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The Test of Servant Leadership

By Marie V. Bañuelos

It seems that in the worst of times is when we grow and learn the most. It is also a time when everyone’s true leadership qualities show. Promises are no longer promises but must come to fruition. It is then that you get to experience the reality of who we are by how we act.

Education in California is certainly testing our leaders and their staffs. The pain all around is evident. People’s jobs are on the line. Programs are being dismantled – not because of ineffectiveness but because money must be used elsewhere. This is the time for testing real professionalism, honesty, and loyalty. It is in these times of crisis that we become the best (or worst) of what we are.

I came to my present position because the work was what I wanted to do. I agreed to forego the title I had and accepted a title considered below the position I was in before changing districts. The money was better than in my previous job, but the promises to do business differently was what got me.

I was being invited to join an organization that wanted to flatten hierarchy and work in strong collaborative teams. This was my dream come true. I am so firmly convinced that the only way to lead is to trust your staff and trust the process that we are truly servant leaders and provide the conditions and space for great things to happen. I was honored and excited to join an organization with these goals even at a lesser title.

“The Right Use of Power” by Peter Block had fortified my beliefs and opened the challenge before me. How do we “lead” without taking on the traditional role of “leadership?” The servant leader is a difficult role but I am fully committed to it. Servant Leadership challenges our old ideas of managing people and events. It is not linear nor does it have boundaries. It is a way of honoring the gifts that people bring and skills and talents they have rather than always looking to put something into them that doesn’t exist. Servant Leadership requires we listen not only with our ears but also with our hearts. It requires we bring our souls to the table and expose our true selves so others can do the same. It requires true honesty and the setting aside of self-interest.

It is something I have to work on all the time, and often fall short. But understanding the role of servant leader and aspiring to that behavior creates the most powerful collaborative teams. I knew that was the only way to be truly successful as a leader, my measure of success. My new administrative team talked of the importance of servant leadership.

I inherited a staff, and hired new staffs, to begin the work of organizing and “fixing” some things that were not working as well as building systems where no systems had been. My staff was stretched to their limits to learn and grow. And they did. We became close, and trust increased. We met together and talked about everything, even those things that people try not to talk about. We revealed our feelings and fears, our hopes and dreams, and came together around common goals. We worked on our relationships above all things – that was more important than anything we did.

As in Leading with Soul by Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal, we are opening our hearts and our gifts to be used, and we support each other to create a better educational system in our division. It required all we had and asked for us to learn more and produce more every day. We had to be “real” and drop all facades.

We learned each other. We learned the passion each had, the support that each needed. And because we were a true team, we gave each other ourselves to make it work.

I also believed in the administrative team, which included me, and that we were working on the same things. We formed a leadership team. We talked about servant leadership. We encouraged each other to be honest and loyal. We began to work on relationships and a code of ethics, our working agreements around what we believed as a team. But we made a mistake. We thought that by coming to agreement around the beliefs first, we could get everyone on board.

Execution, by Larry Bosidy and Ram Charan, says just the opposite. “Most efforts in cultural change fail because…they are not linked to outcomes. To change a culture, you need a set of processes, social operating mechanisms that will change the beliefs and behaviors of people that will change the bottom line…We act ourselves into a new way of thinking, not think our way into new ways of acting…People who talk about changing culture often talk first of changing values. That’s the wrong tactic. Values…such as integrity may need to be reinforced but rarely need changing.”

The leadership team was waiting to trust when they should have trusted and acted as if they did. Their individual behaviors of integrity needed reinforcing, and behaviors counter to the culture we wanted to create needed to be brought up for scrutiny. We couldn’t talk about the things we needed to really talk about. We couldn’t talk about our own failure.

The leadership team was not a working within a close relationship. Rank determined whose voice was heard. It was also clear there were favorites. I think I was the only one who, for a short while, really felt that way. But it became evident that others were beginning to see it too. And then we did the most harmful, awful thing. We did not talk about it. I did not talk about it. We watched as old habits of control and hierarchy took over.

