Servant leadership is the ability to grasp a vision, establish direction, align others, motivate and inspire, and do so with the heart of a servant. There is no place more deserving of servant leadership than the home. Parents have a tendency to lean toward controlling leadership when faced with the daunting task of raising their children. This lean toward controlling leadership has the potential of broken relationships and does not effectively teach of children to be leaders in the community. Learning more about servant leadership will help parents guide their children to make better decisions in their lives and prepare them to be effective and responsible adults.

Understanding leadership styles can help a parent become a more effective leader to their children. It can give ideas on how to approach difficult stages and bring about creativity instead of punishment. The different leadership styles can help a parent create a sort of manifesto for their household and help them better parent their children.

Transformational leadership leads by vision and goal. It promotes change where transactional leadership resists change. Transactional leadership is a process of exchange. Parents are led to believe that we need to deal with our children in a transactional way. They lead by using bargaining as their primary tool. While this may work in the short term, in the long term it does not lead effectively and fails to teach the child. Transformational leadership can help a parent and child create a vision and goal to strive for. Even something as simple as cleaning a room can be made into a lesson in leadership by sitting down with the child and creating a vision of how the room should look and a goal for when and how it should be completed.

Covenantal leadership establishes agreements with others that will promote the best for leaders and those led. Leading with a covenantal style focuses on what is needed. Controlling leadership establishes a “chain-of-command” to assure adherence to rules and policy. In Christian parenting we see controlling leadership being the ideal taught. There are countless books that teach parents that the only way to raise their children to be godly adults is by establishing a clear chain-of-command and sticking to set rules and policy created by the parents. This style of leadership does not allow for children to explore their own leadership abilities. Covenantal leadership looks at what both parties need and develops a plan based off of those needs. With covenantal leadership, parents maintain authority without stripping their children of their voice.

Incarnational leadership learns ideas, needs and hopes of people for whom leaders hold responsibility. The idea of Incarnational leadership comes from John 1:14 where is says, “So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.” (New Living Translation) The key here is that God became human and came to earth to live among us. This is the ultimate example of “get off your butt” parenting. He did not lead in isolation, far away from His people. He came down here to teach and offer direction to His children. Often we hear parents barking out direction from their comfortable seat in the home. It is rare, but not unknown, that we see a parent choose to be uncomfortable, get down on the same level as their child, and teach them the way to go. This is our Biblical example, though. From the beginning God walked with us. Incarnational leadership builds relationship.

Mission-Oriented leadership empowers leaders. It gives them the power to make decisions. Most Christian parenting advice centers on control, which is command-oriented leadership. Being command-oriented teaches children that they cannot make decisions themselves and must look to their parents for every decision they make. It strips them of their power. As parents it is important to empower our children to make the decisions that they are age-appropriately capable of making so that as an adult they are confident and empowered decision makers. If a child is struggling with something in their life, teaching them to sit down, consider the problem, create a game plan, and establish a goal is a great way to empower them.

Motivational leadership encourages people toward goals that will fulfill common needs. Manipulative leadership drives people toward goals that fulfill the needs of those in power. This seems so clear! Parents that use manipulative leadership are only concerned about their children meeting their personal needs or desires. A parent who uses motivational leadership encourages the family to create group goals and inspires each member to a plan that moves toward fulfilling that goal.

The last leadership style is principle-centered leadership. This is leadership that leads from trust and trustworthiness. Other-Centered leadership is leadership controlled by the priorities of the leader. In looking at the principles of attachment parenting we see the ultimate goal of having a child who completely trusts their parents and having parents that prove to their children that they are trustworthy. There are several parenting theories out there that make their goal to have children obey out of fear instead of trust. They believe that parents have total power over their children and that children should be led by the priorities of their parents. This does not nurture trust between parent and child.

Power and authority are two hot-button issues in parenting today. In Robert Greenleaf’s book “Servant Leadership” he says this, “Power has many meanings, but in this discussion let us take it to be coercive force – either overtly to compel or covertly to manipulate. And let us take authority to mean a sanction bestowed to legitimate the use of power.” Greenleaf seems to take the position that coerciveness is bad and that true authority does not need to coerce. He quotes Zechariah, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.” In parenting there is a definite need to coerce to some degree. Contemplating the argument between a total lack of coerciveness and abuse of power the idea that true non-coerciveness can only be supernatural, that is only God can truly be non-coercive. We live in a dangerous world. God gave our children parents to help protect them from dangers. He gave parents authority over children to compel their actions, and yes, even manipulate if need be. While the ideal is to not use any coercive force when parenting, the reality is that parents just cannot afford to not use coercive methods if they want to keep their children safe.

Personally, I am in a leadership role. I am the mother of two beautiful little girls. I am not only their mother, but I am their teacher. Learning about servant leadership has been instrumental in shaping the way I lead my girls and approach teaching them. My purpose in my leadership role is to raise my children to be empowered, Godly women who are able to become servant leaders when they become adults.

There are potential problems that I can see when I look at my role as leader of these girls. In order to be a covenantal and Incarnational leader I must be able to do what is best for my family and not focus on the idea of parenting by “chain-of-command”. I need to be involved and aware of the ideas, needs, and hopes of my girls so that I can effectively lead them. It is far easier to lead from afar than it is to get physically involved. The goals I have set for myself in regards to my children make it impossible to ignore the benefits of these two styles of leadership. I cannot rule from my roost. I must get off my butt and get down and dirty with them if I truly want to model servant leadership.

There is so much I have learned from Servant Leadership that I will take into my personal role as parent to these girls. Mission-Oriented leadership struck me as a valuable tool for us in our home schooling. It is easy for me to sit back and tell my oldest what she needs to learn. However, when I do that I see frustration on her face. One of the reasons we chose to home school was to empower her in her education. The fact that I am commanding her to learn is going against that goal. Sitting down with her and outlining what her education goals are for herself and creating with her a way of achieving that goal will empower her in her learning. It will create a mission-oriented leader in me and help me to fulfill that goal of having a child who feels empowered and not controlled by her education.

“Leadership is the ability to grasp a vision, to influence others to own it and empower them to accomplish it”, says Dr. Robert Kuest. He also says, “A leader is a person who is willing to discover who God has created him/her to be and risks using that to influence others to own God’s agenda.” Not only are these important for parents to remember in how they approach raising their children, but they are important to teach our children to be this type of leader. In Matthew 20:25-26 we are told that, “Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, …’” And Robert Greenleaf in “Servant Leadership” states, “A servant-leader is a servant first…To make sure other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?”

It is clear, after reading all of this, that being a servant leader in parenting is something to strive toward. Not only does it sharpen us as parents, but it sharpens our children. Not only does it empower us as parents, but it empowers our children. We may never be the perfect servant leader to our children, but the more we strive to it the farther from hurt we become. William Shakespeare said in his Sonnet XCIV, “They have the power to hurt and will do none…”