Servant and Shepherd Leadership in Higher Education: Empowerment and Mentorship

Introduction

Higher education institutions have visions and missions developed where students are inspired and mentored for success centered on their professors’ teaching, course curricula, support, and a model of forming and developing the professional minds of the next generation (Flores, 2019; Law et al., 2020). The philosophy of servant leadership is to place the needs and ideas of people first and help others while providing leadership (Ragnarsson et al., 2018; Resane, 2020). In addition, the willingness to listen; acknowledging strengths and weaknesses, goals, and ideals; and to promote communication and foresight for the future (Ragnarsson et al., 2018). Shepherd leadership is a method to promote an enhanced level of performance while allowing others to take the lead. Resane (2020) explained that a shepherd leader would place others in a position where they show the greatest strength. A shepherd is one who guides, provides, and cares for the well-being of others (Swalm, 2011). Professors are ultimately empowering and developing students by guiding them through their programs, providing student-centered instructions, and caring for their accomplishments. These leaders (i.e., faculty) are serving the greater needs of their students by expressing humbleness, genuineness, interpersonal acceptance, and by providing direction (Ragnarsson et al., 2018).

The mindset of servant and shepherd leadership comes from within a person to share power in decision-making. Serving others provides an opportunity for growth and ensures well-being and a connection to their community (Resane, 2020; Swalm, 2011). Those who are professors primarily want to inspire others, allow them to excel in their respective areas of proficiency, and share their power of knowledge and expertise to influence, not only the student, but society (Cakir & Adiguzel, 2020; Resane, 2020). With this type of empowerment, educational institutions’ visions and educators’ philosophies should recognize this type of influence over others and develop best practices to being good servant and shepherd leaders for the institution. Although many times leadership roles and responsibilities are misunderstood, leadership is firmly grounded in doing the right thing; servant leadership serves to balance out that misinterpretation as shepherd leadership establishes the relationship. Today, more than in the past, leaders are tasked with enormous responsibilities that demand both competent and effective leadership skills. Making an effective leader involves careful thought, skill development, and contributing to their followers' psychological developments (Cakir & Adiguzel, 2020). The collective evidence strongly suggests that environments created through servant and shepherd leadership will produce employees who challenge themselves to provide genuine care and become creative, dedicated, loyal, and productive to the needs of their institutions’ stakeholders as well as serving a broader society and social values (Linuesa-Langreo et al., 2017; Nathan, 2017). “Theological education needs to provide seminary students with the skills necessary to exercise their God-given ministries. These skills should form part of a complex competency that includes elements of leadership and discipleship, collaboration, empowerment and mutuality” (Nathan, 2017, para. 8). For this chapter, higher education needs to flourish in a learning community, as faculty must be treated fairly and with respect to transfer their wisdom and disciplines to students. These students, in turn, can then transfer this learning as well as character building to their communities and families.