Exploring Christianity & Judaism's Impact on Servant Leadership

The concept of world view is brought about and an exploration made on the perspective for the development of leadership. There is five major world religion which includes Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. In this paper, it will contrast Christianity and Judaism and their evaluation and effect on leadership and the different foundation, especially for servant leadership. Servant leadership, according to the article of Wallace (2007), includes a variety of attributes such as showing empathy, providing healing, being aware, and understanding, foresight and being invested in the development of the people as well the development of the community. Servant leadership examination has been shown to provide high quality, proven, and reliable tools that precisely quantify the outcome of good leadership at the individual level as well as the level of organization. One view suggests that withing an organization that concentrates on raising leaders via a formal, multistage step by step activity, some the resulting leaders may not be allocated followers once a year or more than a year has passed (Davis, 2017). It has been seen to highlight some noticeable problems from the concept of evaluating and quantifying an individual improving to becoming a servant leader (Davis, 2017). Servant leadership has to be a slow step by step activity in research as it aims to bring forth and comprehensive theoretical infrastructure.

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The terminology religion came into the language of English in the middle ages from Latin. Religion is a universal discipline known by all individuals with a difference in race, ages. A traditional explanation of religion has attempted to explain religion as the relationship between man and the existence of a supernatural conception that is sacred. Christianity and Judaism both believe in the divine guidance provided by God through prophets made by God. The origin of these religions come from the first man Adam, where Judaism refer to him as the first human prophet moving to prophet Abraham understood by Judaism as the prophet who was given the agreement of Sinai, the written and oral Law founded between the Jewish individuals and God (Davis, 2017). However, in Christianity, Abraham is the prototype of all believers, Jewish or Gentiles. Both of these religions use virtues as guidance between the relationship of men and more so the leader's relationship to the people. The perspective that surrounds virtue was explained by Aristotle, which includes doing the right things associated with servant leadership. The seven virtues attributed to servant leadership as such as love humility, altruism, trust, and service (Wallace, 2007). Both of these religions focus on these virtues that aim to imply a moral form of leadership. Both of these religions have provided a method of interpreting the world and thus result in understanding how the world operates. Christianity and Judaism relates more similarly to charismatic leadership theories because most traditional beliefs offers a theory where people are seen as role models who illustrate leadership qualities as well as allowable way of living with the understanding of heroism that emerges during periods of crises to offer teaching and motivation.

There are various values obtained from the research of both Judaism and Christianity both to assist social living and interaction. The values are similar to one another and they include forgiveness, compassion, love, being peaceful and showing appreciation among many others. These values are found within these Christianity as well as Judaism, but mostly in Christianity. The aim of such teachings aim to amplify some characteristics in leadership such as the character of the leader, his/ her dignity, the way in which he / she uses power and executes justice among others. For Judaism, such teachings are got from Old testament teaching, while Christianity involves New testament teaching that aims to train individuals on how to treat one another. However, in Judaism, many of the teachings are sourced from Old Testament teachings, where God instructs the Israelites concerning the Hebrew community (Wallace, 2007).

Judaism and Christianity appear to be similar in regard to the issues since they use similar scriptures from the Old testament. In the worldview, there have being critics who have pointed out the discrimination of women. Such highlights refer less to Christianity with the addition of the protestant individuals that fight against women discrimination and propel leadership towards women in different degrees. Christianity and Judaism continue to bear practical subject matters concerning gender biases. However, these two religions treat women way better than other religions such Buddhism and Hinduism. There is compatibility with the universal values from servant leadership and ongoing social trends linked with both of these religions propelling towards reconciliation (Davis, 2017).

Theories surrounding leadership keep on evolving with the socio-cultural, economic, and political surroundings change. There has being different perspectives from this evolution and an identification of a variety of models which guide the practice of leadership in many institutions. The theories involve an application to the ongoing life, and hoe leaders ought to lead. Theories concerning leadership are understood as characteristics as well as a process. According to Northouse, understanding involves the institutions involved in leadership and the use of leadership characteristics, behavior, and the holistic process of good leadership. One of Northhouse theory is the path-goal theory in leadership where leadership is the step by step activity in which a person influences a group in a particular society to obtain a certain goal (Alanazi et al., 2013). The leader is the individual executing influence and leadership and the people receiving leadership are followers. For good leadership and an achievement of a goal, there needs to be a good relationship between the leader and the followers. There different kind of leadership and they include assigned leadership and emergent leadership, and a good relationship ought to be between the followers and the leaders. Northhouse emphasizes intrinsic personal characteristics, which is criticized with leadership having learned skills and concentrating a great man approach. The leaders need to modify their ways of leadership to effectively lead people (Alanazi et al., 2013).

