Servant Leadership In Business: A Case Study On Chick-fil-A

Introduction to the case

Discuss about the Leadership in Business for One Phenomenal Implementation.

Among innovative business solutions that have deep significance on business performance of the organisations, Servant leadership is a potential model that have a potential impact on the tailored business strategies undertaken by the companies. The precepts of servant leadership are simple and easy to implement and mostly productive in the business contexts of small and medium enterprises.

One phenomenal implementation of servant leadership is exhibited in the business case of the Chick-fil-A organisation. The fast food business chain made exceptional progress to gather the attention of the media. The superfluous business model of the company was critiqued by analysts as exemplary and epoch making. The organisation after their advent in 1946, had maintained the record of a consecutive sales growth of 10% every year punctually (Chick-fil-a.com, 2018). The same growth rate has been retained by the organisation for 50 years on a same estimate. In contrast, it has been observed that the staff retention rate of the company had also been on the rise. Within these fifty years the company has maintained a staff retention rate of 96% (Chick-fil-a.com, 2018). Critics argue that the foundation of the company upon the principle of servant leadership have played a key role in the flourishing of the business in Chick-fil-A. Even, the founding director of the company, Truett Cathy, also professes the same. This company had professionalised the servant leadership model before the concept was brought into existence in the market. An interview with the managing director of the company reveals that the servant leadership model in the company is founded upon three fundamental principles that are exponential to their culture (Chick-fil-a.com, 2018). The organisation, prior to employment, executes test of the applicants based on character, competency as well as chemistry. The most important assessment in this regard is the evaluation of the character of the employees. This is a measure of the extent to which an employee would be able to keep the composure in the moments of severe work pressure and take positive decisions for management of the crises situation. The competency of the applicants to serve under the various conditions that the employees of the company face are also tested by the employers. Another important step of servant leadership undertaken by the management of the organisation is by “telling what is the truth” to the employees. The peers and the colleagues of every employee are asked to review the performance of every employee and as such highlight the flaws in their performances if any. Being honest with the employees regarding their performance and delivering capacity helps in creation of mutual trust among the employees. Besides that, this also helps them to realise the potential of every employee so that the work pressure can be distributed accordingly during peak hours and the group of employees are able to implement self-management in the various departments like culinary section or the customer service department. Besides, the employee share the same culture of integration with the customers also. They are treated with homeliness and warmth. That is why the customers of the company show tolerance even if they have to wait in long queues for the food (Chick-fil-a.com, 2018). This internal management of the employees are accountable for the immense success and the steady growth in the revenue generation. This policy of maintenance of the business units of the company is known as Second Mile philosophy of service (Chick-fil-a.com, 2018). The typical gain points earned by the upper management of the company by means of this form of servant leadership are extraordinary loyalty of the customers, high level of engagement of the employees and great revenue returns.

Literature Review

Leadership in organisations is an attitude that is implemented in order to ensure the highest level of the engagement of the employees so that the organisation can move towards maximisation of revenue generation. However the company policy plays a key role in enabling servant leadership in an organisation. In order to implement servant leadership, the company policy structure should enable a mutually beneficial structure so that the employees can also enjoy the benefits of high revenue returns of the company. In servant leadership, the position of the leaders are not always supposed to be at the fore front. They have independent role in the company other than leadership. He or she in that position does not perform the duties of a solo leader. He or she is positioned like e team leader, who has the liabilities of his or her own performance along with the managerial role. This helps the leader to understand the deficit in the performance of the employees and other colleagues.

