BUSI 345 Week 6 Discussion Board Forum 3 Replies Example

Discussion Board Forum 3 Replies: Authentic and Servant Leadership

BUSI 345 Leadership Theory and Practices, Discussion Board Forum 3 Replies

Thread by [Student Name]

The forum prompt, the two classmates and their threads are composites; the textbooks, research and Scripture cited are real.

Reply to Jasmine

Jasmine, your thread described authentic leadership as being yourself at work instead of wearing a mask, and I agree that honesty about who you are is part of it. Your example of the manager who admitted a mistake in front of the team showed relational transparency well. I think the theory asks for more than self-expression, though.

Walumbwa et al. (2008) created and tested a questionnaire whose four parts are knowing oneself (self-awareness), being open in relationships (relational transparency), weighing information fairly (balanced processing) and a moral perspective held from within. The third part, balanced processing, means giving fair weight to evidence and to opinions that cut against one's preferences before making a decision. The fourth, the internal moral compass, means acting on one's own convictions rather than by group or organizational pressure. Northouse (2016) presents the same components. A leader who is simply being themselves, but who ignores contrary evidence or follows the crowd on ethical questions, would score poorly on two of the four.

That matters because being yourself is only good if the self is worth following. Paul tells believers not to think of themselves more highly than they ought, but to think with sober judgment (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Romans 12:3). Sober self-assessment, not just self-expression, is what makes authenticity a strength. A leader who knows their weaknesses can invite others to cover them, and a team led that way learns that admitting limits is safe. Authenticity without that sober judgment can turn into a license for moodiness or stubbornness, which followers experience as anything but genuine leadership.

Your manager's admission of a mistake fits this well, since it shows both self-awareness and transparency. Do you think the manager also changed how decisions were made afterward, for example by asking for more input before acting? That kind of follow-through, more than the admission itself, is what turns an honest moment into an authentic pattern. That would show balanced processing growing out of the same humility, and it would make the admission more than a single honest moment.

Reply to Ethan

Ethan, your thread raised a fair concern, that servant leadership might be too soft for competitive businesses where results matter. You described a manager who avoided hard conversations in the name of being supportive, and that manager clearly let the team down. I would suggest, though, that the manager was not practicing servant leadership as the research and both of our textbooks define it.

Eva et al. (2019) reviewed twenty years of servant leadership research and found it associated with a range of positive outcomes, including follower performance, helping behavior and engagement, while noting that many studies relied on designs that cannot fully establish cause. Northouse (2016) describes servant leaders as helping followers grow and succeed, which sometimes requires honest correction. Blanchard et al. (2016) make the same point: serving people does not mean doing whatever they want, but helping them become who they can be, and that includes holding them accountable to a clear purpose.

Jesus told the disciples that greatness in his kingdom means serving others, and he offered his own coming, to serve and to ransom many, as the model (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Matthew 20:26-28). Yet the same Jesus rebuked Peter sharply when Peter tried to turn him from the cross (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Matthew 16:23). Service and firmness were not opposites for him. The correction served Peter, and through Peter, the church Peter would later lead.

The manager in your example seems to have avoided conflict for the manager's own comfort, which is self-serving rather than servant leadership. Real service would have meant naming the problem early, privately and kindly, then offering the support needed to fix it, so the employee was not left to fail in silence. How might the manager have had the hard conversation in a way that still put the employee's growth first?

References

Blanchard, K., Hodges, P., & Hendry, P. (2016). Lead like Jesus revisited: Lessons from the greatest leadership role model of all time. W Publishing Group.

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Eva, N., Robin, M., Sendjaya, S., van Dierendonck, D., & Liden, R. C. (2019). Servant leadership: A systematic review and call for future research. The Leadership Quarterly, 30(1), 111-132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2018.07.004

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Walumbwa, F. O., Avolio, B. J., Gardner, W. L., Wernsing, T. S., & Peterson, S. J. (2008). Authentic leadership: Development and validation of a theory-based measure. Journal of Management, 34(1), 89-126. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206307308913