It was then that California hit its biggest budget crisis. It was also then that relationships broke down in the leadership team. Fear has its cost, insecurity a price. The leadership team vision crumbled. Old ways of decision-making took over again. It was not in collaboration that we worked, but cloistered groups in secrecy.

My staff and I clung together and encouraged and supported each other. I promised to keep telling them the truth – and sometimes that was very painful. Jobs were being lost. What we worked for so hard was in jeopardy. Leadership talked about reorganization, and my staff was hit hard and so was I. We were committed to the work, and my team decided we would work to accomplish our goals no matter what happened to us as a team at the end.

We stuck together. We kept on striving to create new, innovation systems, better collaboration, and more accurate assessment tools for our programs. My staff gave themselves to the team. They worked long hours without compensation, gave up stipends to help cut the budget even at personal expense. We “acted as if” all was well. They continued to produce high quality work that provided support to all teachers and administrators in the district to do their excellent jobs.

My secretary was offered a higher position and more money. She came to me and expressed her concerns and doubts about leaving the team – leaving me. She gave me the greatest gift I could have had at that point when I told her she had to take the other position because it was more money and she was raising a family. She said, “Sometimes there are more important things than money.” In these times of financial crisis that is truly a huge gift. And one we, my team, could not accept. She took the new position and we congratulated her and missed her already at the same time. We were a family and one of our own was leaving the nest. But we celebrated seeing her fly. That was a win for me. As a servant leader, it is my responsibility to encourage growth of talent. It is my job to always consider the team and individual growth. On that level I had succeeded. On that level, my team succeeded for they had embraced the concepts of servant leadership.

We are struggling through a budget crisis of the worst kind. More than the fiscal woes of the state that has affected us, our value was being questioned. My staff fought with dedication and continued some of the most valuable work in a district – professional development, and keeping us together. As I write this, I am not hopeful of us prevailing but promised the team to fight for us to the end.

As for me, the top leaders reverted back to strong hierarchical decision-making. The team was failing. Trust died. My heart broke. Collaboration was a term, not a reality. I had lost faith in the system I wanted so much to join. Promises were broken to me and those around me. In the worst of times, servant leadership was not maintained. I have some responsibility in that because I did not speak up; what little I did was not enough. If it were not for my staff, I might have believed that a truly collaborative, honest, open relationship for a working team was impossible in education. My staff has shown me it can and does happen. My team has it, and I am blessed to have the experience.

At this writing, I am still fighting for what my team believes is the right thing for the district, its teachers and students. They are holding on for me, we are holding on to our beliefs. We continue to do our best still knowing we might not be together after this year. But we also have pride in our accomplishments together.

The administrative leadership team is rallying. Sometimes our hard struggles teach us about ourselves. They are beginning to examine what went wrong. There are lessons in The Right Use of Power, Leading with Soul, and Execution that are hard and take every ounce of courage we have to open ourselves to learn. I am still trying to learn the deep lessons and have some hope the administrative team will struggle with the learning too.

My team still laughs and, yes, cries together. We have given our all to each other. We were successful where the organization as a whole has not been. We flattened the hierarchy, we are equals; we care for our “family.” We produced wonderful products to support our families in the district. This is the best experience I have ever had.

I will integrate the lessons I have learned. I will keep the spirit of my team within me as a guide to remember servant leadership does work. Honest, open relationships are at the core. And to be the best of who we are is the best we can give in the worst of times.

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About the author:

Marie V. Bañuelos has been in education 28 years as a high school teacher, secondary administrator, county office administrator, assistant superintendent in a K-12 district, and now Director, Learning Community in a K-12 district in Southern California. Her expertise is organizational change, systems development, curriculum, instruction, and staff development. She has a published curriculum entitled Self-Esteem in the Classroom, and several published articles on leadership.