According to the opinion of Chen, Zhu and Zhou (2015), this is not an authoritative role, rather a supportive role that helps the other employees to achieve the strategic targets of the company. The servant leaders are themselves involved in the employee’s role alongside accomplishing the duties of a leader. However, in sharp contrast, Dalati (2016), opines that the servant leaders should have a prolific experience of the job roles which he or she is supposed to supervise. Again, in the light of the views of Grisaffe, VanMeter and Chonko (2016), there are manifold dimensions of servant leadership. These are humility, altruism, vision over the employees, and empowerments through respect of the co-workers. By the dint of these qualities an employee implies stewardship, commitment as well as community development among the employees’ base that ensures growth of basic skill among the employees. Empirical research over the concept of servant leadership as a leadership theory began since 2000. Hence this research has used empirical articles from most current articles dated after 2010.

According to the views provided by DeConinck and DeConinck (2017), servant leadership in the small organisations have been highly effective for smooth and rapid organisational growth. This is because servant leadership has proven to be beneficial for the growth of customer loyalty and retention of the customer base. Hence many start up organisations have adapted the model of servant leadership in their organisations. However the implication of servant leadership requires the strong enactment of role models from among the employees of the company. Many of the companies do not have a strong employee structure.

Servant Leadership

Hence they have not been able to lay the strong foundation for servant leadership. This model of business management is a highly relevant model and the growth of leadership qualities in the employees of the company is a gradual development that is the result of constant backup and support of the higher management of the organisation. According to Hoch et al. (2018), this requires honesty of the upper management and clarity with payments along with pioneering training structure (both formal and informal) and lastly appreciation of true efforts mutually among the employees.  This also helps to foster mutual trust and respect for the management and the employees, thus leading to the creation of communities.

The management of 12 to 15% of the new and emerging organisations of China rely on servant leaders for customer management and retention of service and/or product quality (Gunnarsdóttir, Edwards & Dellve, 2018). Servant leaders in small service firms and consultancy companies of China have independent working wings that relates to the managers in most urgent cases only. Most of the service sector including retail service or food service have adapted the policy of servant leadership in order to reduce operational costs. This also helps to simplify the organisational structure in the small organisations which enables the managers to focus on the product delivery and maintenance of service quality.

Culture can be recognised as a dynamic phenomenon which encompasses our lives throughout our lifetime. In an organisation, culture is shaped by the level, integration and attitude of the various stakeholders’ approach towards each other in the context of the success of the profit making of the organisation. Organisational culture is an important aspect reflected by servant leadership. Servant leadership leads to the maintenance of certain work structure and routine along with norms and deliberate rules that helps in developing quality of performance of the entire employee base and also the quality of the finished products and/or services offered by a company. This in turn helps to set a parameter of quality in a company that helps to differentiate the service quality of the servant led organisations from others. According to the opinion of Hoover and Douglas (2018), a collaborative programming is introduced by the employees of a company that is operated by servant leaders that helps the upper management of the company to easily look after the organisational aspects. Other organisations, Panaccio et al. (2015), opines, are accustomed to working in formal work designs. The employees are manipulated to work in a fixed pattern. They have no discretionary power to violate the patterns and have a pressure of performing under the organisational design and value channel to yield results. Hence the level of engagement of the employees with the organisation’s strategic policies and implementation plans are less. On the other hand, Newman et al. (2017), argues that in an atmosphere of servant leadership, the employees’ motivation level is more than that in companies with stereotyped managements. There are seven organisational aspects under which the organisational culture in companies led by servant leaders are developed. The distance from power is one among them. The employees are not under the burden of expectations of the managers. Hence they are able to p0erform freely with personal disposition. As Liden et al. (2015), opines, in most of such instances, the employees feel free to implement their own working experiences to yield the best results for the companies. This also makes them feel that they are significant in the organisation. The employees who are associated with the practical working atmosphere in the company, have the chance to show their own expertise and calibre in terms of fulfilling the organisational goals. Based on the arguments provided by Hoover, K. and Douglas, M., (2018), it can be opined that the expertise of the servant leaders are more than the managers in 40% of the organisations that have a complex organisational structure and a big clientele.  In such situations, it is often impossible for the employees to maintain a healthy network with the employees. During peak work seasons, the managers are left with no other alternative than creating pressure on the employees for fulfilment of the strategic targets of the companies. This in turn creates a stress in the relationship of the employees and the managers and the employees gradually feel oblivious of the company’s goals. They refuse to work beyond the schematic targets that are set to them. In this connection, Spears and Lawrence (2016), have argued that the senior employees who have a working experience of more than 3 years in the organisations gradually develops a sense of association with the strategic objectives with the company. They develop an understanding of the basic work regime. In this context, an imposition of excess pressure to supply deliverables makes them feel neglected. The organisational culture is severely affected as an impact of this excess overhead pressure.

