Has Servant Leadership Disappeared - or Evolved?
What happened to Servant Leadership? We didn’t lose it, complexity crowded it out.
This week, during my retreat in India, I found myself reflecting on the leaders who shaped me, the ones I admired most…and every single one of them had one thing in common:
They served.
Not from weakness.
Not to be liked.
But because serving made the whole system stronger.
Somewhere between 2005 and 2018, servant leadership was everywhere.
Then suddenly… It wasn’t.
And it didn’t die.
It got crowded out.
By:
Digital disruption
Agile at scale
The need for speed
Cost pressure
Short-termism
Board scrutiny & shareholder activism
We raced toward efficiency, speed, and outputs, and service simply didn’t “fit the sprint.”
Then came the pandemic; a brief revival of care…followed by collective exhaustion.
Today’s febrile environment - feverish, fast, and on edge rewards:
instant reactions
short cycles
always-on visibility
rapid decisiveness
constant noise
And yet… People are longing for the opposite.
In febrile times, they’re searching for:
psychological safety
calm anchors
trusted guides
leaders who serve the mission, not their ego
leaders who create clarity, not chaos
leaders who care, not merely perform
This is the paradox:
Servant leadership looks “soft” in febrile times but it is the only discipline that reduces febrility.
And here’s the truth I’ve landed on:
Modern servant leadership rests on three disciplines:
Clarity — reducing noise
Care — stabilising the human system
Commercial Performance — delivering sustainably
This is leadership where Clarity, Care, and Commercial Performance can coexist.
And this is why servant leadership must return, even if we don’t always call it that.
Do you think servant leadership disappeared…or simply evolved?
Former Fortune 10 C-Suite and 2022 HR Leader of the Year. I coach executives, solve complex organisational issues, and advise boards.