How Bill Gates Demonstrates the Principles of Servant Leadership

SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Name
Institution
Course
Introduction
Servant leadership is a philosophical term that is used to describe a leader whose main goal is to serve others. It is quite different from the traditional form of leadership where a leader was mainly concerned with the performance of the organization without giving regard to the feeling and the welfare of those he or she leads (Black, 2013). The idea of servant leadership was first conceived and brought-forth by Robert K. Greenleaf; who stated that a leader is a servant first by focusing on the needs of others, before considering his or her personal needs (Liden et al., 2014). As Van Dierendonck (2011) elucidates, a servant leader is one who can acknowledge and consider other people’s perspectives, though giving them the kind of assistance that they need to enable them to achieve their goals and dreams. Currently, there are quite a good number of corporate leaders that have demonstrated the qualities of servant leadership, and one of them is Microsoft Company under the leadership of Bill Gates.
Summary of How Bill Gates Demonstrates the Principles of Servant Leadership
Bill Gates is one of the top, most successful and richest entrepreneurs in the world (Zentner, 2016). However, as Zentner (2016) extrapolates he has focused most of his energy in participating in humanitarian and philanthropic matters. As a result of the most genius ideas from the executive office rooms to contribute to solving global challenges. According to Wessel (2011), between the years 1994 and 2010 Gates and his wife Melinda Gates have jointly contributed more than $35 billion to aid addressing both local and global challenges. It is worth noting that the kind of leadership strategy exhibited by Gates is in tandem with the principles of leadership, which include: awareness, empathy, foresight, building community, and healing others.
A perfect example to demonstrate how Gates applied the principles of servant leadership is through the non-profit Foundation established by him to assist in eradicating some challenges experienced in the world (Zentner, 2016). Via the Gate’s Foundation, he seeks to create and capabilities for all individuals in the society. Some of the philanthropic and humanitarian issues that he has contributed towards include expansion of healthcare access, education access, and assisting whenever any disaster or calamity takes place.
Specific Commitments the Microsoft Company Makes to Stakeholders and How Implementing Servant Leadership Affects Not Only the Organization, but also the Community
Bill Gates who is the founder of Microsoft Company is a renowned philanthropist and a servant as has been demonstrated above. As a result, he managed to instill the principles of servant leadership in the company, which have been emulated by the current Chief Executive Officer, SatyaNadella (Zentner, 2016). According to Zentner (2016), SatyaNadella’s leadership strategy revolves around empathy. Microsoft Company and some of its partners have been abl...