Relevance of Servant Leadership with Organisational culture

The second aspect in this context is a contrast between individualism and collectivism. The managers often feel pressure to handle the pressure of directing the employees during the peak work hours. In sharp contrast, comes the context of collectivism. In companies led by servant leaders, the companies, distribute the managerial role with the employees. This results in the employees taking up the responsibilities if meeting the requisite criteria for production. However, Yoshida et al. (2014), opines that the basic difference is that their level of engagement with the organisational goals is more in such cases. The motivation level of the employees is also high. The experienced and eligible employees take up the leadership charges. Another aspect is the discrimination between masculinity and femininity in a company, which is a sought after issue in Chinese organisations. In servant leadership, capable employees irrespective of the gender takes up managerial responsibilities that is absent in other companies. Hence the level of production is lower. Another conflicting difference is the difference between uncertainty and avoidance of certainty. In an atmosphere of servant leadership, there is a factor of uncertainty regarding the fulfilment of organizational goals. However, (), argues that the engagement level of the employees is generally high during this time. Hence the chances of fulfilment of organisational objectives are high. On the contrary, in cases of traditional leadership, the managers liabilities on the shoulders of the employees with responsibilities. They are also liable to complete their tasks with utmost perfection. Hence the employees lose their focus and tend to avoid the certain outcomes by deliver what is directed by the managers to be perform. They do no6t take up the responsibilities of the task they perform. According to the ideas of Winston and Fields (2015), this is the basic difference between servant leadership and traditional leadership. In traditional leadership, the employees do not tend to take the responsibilities of their deliverables. They deliver according to the directions of the managers and directors. On the contrary, in the role servant leadership, the management invites strategic decisions and actions from the end of the employees to accomplish the organisational goals. The employees are hence more focused and oriented to their performance and take responsibilities to deliver the expected outcomes in the company. The next issue is the conflict between the long terms versus short term orientation to the organisational goals. The employees under the business model of servant leadership ensure long term orientation to the company’s goals. Hence, it happens that the company’s business growth takes place at a steady growth rate. Under traditional leadership the employees tend to perform clinically under the supervision of the management. Hence, such orientation of the employees is only short term. The next aspect is almost similar. It defines the distinction between indulgences along with restraint. The last aspect is monumentalism versus self-evasion. The servant leaders with their authoritative position are capable to deliver values to the company by taking extra work load and responsibilities. In case of traditional leadership the organisational culture is dictated by the managers and organised workforce is unable to implement their own skills and expertise.

Commitment to work ethics is an amalgamation of confidence of the employees and motivational beliefs along with development of engagement of the employees over the jobs they handle in a company. Analysing the implementation of Servant leadership in the various organisations, the benefits of this leadership model have been categorised in this section.

Servant leadership enables the communication of the real-time issues to the servant leaders by the employees. The servant leaders being the colleagues or peers to the employees, they can offer better resolution of the employees’ problems. Listening to the employee’s issues on regular basis, the servant leaders get to accomplish a better understanding of the potential of the employees and their general lacking (Welty Peachey & Burton, 2017). This is what helped the company under focus in this report, to select an appropriate and highly productive employee base who have the basic skills and determination to undertake the responsibilities of their own job roles.

