Christianity and the Bible

Answer

Variety of cultures and religions exist and in their diversities, powerful leaders exist among them. Leadership is one of the concepts that have existed for centuries. Societies and religious groupings have always had individuals playing the role of leaders in providing purpose, direction and motivation for the followers to help achieve set of duties or tasks. The concept of servant leadership philosophies and values has characterized Christianity and Bible themes. That said, it is important to note that religious and cultures view are crucial in reinforcing good servant leadership style. Worth noting is that there exists similarities and difference in the approach, definition and meaning ascribes to the concept of servant leadership across religions and cultures. This paper provides the similarities and differences between servant leadership philosophies and values in the Islamic religious viewpoint and African cultural context.

In discussing evidence of servant leadership in both the Islamic religion and the African culture, it is important to understand the concept of servant leadership. Servant leadership is an extension of transformational leadership theory that draws attention to the social responsibility of leaders to address or render services for their followers (Hunsaker, 2014).  Greenleaf (2010) argues that a servant leader is a servant and not a leader first. He has to take care of the people by ensuring their highest needs are met before his or hers.  Different models have emerged that aim at defining whom a servant leader is. For instance, Paterson (2003) has seven major components that describe who a servant leader is; altruism, empowerment, humility, love, service, trust and vision. In the African culture, the evidence of servant leadership is manifest with the common term ubuntu, which concerns the communal unity for a common goal or agenda (Hunsaker, 2014). Leaders in African culture are expected to provide direction, guidance and motivate their followers to achieve their goals (Hunsaker, 2014). Where as in Islamic religion, evidence of servant leadership is manifest through the influence and respects accorded to the religious teachers. Leaders have an obligation to act in accordance to the teachings and laws of Allah.

Similarities and difference do exist between servant leadership philosophies and values in the Islamic religion.  Some of the values and philosophies in Islamic religion include respecting Allah laws (Egel & Fry, 2017).  Leaders have no absolute freedom to act, as they desire or to bow to any pressure to form any group. In Islam leadership is a process of coaching and inspiring voluntary followers to achieve and fulfill a shared vision (Egel & Fry, 2017). Therefore, leaders in Islamic religion aim at becoming asyari’h compliant. Some of the similarities include a leader being visionary to lead the organization to achieve success. Leaders in Islam are expected to do good and lead others into doing good for the sake of Allah, Muslim community and humankind. Therefore, the aspect of servant become apparent as, a leader must be committed to lead or guide followers into doing good. The other similarity is the need to be trustworthy (Egel & Fry, 2017). A leader must guide his followers, protect them and treat them fairly and with justice. Therefore, Islamic leadership is both service and guardianship oriented. The leaders have the duty to serve the people they are leading. For example, a Muslim leader has the duty to teach the right message for the followers to gain understanding and knowledge about Allah and other spirituality things.

In the Islamic region, God provides the vision of the leaders and at the same time limits their exercise of power. Leaders therefore have to exercise restraint power and must not exceed or go against the limits provided by God (Egel & Fry, 2017). The followers like the leaders remain answerable to God for their actions and therefore they share the responsibility of the leader.  Therefore, fundamental qualities of leadership in this relationship include servant hood, stewardship, and mutual consultation. The leader must show devotion to serve and to allow the input of the followers.

Likewise, similarities and difference do exist between servant leadership philosophies and values in the African culture. Like many other cultures across the world, the African culture presents its own uniqueness. African land boosts of various great leaders that may be ascribed the meaning as having exemplified attributes of servant leadership. Some of them include, Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkurumah of Ghana, Julius Nyerere and Steve Biko among many others. This culture is manifest through the leadership philosophy of Ubuntu, which refers to the belief in a universal bond of sharing and connecting all the people. Thinking or reflecting about the concept and looking at the goals of servant leadership, there are noticeable similarities (Brubaker, 2013). Through servant leadership, the organization staffs work together for effective performance.  Servant leadership also aims at bring people together and ensuring that their needs are exhaustively addressed. Leaders in Africa , especially the few mentioned have shown selflessness through sacrifice  of their own pleasure and comfort in expense of their followers, a good example being Nelson Mandela who endures, suffered and was imprisoned for 27 years just to liberate the South Africans from the Yoke or hands of  the colonialist (Brubaker, 2013).  The sacrifice that he made for the sake of  the country pits him as one of the leaders that was prepared to serve his people. He therefore, qualifies to be placed in the category of servant leadership. The six factors of servant leadership that fits the African leaders that sacrificed greatly for their nation include role modeling, sacrificing for others, meeting others needs and developing them, recognition and offering awards, primary function of service and humility and respect and involving other people in decision  making. These attributes were evident in the case of these African leaders; but nothing substantial was undertaken to free them.  Even though there seems to be  general acceptability of servant leadership behaviors across cultures, literatures has noted some differences that are likely to be attributable to culture Egel & Fry, 2017). Societal level culture impacts on the formation of leadership prototypes (Brubaker, 2013).  Likewise, perception of the effective leadership would differ across cultures. For instance, in Africa, the culture, even though closely related, there are some sections of the continent that servant leadership goes contrary to the others.  Widely held that ubuntu is an African virtue that has implications for leader behaviors, there are some people and countries that believe that, the leader together with the followers suffer and endure the same tribulation but in process, the leader becomes the point person to guide and motivate the rest of the team (Brubaker, 2013). Glass ceilings are also broken through education and empowerment among many others, leading to changing in leadership dynamics in society (Marina & Fonteneau, 2012).

The main distinction between Islamic leadership context and other models such as African context is that for the Islamic context, it becomes a challenge to understand separately Islamic leadership with the Islamic religion and therefore it must be based in Quran the Sunnah and prophet Muhammad prescriptions (Marina & Fonteneau, 2012). Such leaders need to show empathy; they need to understand the troubles their followers are undergoing. They therefore, actively take part in the various events that followers go through such as celebrations and mourning. The leaders have to stand with the family especially during a sad event to comfort them and show them love.  They also must spend considerable time attending for such individuals as a sign of exerting their leadership. In African culture, leaders stand and fill the gap by agitating and addressing the demands and needs of the followers.

Conclusively, it is apparent that indeed, the values and philosophies in religion and cultural contexts in reference to steward leadership have notable similarities as well as differences.  With research studies expanding, the concept of steward leadership is also growing and widening in definition. However, the bottom line and acceptable underlying meaning is that steward leadership is about serving others before oneself.  The research has clearly provided insights on some of the similarities and differences between the Islamic religion and African cultural contexts understanding the utility of the concept of servant leadership. Islamic religion is more inclined to the spiritual leader theory whereas African cultural context is inclined on the service to others through sacrifice