Evaluations

Running head: ASSESSMENT EVALUATION 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assessment Evaluation 1

 

 

 

ASSESSMENT EVALUATION 1

Analysis of Diagnostic Assessments of Reading (DAR-2)

Summary of Assessment

DAR-2 is a comprehensive individual assessment of children’s strengths and weaknesses

in reading and language, and informs test administrators/examiners (teachers, specialists,

psychologists, etc.) of instructional interventions. DAR aids professionals in distinguishing

reading strengths and deficits at each grade level by concentrating on word recognition, oral

reading accuracy and fluency, silent reading comprehension, spelling, word meaning and

analysis, print and phonological awareness, letters, and sounds.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Assessment

The DAR is administered to students individually and untimed. Benchmarks for mastery

are provided for each test and their component parts. Untimed administration aids students with

disabilities and special needs that may struggle with reading proficiencies; the test has the ability

to separate known groups of children that may be expected to have different levels

of reading proficiency.

The weaknesses of the assessment include the limited reliability provided for some of the

DAR tests; studies have shown that ESL students typically scored lower than the control group.

DAR is not a true assessment of their oral or cognitive abilities in contexts of their own spoken

language.

Justification and Use of the Assessment

DAR meets the technical requirements for reliability and validity. Validity is proven

across contexts of content, criterion-related, and construct; validity supported that instrument

tested for intended purpose. It is reliable for providing professional educators with a

 

 

ASSESSMENT EVALUATION 1

comprehensive assessment of children’s strengths and weaknesses in reading and language and

informing instructional interventions.

DATA COLLECTION FOR ASSESSMENT EVALUATIONS

 

Name of Instrument Diagnostic Assessments of Reading (DAR-2)

Author(s) of Instrument Florence G. Roswell. Jeanne S. Chall, Mary E. Curtis, Gail

Kearns.

Date of Publication 2006

Publisher PRO-ED

 

1. Describe the subtests (e.g., learning areas) The learning areas include word recognition, oral reading accuracy and fluency, silent reading

comprehension, spell, word analysis and meaning, print and phonological awareness, letter

sounds.

2. Describe the age range. Grade Levels: K-12

3. State the purpose of the instrument. Designed to function as an assessment of individual reading ability for the DARTTS testing

and teaching program. It provides a comprehensive assessment of children’s strengths and

weaknesses in reading and language and informs instructional interventions.

4. Describe the examiner qualifications.

Qualified examiners: Teachers, Reading Specialists, school psychologists, diagnosticians

5. Describe the available scores. Word Recognition, Oral Reading Accuracy and Fluency (optional), Silent Reading

Comprehension, Spelling, Word Meaning, Print Awareness, Phonological Awareness, Letters

and Sounds, Word Analysis.

6. Describe the instrument’s technical data provided (i.e., validity, reliability, norms, research).

Reliability coefficient ranges 0.66 to 0.90 across grade levels and subsets; validity proven

across contexts of content, criterion-related, and construct; validity supported that instrument

tested its intended purpose. Norm referenced standardization samples (N = 1,395 students in

Grades K-12 for Form A, and N = 1,440 students in Grades K-12 for Form B) with

standardization sample for Form A selected to be demographically representative of gender,

race/ethnicity, and geographic region.

7. Describe features of the instrument that provide well-designed and easy-to-follow administration procedures.

Administrators are provided with an on-line Teaching Trial Strategies (TTS) for students.

Detailed directions for test administration and scoring are provided in the teacher’s manual. In

addition, test administrators are provided with a response record with directions for

administration, which includes a script for administering the test as well as recording and

scoring materials. Benchmarks for mastery are provided for each test and their component

parts. In addition, each lesson has explicit directions and a list of needed materials. All

teaching components also contain a student record form to record student responses.

 

 

ASSESSMENT EVALUATION 1

8. State the approximate administration and scoring time. Administration of the battery is untimed but takes approximately 40 minutes. Although

specific instructions are provided for adequate test administration, the time lapse necessary

between the pre- and post-assessments is not provided,

9. Describe features of the scoring procedures that are well designed and easy to follow.

Examiner provided with DAR ScoringPro software system with detailed instructions for

scoring provided in the teacher’s manual, and response record containing a detailed script for

recording and scoring. The TTS website contains instructions for accessing the appropriate

test for individual students. Teachers are given directions for scoring as well as guidelines for

interpreting and using the results.