The servant leaders who belong to the class of the employees only, have a sense of empathy for the individual workers. They have the ability to address the incompetence and the limitations of the employees. The servant leaders are able to recognise the good intension of the co-workers and are able to communicate with the issues that the workers might face.

The capacity of healing is the most significant quality of the servant leaders. The servant leaders can boost an employee if he or she is unable to cope up with the pressure at the workplace. Newman et al. (2017), opines that the upper managers do not get the chance to communicate with the employees on a regular basis. Hence, the employees of the company have the chance to communicate with the servant leaders who work closely with the employees.

The servant leaders have their own limitations also. Hence, they do not attempt to solve problems independently. They work in close quarters with the other employees to find a solution. This helps the work group more developed to face further organisational challenges.

The servant leaders put more emphasis on persuasion, rather than direct display of authority to solve issue with the employees. This makes the employees more convinced with the directorial role of the servant leaders. This offers clear distinction between the traditional authoritative directorial roles of the traditional management of the companies with the persuasive role played with the servant leaders in context of the management of the employee base in a company (DeConinck & DeConinck, 2017). The servant leaders also prefer to work by building consensus with the workgroups. In the company under focus, the senior management do not force employees to work for longer hours or extra time. They leave it upon the employees completely to handle the rush at the outdoor business units during the peak hours. They manoeuvre the crowd at their own disposition.

The servant leaders generally develop the ability to foresee the sequential arrangement to handle work pressure under severe conditions. They know the capabilities as well as the limitations of then employees who work with them (Hoover & Douglas, 2018). Hence they have an ease in allocation of duties when working under acute pressure of delivering orders.

The managers uphold stewardship in the forefront to bestow managerial responsibilities in the hands of the employees. Hence the employees (servant leaders) payback with equal display of stewardship. They keep the business interest of the companies in the front. Display of stewardship is customary in their service towards the customers also.

Managerial role of the servant leaders allows the employees to discuss the issue that they face with them in detail. This contributes in better acquiring of knowledge about the working methods and designs. The nurture of employees that servant leaders are able to do is unchallengeable. Besides, the employees under the authority of the servant leaders have the capacity to learn the most relevant work tactics under close quarters with the leaders. This is something that they are able to accomplish with the formal training that they receive at the companies’ training centres.

Building the right identity in the office is instrumental to the success of a servant leader. The servant leader should not be concerned with the individual development. The employees at this company who are engaged with leadership roles are always concerned with boosting the confidence and capabilities of the co-workers rather than self-development. This is because the performance of the employees as a whole is under the consideration of the upper management.

The servant leaders should always be ready to help the employee with any trouble that they face in their regular endeavours. Another aspect of motivation in the servant leaders is that since they are working in close quarters with the employees they should always motivate the employees with the dictating appeal.

According the views of Panaccio et al. (2015), the servant leaders are a part of the workforce and that is why they should include others in the decision making process. They should consult with every section of the employees before coming to any conclusion.

The servant leaders should help the employee to realise the vision of the organisation so that they are able to cater service that generates values that have been preserved by the entire workforce.  They should have the eagerness of a learner as well as the directive authority of a capable manager.

The company started as an amateur food joint. The success of the company is nor abrupt scenario. Capable business planners had a great role behind the current success. Initially the small management team was often forced to handle the executive responsibilities for handling rush of customers. This mode of action became a legacy and a successful business model. Hence, my foremost recommendation towards the management of Chick-fil-A is that they take up their initial phase planning as a strategic progress plan. At the advent of the business, the managers practically guided the chefs and unit managers to handle customers. At this moment, this engagement of the upper management have been a major cause of employee motivation. The managers at individual business units have to play the role of encouraging, motivating and musing the great role that the employees of the company have played in materialising the transformation of the small business into a categorised brand name.

Secondly, given that the engagement level of the employees is high, the chief KPIs of the company have to be different. Sales rate fluctuation or limitations of individual employees to handle customers during the rush hours are not key performance parameters for the company. Rather I believe the upper management should consider engagement in terms of allowances.

