The Truth About Servant Leadership Most Leaders Miss

Servant leadership isn’t a trendy management buzzword. It’s a timeless principle that transforms teams and organizations from the inside out. At its core, servant leadership is about empowering your people. But when leaders confuse service with softness, they slip into passive leadership, avoiding tough conversations, lowering standards, and calling it humility. In this episode, you’ll learn how this subtle shift destroys culture, erodes trust, drags performance down across the board, and what to do instead.

What is Servant Leadership?

Servant leadership is not a fad. The concept goes back to the 1970s. At its core, servant leadership is about putting the needs of your people first; equipping them, empowering them, and developing them so they can thrive. The idea is simple: When you grow your people, the organization grows. When you elevate others, everyone wins. True servant leaders are focused on others.  They see leadership as stewardship, not ownership.

Servant Leadership Becomes Passive Leadership in Disguise

Research shows that while 77% of employees say they want servant-minded leaders, less than half respect leaders who avoid making tough calls. Somewhere along the way, servant leadership became less about courage and empowerment and more about just keeping the peace. That’s not servant leadership, that’s being a passive leader. Avoidance disguised as kindness will eventually undermine the very people you think you’re serving.

Passive Leadership Will Destroy:

Culture: When you don’t confront issues, conflict festers. People see that bad behavior is tolerated, and soon it spreads and erodes culture!

Trust: Teams can spot a passive leader from a mile away. They know when their leader is ducking hard calls, and once trust is lost, influence is gone.

Performance: Without accountability, mediocrity becomes the standard. High performers either lower their effort or leave.

How do you know the difference between servant leadership and passive leadership?

• A true servant leader empowers. A passive leader enables.

• A true servant leader confronts with care. A passive leader avoids the conversation altogether.

• A true servant leader protects standards. A passive leader lowers them.

Application Activities:

1. Out of culture, trust, and performance, in which areas do you see signs that indicate you may be leading passively? What are those signs or symptoms? What (or who) are you avoiding? Take some time to consider your responses and come up with a plan to re-establish expectations and hold your team accountable in those areas.

2. Write down a list of what you do as a leader daily. Next to each task, write down why you do it. Is it something only you can do? Is it something you feel like you need to control or micromanage? Is it something you do to keep the peace? Highlight which tasks are true servant leadership, and cross out any tasks that indicate you are being a passive leader. Then, write down something you can do instead. For example, if you find that you are adding extra meetings to cover for an underperforming employee, establish more frequent one-on-one meetings with that employee to provide clear feedback and help them get back on track.