10. Explain this instrument’s adaptation for students with limited English proficiency None indicated. However, the instrument has the ability to separate known groups of children

that might be expected to have different levels of reading proficiency.

11. Explain the appropriateness of the instrument for use with children who have disabilities.

None indicated; not differentiated for any specific group. However, administered untimed to

meet the needs of students with disabilities and special needs.

12. Describe the adaptation of the instrument for use with children who have special needs.

None indicated; no adaptations indicated for any specific group.

13. Describe the strengths of the instrument. Strengths include the positive internal consistency estimates that were obtained and the

criterion-related validity as demonstrated through the ability of the test to separate known

groups of children that might be expected to have different levels of reading proficiency.

14. State any weaknesses of the instrument. (1) difficult to locate on-line resources with no specific Web address indicated in the resources

provided; (2) technical manual unclear on whether reported psychometrics are based on the 2nd

edition or an earlier version; (3) limited reliability provided for some of the DAR tests; and

(4) does not contain a factor analysis to provide a better understanding of the instrument’s

internal structure; (5) ESL typically score lower that the control group.

15. Additional comments, information, and observations: Not appropriate for English as a Second Language (ESL) students; not true assessment of their

oral or cognitive abilities in contexts of their own spoken language.

 

Analysis of GORT-5

Summary of Assessment

GORT-5 is a reading assessment used to identify students with reading difficulty,

diagnose reading disabilities, determine strengths and weaknesses, and evaluate and document

students’ progress in reading. The test focuses on reading comprehension and oral fluency.

 

 

 

ASSESSMENT EVALUATION 1

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Assessment

The strengths of GORT-5 are in its validity and reliability. The assessment has strong

prediction evidence and construct-related evidence of validity across cultural contexts; the

assessment standardization for development of norms were designed and implemented to assure

representation across regions of the country, gender, and race. The assessment is highly reliable

with reliability coefficients for all age intervals exceeding 0.9. Administration, scoring, and

interpretation of the assessment is done so by trained professional examiners (i.e. teachers,

specialists, psychologist, diagnosticians).

While the instrument is an excellent diagnostic tool for making classification and

instructional decisions, evaluating student progress or intervention effectiveness, and conducting

research, it does not measure phonemic awareness or basic word recall, the underlying constructs

of reading. GORT-5 normative group was constructed to represent U.S. population across the

variables of geographic region, gender, race, ethnicity, parents’ education, household income,

and exceptionalities. However, GORT-5 does not have adaptations for students with special

needs or disabilities and there is no indication how they are represented in the norm group.

Justification and Use of the Assessment

Aforementioned, professional educators, psychologists, and diagnosticians can readily

depend on the results and interpretation of data from GORT-5 as a valid diagnostic tool for

identifying students with reading deficiencies, diagnosing reading disabilities, determining

strengths and weaknesses, and evaluating students’ progress in reading.

 

Name of Instrument GORT-5

Author(s) of Instrument J. Lee Wiederholt and Brian R. Bryant

Date of Publication 2012

Publisher PRO-ED

 

 

ASSESSMENT EVALUATION 1

 

1. Describe the subtests (e.g., learning areas) Reading

2. Describe the age range. Ages 6-23

3. State the purpose of the instrument. ‘Identify students with reading difficulty, diagnose reading disabilities, determine strengths

and weaknesses, and evaluate students’ progress in reading.

4. Describe the examiner qualifications. Qualified examiners: teachers, school psychologists, and diagnosticians

5. Describe the available scores. Oral Reading Index (Fluency [Rate, Accuracy, Total], Reading Comprehension

6. Describe the instrument’s technical data provided (i.e., validity, reliability, norms, research).

Validity: Prediction evidence and construct-related evidence of validity across cultural

contexts; Reliability: Reliability coefficient for all age intervals exceeded 0.9. Norms:

Assessment Standardization: development of norms designed and implemented to assure

standardization of administration and scoring and sample selection to obtain representation

across regions of the country, gender, and race.

7. Describe features of the instrument that provide well-designed and easy-to-follow administration procedures.

Administrator’s/Examiner’s manual includes information about how to administer and score

the test, interpretation of scores, and technical characteristics (norms, reliability, and validity).

