Servant-Leadership and the wounded leader: vision and challenge for educational leaders today
Roger Vallance
Abstract
The educational leader must respond to many calls on time and talent. Servant-Leadership is a perspective of leadership that places the emphasis upon Gospel-grounded values while at the same time developing a means of achieving the tasks and duties of a highly skilled professional leader. Servant-Leadership does not ignore the wounding that failures, bad fortune, ill-timing and non-aligned expectations may engender and all leaders suffer from time to time.
This paper explores Servant-Leadership in the context of an educational leader’s major roles. It is a means of integrating the tasks and role of the leader with vision and spirituality that can be energising for the educational leader, one's colleagues and the administration team. Lastly, this paper will attempt to open a discussion of the wounds of leadership and how wounded leaders can model integrity and service.
This paper integrates the author’s reading, experience, reflection and attempts at practice of this exciting and growth-promoting perspective. Servant-Leadership is neither a quick-fix nor a panacea. Servant-Leadership is a holistic and values-grounded approach that seeks to energise and integrate roles and vision, practice and spirituality. We have survived organisation by objectives and utilised strategic leadership: Servant-Leadership is the missing link that allows progress towards a spirituality of leadership and the achievement of organisational goals.
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