Servant Leadership: Jack Ma

Servant Leadership: Jack Ma
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Servant Leadership: Jack Ma
While the concept of servant leadership is predicated on centuries old ideologies, the phrase was first coined by Robert Greenleaf in his 1970 essay entitled “The Servant as Leader (Smale, 2018)”. In his essay, Greenleaf defined 10 principles of servant leadership, including empathy, listening, healing, persuasion, awareness, conceptualization, stewardship, foresight, building community, and commitment to growth of other people (Greenleaf, 2007). In the corporate world today, many leaders have employed Greenleaf’s principles of servant leadership to influence, motivate, and lead others. These leaders are servants first and leaders second and have a natural feeling of wanting to serve (Blanchard & Broadwell, 2018). An example of such leaders who has displayed servant leadership is Jack Ma, the executive chairman and Cofounder of Alibaba Group, an international tech conglomerate.
Jack Ma displays a number of the Greenleaf’s principles of a servant leader. For instance, he employs the listening principle to understand that smart people need to work together. He values his employees and listens to their ideas. He is convinced that one does not need to know everything, but appreciating ideas from others will lead to success. Ma is also empathic and is ready to assist his workers even on weekends. Ma claims that he would even forego birthday parties to ensure his employees’ welfare are met (Hayford, 2018). Applying the principle of healing, Ma leads his company with full of love and encourages employees to support each other. He also claims that his employees’ lives are in his hands, depicting that he cares for the wellbeing of his followers. Ma is aware about follows the state of the Internet and Artificial Intelligence. The depiction of these and many other Greenleaf’s principles qualify Jack Ma as a servant leader.
As servant leader, Ma portrays unique ways of inspiring followership. He believes that his followers are more important than machines and commits to help his followers grow in their professio...