A consumable examiner’s record booklet (for Form A or Form B), the examiner records

student time and miscues and asks and records responses to comprehension questions.

8. State the approximate administration and scoring time. [20-30] minutes; Test has two parallel forms (A and B) each with 16 separate stories with five

comprehension questions following each story. Typically administered in 15-45 minutes

9. Describe features of the scoring procedures that are well designed and easy to follow. Examiner manual includes information on scoring and interpretation of test score (Rate score

derived from the amount of time in seconds taken by a student to read a story aloud; accuracy

score derived from number of words student pronounces correctly when reading the passage.

fluency score determined by combining student’s Rate and Accuracy scores; comprehension

score determined by number of questions about the stories that the student answers correctly).

The Oral Reading Index (ORI) is a composite score formed by combining students’ Fluency

and Comprehension scaled scores.

10. Explain this instrument’s adaptation for students with limited English proficiency

None indicated; test designed to determine students with reading disabilities and evaluate

student progress.

11. Explain the appropriateness of the instrument for use with children who have disabilities.

Normative group was matched to the U.S. population across the variables of geographic

region, gender, race, ethnicity, parents’ education, household income, and exceptionalities.

Test designed to determine students with reading disabilities and to evaluate student progress.

 

 

ASSESSMENT EVALUATION 1

12. Describe the adaptation of the instrument for use with children who have special needs.

None indicated.

13. Describe the strengths of the instrument.

The instrument is an excellent diagnostic tool for making classification and instructional

decisions, evaluating student progress or intervention effectiveness, and conducting research to

determine the range of options using scaled scores as well as miscue analyses of oral reading.

14. State any weaknesses of the instrument. Does not measure any underlying constructs of reading (e.g., phonemic awareness, basic word

recall).

15. Additional comments, information, and observations: Administrators and users should not conduct the secondary analysis scoring (i.e., prosody

ratings and miscue analyses) if they have not received sufficient training.

 

Analysis of WIAT-III

Summary of Assessment

WIAT-III is an achievement assessment for primary and secondary students ages 4-0 through 19-

11 (Pre-Kindergarten through 12th grade). The individually administered comprehensive was

designed to measure the achievement levels of children in the areas of listening, speaking,

reading, writing and mathematics; it also advises the adult norms for ages 20 through 50. The

constructs of WIAT-III identify academic strengths and weaknesses, informs decision making

pertaining to eligibility of services, and devises recommendations for instruction and

intervention.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Assessment

Validity studies are consistent with professional practice and provide evidence for its

interpretations and uses. The developed norms norm samples were constructed to be nationally

representative of the U.S. population for each grade and age level, and total with students added

from special groups (e.g., specific learning disabilities, speech or language impairment,

intellectual disability, and developmental delay). Correlation studies with previous editions and

similar achievement tests (i.e. WPPSI-III, WISC-IV, WAIS-IV, WNV, and DAS-I) provide

 

 

ASSESSMENT EVALUATION 1

strong convergent evidence for interpretation of the subtests and composites; the assessment is

reliable for assessing the aforementioned objectives.

Although the WIAT-III is well constructed assessment for measuring the achievement of

children in listening, speaking, reading, writing, and mathematics, has representative norms, and

provides strong evidence of reliability and validity, it does not provide reliability and validity

evidence for the suggested use of the instrument to design instructional objectives and plan

interventions.

Justification and Use of the Assessment

The WIAT-III, being administered by experienced examiners and scored by experienced

and professional educators and diagnosticians, is able to provide a comprehensive and reliable

assessment of children’s strengths and weaknesses in the aforementioned areas and inform

instructional interventions for diverse student populations (e.g. different age group and cognitive

levels, specific learning disabilities, speech or language impairment, intellectual disability, and

developmental delays, etc.).

Name of Instrument WIAT-III.

Author(s) of Instrument Pearson

Date of Publication 2009

Publisher Pearson

 

1. Describe the subtests (e.g., learning areas) Achievement: listening, speaking, reading, writing and mathematics

2. Describe the age range. Ages 4-0 to 19-11: Pre-K to 2nd Grade

3. State the purpose of the instrument.

To measure the achievement of students’ in prekindergarten through Grade 12 in the areas of

listening, speaking, reading, writing and mathematics.

