Servant leadership for today's leaders

By Kim Seong-jun

Korea is now boiling over the so-called “nut rage” scandal by the first daughter of the owner of Korean Air. It again reminds us of a resounding question, “Are the sons and daughters of Chaebol tycoons in Korea qualified to be a leader?”

What she did simply in an airplane at New York airport was illegal and has evoked global criticism and cynicism that defames Korea. I wondered what was wrong with her. Many people around me point out one plausible reason.

She seems to have never been taught how to be a leader in an organization but only taught how to get quickly promoted regardless of her capability or leadership until now. She was a leader without knowing true leadership in the global carrier using “Korea” in its company name.

An unexpected wrongdoing by a distorted leadership that was exposed to the public is now threatening Korean Air to give up even using “Korea” in its company name. What a big cost only over a nut scandal!

The time has already gone when a leader with authority and power in an organization coercively instructs juniors and just waits for the output by them. But, the nut rage was regrettably the proof showing us the outdated culture of leadership still alive around us.

In order to create better performance in a global economic recession, many companies now emphasize much more the importance of teamwork and collaboration among all the elements in an organization than before.

Now, not a few leaders currently exercise so-called, “hands-on management” with their accumulated knowledge and skills to shorten the lead time and produce better output in a team project or daily work. Today, many leaders in organizations seem to be much busier than their staff in some sense.

As a team leader of a service company for global transport much similar to Korean Air, I always reflect on myself to find out how to build up our teamwork and collaboration, which is the right way to work smart in my opinion.

Sometimes, I feel unsatisfied with junior staff’s output, which appears both in their reports and attitude. Then, I check with them what our due working processes are and where is our manual to together seek a right solution to cope with various affairs around us every day.

Unfortunately, the content of our manual fails to contain everything we need to refer to as things are happening in different ways. If so, I have to come up with a reasonable solution or make a decision on a specific issue with my own experience and know-how accumulated over the past 20 years to proceed with our mission together.

Though I raise my voice to my juniors for their mistakes from time to time, I don’t forget to discuss with them what is wrong and to be corrected at the same time. Instead of giving an extreme instruction to resolve a problem hastily, I prefer to push my juniors to reconsider and to read more references related to their duties so as to find the right answer by themselves. Basically, I think that my juniors’ mistakes and errors in their jobs are a result of my incomplete leadership and poor teaching of them. Always keeping in my mind, “Leading our juniors by my example,” I try my best to be more reasonable, sensible, logical and cooler in make decisions on my juniors at the workplace. And, I believe most leaders in any organization will not be too much different from me if they read my story.

When I come back to Korea from overseas business trips at midnight from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and India several times a year, I know how hard and tired these cabin attendants are during the night flights. I sometimes feel sorry for sleeping comfortably while they’re all on duty during the five to six hour flight serving their passengers in a narrow space. In my memory, all the flight attendants of Korean Air were excellent in doing their jobs and I was quite satisfied with my flights.

So, if I were the daughter of the airline owner, I would not order the chief cabin attendant to disembark from the airplane. I think my juniors’ fault is after all an outcome of what I have not taught them. She should have been more sensible before taking such reckless actions against her staff. If she had a sense of appreciation for her cabin attendants who always serve numerous passengers in the sky day and night, I think this happening would have been prevented.

You may have heard about servant leadership. What is servant leadership? Many experts in leadership define it in various ways. Among them are the 10 principles by Robert Greenleaf, the founder of servant leadership ― listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people and building community necessary for leaders.

Especially, I like the first principle of the servant leadership ― listening. Traditionally, leaders have been valued for their communication and decision-making skills. Servant-leaders must reinforce these important skills by making a deep commitment to listen intently to others. Servant-leaders seek to identify and clarify the will of a group. They seek to listen receptively to what is being said or not said. Listening also encompasses getting in touch with one’s inner voice, and seeking to understand what one’s body, spirit, and mind are communicating. Most of all, the former vice president of the Korean Air should have built up her caliber of listening well to others as a leader of such a big service company.

Looking at the nut rage this time, I think today’s leaders are more required to be servant-leaders who better understand and communicate well with their staff in order not to repeat a second nut rage in the future. And, if the former vice president of Korean Air knew and read about servant leadership earlier, she might have avoided being the sad character in the nut rage scandal.

The writer works for Korea Marine Transport Co. (KMTC Line) in Seoul as general manager in business management division. Contact him at sjkhim@kmtc.co.kr.