Turning the leadership pyramid upside down
Servant leadership was originally introduced by Robert Greenleaf in the early 1970s. After a long career at AT&T, Greenleaf reflected on how organizations function and how leadership shapes the experience of people within them.
As Van Dierendonck explains, Greenleaf’s insight was that leadership responsibility extends beyond financial outcomes or shareholder interests.
“An important element of what he emphasized in his leadership thinking was that you have a responsibility as a leader. And that responsibility extends beyond shareholders. It’s also important to include the people in your organization.”
This perspective turns the traditional leadership pyramid upside down. Rather than directing from the top, the leader’s role becomes creating the conditions in which others can perform at their best.
Instead of asking how employees can serve the leader’s goals, servant leadership asks what people need in order to succeed in their roles. “If you take their needs first, then they will take care of the customers and everything else.”
In this sense, leadership becomes less about control and more about enabling growth, creativity, and contribution across the organization.
Servant leadership is still leadership
The word servant can sometimes lead to misunderstandings. It can suggest softness or a lack of direction. Van Dierendonck is clear that this is not what the concept implies.
“Servant leadership is still about leadership. It’s still about providing direction. It’s still about thinking, where are we going, responsibility that we have. You just do it in a different way.” Performance and accountability remain central. What changes is the way goals are pursued and decisions are made.
“It’s not like we let free run and you can do whatever there is. It’s also being clear about what is expected and how we achieve it. It’s just that when we talk about what it is and how to do it, you do it together with the people.”
The leader’s role is therefore not to step back entirely, but to shift from commanding to enabling.
Empowerment as a central mechanism
One of the strongest mechanisms behind servant leadership is empowerment. Leaders actively support people in developing autonomy, confidence, and capability. “An important working mechanism in servant leadership is empowerment… to coach people, to give people autonomy and see that as a sort of working agency.”
This empowerment is supported by trust: the belief that people are capable of doing their work well when given the opportunity and the right environment.
But empowerment is not the only characteristic. Authenticity, humility, and stewardship also play essential roles. Among these, humility is perhaps the most demanding.
“A sense of humility… that you are willing to learn, that you know that you’re not perfect, that you’re willing to step back to let others shine.”
For many leaders, this is where the real challenge begins.
The paradox of humility
Leadership positions often reward confidence, decisiveness, and visibility. These qualities help people rise through organizations. Yet servant leadership asks leaders to develop a very different posture once they arrive there.
As Roemer observes during the conversation: “So you need to basically let go of something that made you successful in the first place.”
Van Dierendonck agrees that this is precisely where the difficulty lies. “You basically need that to get there… and now you’re saying you need to be humble? That’s a challenge.” The paradox is that the traits that make someone successful early in their career can become obstacles later on.
Effective servant leaders therefore learn to balance strength with humility: leading with conviction while remaining open to the perspectives and insights of others.
Evidence that servant leadership works
While the idea originated in practice rather than academia, it has since been studied extensively. Over the past two decades, researchers have developed measurement tools and conducted empirical studies across many organizational contexts. “Servant leadership has the strongest effect not only on the soft measures like engagement, but also on the more objective measures in terms of performance.” Studies have linked servant leadership to higher engagement, stronger commitment, and improved organizational outcomes. In some cases, even financial results appear to benefit.
In other words, treating people with respect and investing in their development is not only ethically appealing. It also appears to work.
A broader responsibility: stewardship
Another dimension of servant leadership often receives less attention: stewardship. Leaders are not only responsible for employees or shareholders. They are also responsible for the broader impact of their organizations. “What you have here, you have it in trust for the next generation.”
This perspective shifts leadership toward a stakeholder mindset, recognizing responsibilities toward society, communities, and the future.
Leadership as a way of seeing people
Perhaps the most important insight in the conversation is that servant leadership is not simply a technique or a checklist. It reflects a deeper way of thinking about leadership itself. “Servant leadership is a way of looking at leadership — and a way of looking at the world.”
Organizations that adopt servant leadership rarely change overnight. Instead, it gradually becomes part of the culture, shaping how decisions are made, how people interact, and how responsibility is understood.
In that sense, servant leadership is less a leadership style than a leadership philosophy.
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