx Speaker | Author
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Servant Leaders start at the end that may be the end customer, stakeholder or employee. " Working backwards." When you start with the end in mind, and it is most often the customer, it creates alignment to serve. Putting yourself in others "shoes" and perspective brings respect, humility, and openness to listen and learn.

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Ricardo Martinez Enriquez

Service & Engagement Manager | Grad Student in Environmental Policy and Management | Proven Expertise in P&L Management, Operational Excellence, and Data-Driven Strategy | Leadership Development
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Simplicity. Go back to the roots of what servant leadership is all about. - Listen to what is not being said and dig deeper. - Use your empathy skills to create a psychologically safe environment where your team is comfortable and willing to bring up concerns as soon as they arise. - Explain the Why and ask for input and feedback. - Empower those who are ready to help you bridge the communication gap.

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Rahul Mahajan

Product Development Manager | Scrum Master | Servant Leader | Agile Transformation | PSM II | PSM I | SAFe 6 SM | PSPO II | PSPO I | SAFe 6 POPM
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Servant leadership is a leadership style that emphasizes on serving people rather than using command and control. It involves empathizing, active listening, clear and open communication, empowering teams/individuals, promoting experimentation etc. To improve communication with team, one should start by actively listening to team/individuals so that they feel their voice is heard and valued, empathize with them so they feel respected and supported, casual connects to promote open communication, addressing conflicts promptly.

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2 Empathize sincerely

Another key skill for successful communication is empathy. Empathy means putting yourself in someone else's shoes and trying to feel what they feel. Empathy can help you communicate with compassion, respect, and sensitivity, especially when dealing with difficult or emotional situations. As a servant leader, you should empathize sincerely with your team members, acknowledging their feelings, validating their experiences, and expressing your support. Empathy can help you reduce conflict, foster trust, and inspire loyalty.

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3 Coach constructively

A third essential skill for productive communication is coaching. Coaching means providing feedback, guidance, and encouragement to help others learn, grow, and improve. Coaching can help you communicate your expectations, goals, and standards, as well as recognize the strengths, weaknesses, and potential of your team members. As a servant leader, you should coach constructively with your team members, giving them specific, timely, and actionable feedback, as well as asking for their feedback on your performance. Coaching can help you enhance performance, motivate development, and create a learning culture.

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4 Empower authentically

A fourth crucial skill for impactful communication is empowerment. Empowerment means giving others the authority, autonomy, and resources to make decisions, solve problems, and take action. Empowerment can help you communicate your trust, confidence, and appreciation for your team members, as well as encourage their creativity, innovation, and initiative. As a servant leader, you should empower authentically with your team members, delegating tasks, sharing information, and involving them in decision making. Empowerment can help you boost engagement, satisfaction, and ownership.

By applying these four skills of servant leadership, you can improve your communication with your team and overcome some common communication barriers, such as misunderstanding, confusion, resentment, or resistance. Servant leadership can help you communicate more effectively, efficiently, and ethically, leading to better outcomes for your team and your organization.

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5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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Paul Daigle II

Principal Solutions Architect | Servant Leader | Strategic, servant leader focused on other's success. Passion for teaching and delivering solutions and results for people and organizations.
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Typically we think of communication as a two-way or bi-directional responsibility. And it usually is, but, when it comes to servant leadership the responsibility to communicate with your team falls on the leader. If the team does not understand or is not clear about something or is missing it, it is a servant leader who has to realize it's like a chef who misunderstood an order or did not deliver that dish to the expectation of the consumer. You are there to serve the needs of the team and communication - clear, relevant, and received communications - has to be the goal of a servant leader who will do the above steps but at the end of the day OWN their communications for their team.

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You're having trouble communicating with your team. How can servant leadership help you improve?

1

2

3

4

5

1 Listen actively

2 Empathize sincerely

3 Coach constructively

4 Empower authentically

5 Here’s what else to consider

Servant Leadership

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You're having trouble communicating with your team. How can servant leadership help you improve?

1

2

3

4

5

1 Listen actively

2 Empathize sincerely

3 Coach constructively

4 Empower authentically

5 Here’s what else to consider

Servant Leadership

Rate this article

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