Path goal theory is classified below the contingency theory approach that focus on research about the interaction between the parties associated in a leadership situation and the ways of behaviour of leadership. The path-goal theory has a difference from other contingency models, whereby there is a notion where more time spent to gain better performance could be effectful. The performance will be successful in averting negative results and in gaining positive rewards. Servant leadership from Christianity and Judaism endorse and suggests the leadership behavior traits desires, which involve being a directive leader, showing support, being a participant. Other behavior types include having an achievement leadership which can be exercised in different circumstances and other periods by similar individuals (Northouse, 2019). The result from this theory is that its application will result in the managers trying to impact their concepts of those lower in ranks and make way for attaining the goals. The theory put forth by Northhouse (2019) implies that a leader should offer guidance and support and assist necessary assistance to the followers to achieve the specific goals. Similarly to both Judaism and Christianity, as they have received leadership and support from God, the individuals should be encouraged and empowered to do the same to others especially the followers.

It is important to focus on a variety of surrounding from a worldview perspective to relate to the world. These surroundings include the work surroundings, whereby there are a variety of leadership ways of behavior, including participative, supportive, directive, and achievement-oriented leadership. For a goal to be attained, a leader should be able to practise these traits for example. Directing those lower in rank on job expectation and help them get better. Another scenario involves, a leader showing guidance and ascertain that the regulations are executed. The level of the work performed is inversely related to the degree of guidance and direction required. Similarly to servant leadership, path-goal theory investigations concentrate on finding out the interactions among the styles of leadership and the utility as a result in addition to the effects of different moderator variables, for example, the trait of a task.

Other individual leadership theories may relate with worldview in various levels of application. The style of leadership in an individual is dependent on the person's dominant worldview, characteristic traits, talents, and preferences. Over time, leadership characteristics have been seen to be chosen depending on an individual's psychological compatibility, resulted from the external worldview and internal states and preferences (Alanazi et al., 2013). All leadership theories including those of religion propel the understanding of virtues as a likely description for the necessity of practicing servant leadership and as such highlighted the theory as being essentially moral. Both Christianity and Judaism, unlike the rest of the major religions, heavily comply with servant leadership and the associated values and the components.

World view concepts have evolved from the 17th century, especially conceiving of various religions and the impact of leadership as a worldview concept has being a noticeable event. These have grown to improve the notion of leadership in various scenarios effectively. An example of an impact includes positive leadership traits, for example, integrity and honesty, which enable a trickledown effect on employees. Positive traits have been proven to be contagious, and thus, work colleagues and anyone interacting with good leadership skills is compelled to act the same way (Alanazi et al., 2013). Leadership has influenced different results as it has resulted in inspirations and empowerment that have a prominent ability to influence a group of people. It has enabled loyalty and trust, which are constructive qualities that would develop a strong and profitable organization. Leadership has a way of increasing morale in the workplace due to motivation. Good leadership encourages an improvement of trust, which can have shown improvement between the managers and the employees. In the workplace, trust can be implanted, for example, in payroll matters, which can propel feelings of security in the employees and about their leader. Such good trust will also improve better communication and teach it to a significant part of the organization. It will promote encouragement to employees and therefore increase development through the communication of ideas.

References

Alanazi, T. R., Khalaf, B., & Rasli, A. (2013). Overview of Path-Goal Leadership Theory. Jurnal Teknologi, 64(2). doi: 10.11113/jt.v64.2235

Davis, N. (2017). Review of Followership Theory and Servant Leadership Theory: Understanding How Servant Leadership Informs Followership. Servant Leadership and Followership, 207-223. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-59366-1_9

Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership theory and practice (8th ed.). Ch 16. Wallace, J. R. (2007). Servant leadership: A worldview perspective. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 2(2), 114-132. Retrieved from http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/ijls/new/vol2iss2/Wallace/wallace.htmWallace, J. R. (2007). Servant leader...