The third strategic step that the management should take up is giving appropriate training to the employees regarding customer management. The training programs should aim to teach the employees how to reflect the culture of the organisation upon the customers. Every employee have to have a benevolent approach towards the customers and respect their time and energy that they invest for availing their products. There should be a slight bar indicating conduct of employees and their work method. However, the job of handling the basic work load should be left upon the discretion of the employees.

Another major recommendation is that the company should take up a persuasive policy for communicating the flaws of the employees. They should share positive faceted feedbacks politely indicating the areas where the employees can improve.

There is supposed to be an accountability panel, comprising of employees working in various positions. They would be liable to help the employees informally with their work if any discrepancy or major issue in the working design in the employees of any particular department is identified.

The last suggestion is what the company has implemented. This is to organise events with the employees so that they get to know each other better. This would foster their integration and help in the easy work flow during the rush hours.

Reference List

Chen, Z., Zhu, J. and Zhou, M., 2015. How does a servant leader fuel the service fire? A multilevel model of servant leadership, individual self-identity, group competition climate, and customer service performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(2), p.511.

Chick-fil-a.com, (2018). About us. Retrieved on 13 July 2018 from https://www.chick-fil-a.com/

Dalati, S., 2016. The impact of servant leadership on leadership sustainability: empirical evidence from higher education in Syrian universities. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 3(3), pp.269-281.

DeConinck, J. and DeConinck, M.B., 2017. The Relationship between Servant Leadership, Perceived Organizational Support, Performance, and Turnover among Business to Business Salespeople. Archives of Business Research, 5(10).

Grisaffe, D.B., VanMeter, R. and Chonko, L.B., 2016. Serving first for the benefit of others: Preliminary evidence for a hierarchical conceptualization of servant leadership. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 36(1), pp.40-58.

Gunnarsdóttir, S., Edwards, K. and Dellve, L., 2018. Improving Health Care Organizations Through Servant Leadership. In Practicing Servant Leadership (pp. 249-273). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Hoch, J.E., Bommer, W.H., Dulebohn, J.H. and Wu, D., 2018. Do ethical, authentic, and servant leadership explain variance above and beyond transformational leadership? A meta-analysis. Journal of Management, 44(2), pp.501-529.

Hoover, K. and Douglas, M., 2018. Learning Servant Leadership and Identifying Community-Based Strategies in Times of Divide: A Student, Faculty, Community Partner Interfaith Collaboration. Journal of Leadership Education, 17(2), pp.83-91.

Liden, R.C., Wayne, S.J., Meuser, J.D., Hu, J., Wu, J. and Liao, C., 2015. Servant leadership: Validation of a short form of the SL-28. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(2), pp.254-269.

Newman, A., Schwarz, G., Cooper, B. and Sendjaya, S., 2017. How servant leadership influences organizational citizenship behavior: The roles of LMX, empowerment, and proactive personality. Journal of Business Ethics, 145(1), pp.49-62.

Panaccio, A., Henderson, D.J., Liden, R.C., Wayne, S.J. and Cao, X., 2015. Toward an understanding of when and why servant leadership accounts for employee extra-role behaviors. Journal of Business and Psychology, 30(4), pp.657-675.

Spears, L.C. and Lawrence, M. eds., 2016. Practicing servant-leadership: Succeeding through trust, bravery, and forgiveness. John Wiley & Sons.

Welty Peachey, J. and Burton, L., 2017. Servant leadership in sport for development and peace: A way forward. Quest, 69(1), pp.125-139.

Winston, B. and Fields, D., 2015. Seeking and measuring the essential behaviors of servant leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(4), pp.413-434.

Yoshida, D.T., Sendjaya, S., Hirst, G. and Cooper, B., 2014. Does servant leadership foster creativity and innovation? A multi-level mediation study of identification and prototypicality. Journal of Business Research, 67(7), pp.1395-1404.

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