How to Put Servant Leadership into Practice as a Delivery Lead

I have spent most of my career in the healthcare and pharmaceutical arenas where I was privileged to lead multiple marketing and sales teams to launch products from concept to implementation to life-cycle management. These experiences have taught me valuable lessons, key concepts, and transferable skills that I endeavor to apply in my new role as a Delivery Lead at Atomic Object, a custom software development company.

At Atomic Object, our developers and designers have the technical expertise and skills to deliver innovative, custom software for our clients representing many industries.  Clients seek novel approaches to optimize solutions to meet the needs of their users and customers.  As a Delivery Lead, I serve at the intersection of our teams and clients to help accomplish shared business objectives using software we create. I’m new to the software development industry, but I envision adding value by fostering what I learned in previous roles: Servant Leadership.

Traditional Leadership

In a traditional leadership model, leaders can tend to lead from authority, not service.  It often results in a top-down approach with leaders delegating to managers. In turn, those managers instruct employees on how to engage with customers. These leaders often yield power to have employees focus primarily on tasks and output.  Their communication style can rely more on instructing versus supporting.  This can at times evolve to putting self-interests over those of their teams and customers.

Servant Leadership

A servant leader takes a contrasting approach. Employees are less focused on positioning themselves to seek favor or climb the corporate ladder.  Atomic Object purposefully models its business structure with fewer levels.  Leaders see the value in encouraging engagement, not leveraging power.  They actively listen to understand the needs of their employees and clients.  They see immense value and return in serving others’ needs before their own by acting with the team’s interest at heart.

Key Traits of Servant Leaders

• Empowerment – By encouraging personal and professional growth one equips and supports teams to achieve their best work.
• Accountability – Employees and teams own their actions and decisions which encourages responsibility throughout the team.
• Humility – By maintaining a modest view of one’s own importance it elevates all team members’ contributions.
• Courage – Teams are encouraged and supported to take calculated risks to innovate thus allowing them to step into challenges without fear or feeling intimidated.
• Authenticity – Teams have genuine interactions where candor is appreciated and expected. In turn, this earns trust through honesty and integrity.
• Acceptance – Diverse viewpoints are the norm as they are sought out and expected. This inclusive model can lead to better outcomes since employees have buy-in when achieving results.
• Acknowledgment – Praising the efforts and the contributions of both individuals and the team is the norm, not the exception. When colleagues appreciate you, privately and publicly, it’s a strong motivator to do good work.

Servant Leadership and Atomic’s Values

At Atomic Object, I observe my colleagues living our values in a way that embodies these traits of servant leadership.

• We can Think Long Term because we’re free to think and plan, not being restricted solely to deliver on immediate tasks and outcomes.
• We Own It by taking responsibility for our success in products we build as well as the company itself. “Not my problem” is absent from our vernacular.
• We Share the Pain in the ebbs and flows of internal and external interactions by showing empathy, respect, and kindness.
• We expect to Teach and Learn with our colleagues. We all grow when intentionally providing expertise along with seeking other viewpoints.
• We Act Transparently in an environment that holds us accountable to one another and our clients. An expectation of taking ownership of one’s work is empowering, not threatening
• We Give a Sh*t. While this value sounds provocative it, in essence, means we collectively agree to do things the right way from the very start and consistently throughout.  We take pride in a job well done.

It’s a privilege to serve.

Servant Leadership requires commitment, alignment, and intentionality to go beyond traditional approaches to achieve even better outcomes.  As a Delivery Lead at Atomic Object, it presents the opportunity to draw upon past experiences while applying and stretching my abilities to become an even better servant leader.  Fortunately, this leadership philosophy and approach aligns well with this role to serve my teammates and ultimately our clients by living our values each day.  Doing so contributes to my self-development, our team development, and ultimately the client having a great experience working with Atomic Object.  Serving in order to lead results in delivering custom software solutions that meet mutually-agreed-upon business objectives for Atomic and, most importantly, the clients we serve.