4. Describe the examiner qualifications. Level B: Experienced examiner/teacher

 

 

 

 

 

ASSESSMENT EVALUATION 1

5. Describe the available scores. The scores available include: Listening Comprehension, Early Reading Skills, Reading

Comprehension, Alphabet Writing Fluency, Sentence Composition, Word Reading, Essay

Composition, Pseudoword Decoding, Oral Reading and Oral Expression, Fluency, Spelling,

Math Problem Solving, Numerical Operations, Math Fluency (Addition, Subtraction,

Multiplication), 8 composite scores (Oral Language, Total Reading, Basic Reading, Reading

Comprehension and Fluency, Written Expression, Mathematics, Math Fluency, Total

Achievement).

6. Describe the instrument’s technical data provided (i.e., validity, reliability, norms, research).

Three primary validity studies report content evidence, convergent evidence, and special group

studies; the studies are consistent with professional practice and provide validity evidence for

its interpretations and uses. The reliability coefficients for all subsets except Alphabet Writing

Fluency (AWF) are 0.8 and higher for the Fall sample and slightly lower for the Spring

sample; AWF had Fall sample of 0.69. The composite reliability is greater than 0.9 and

provides reliability evidence. Norms were developed with 2,775 students in Grades PK-12

with separate norms reported for Fall (N = 1,400) and Spring (N = 1,375); norm samples

constructed to be nationally representative of the U.S. population for each grade and age level,

and total with students added from special groups (e.g., specific learning disabilities, speech or

language impairment, intellectual disability, and developmental delay).

7. Describe features of the instrument that provide well-designed and easy-to-follow administration procedures.

Q-global kit including examiner’s manual, technical manual CD, stimulus book,

scoring workbook, oral reading fluency book, word card, pseudo word card, audio CD’

materials provide an experienced examiner with a solid basis for administering this

assessment.

8. State the approximate administration and scoring time. Administration time varies depending on the grade level of the student and the number of

subtests administered.; average administration time ranges from 1 minute to 17 minutes.

Average scoring time: about 40 minutes.

9. Describe features of the scoring procedures that are well designed and easy to follow. Standardized scoring procedures are provided; scoring can be completed manually or with the

Scoring Assistant CD. Several scores are available for each subtest: standard scores, percentile

ranks, grade and age equivalents, normal curve equivalents, and stanines, and growth scale

values.

10. Explain this instrument’s adaptation for students with limited English proficiency None indicated.

11. Explain the appropriateness of the instrument for use with children who have disabilities.

Instrument appropriate for use with children who have disabilities.

12. Describe the adaptation of the instrument for use with children who have special needs.

Students within special groups (e.g., specific learning disabilities, speech or language

impairment, intellectual disability, and developmental delay) added to representative norm.

 

 

 

ASSESSMENT EVALUATION 1

13. Describe the strengths of the instrument. Assessment does provide a comprehensive assessment of children’s strengths and weaknesses

in reading and language and informs instructional interventions for a wide range of students.

The assessment instructions are clearly laid out in the examiner’s manual, it is easy to

administer, and the clearly written examiner’s manual provides the examiner with easy to use

tables for scoring,

14. State any weaknesses of the instrument.

Does not provide reliability and validity evidence for the suggested use of the instrument to

design instructional objectives and plan interventions. Indication of

15. Additional comments, information, and observations: Click or tap here to enter text.

 

Analysis of Test of Early Reading Ability—Fourth Edition (TERA-IV)

Summary of Assessment

TERA-4 is still under review. The previous TERA assessment (TERA-3) ascertains that

the purpose of the assessment is to identify children who demonstrate reading development

significantly below their peers that may require interventions, to identify children’s individual

strengths and weaknesses, to provide documentation of children’s progress as a result of the

implemented intervention program, to serve as a measure of research for studying literacy

development in young children, and to be used in conjunction with other assessment techniques.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Assessment

Strengths of TERA-4 lie in its ease of administration, its use of tables, and scoring. It is

able to assess the aforementioned objectives, identify children’s strengths and weaknesses, and

be used as a measure of research. TERA is an assessment quick tool with individual nonclinical

administration, is able to supplement other formal and informal assessments for reading

development. and can screen for specific areas of strength and weaknesses in individual children.

Weaknesses may lie in the usage of non-clinical examiners to administer and score the

assessment. Experienced examiners with well-developed skills in administering, scoring, and

interpretation can be useful in providing data and interpretations to educators to provide students

 

 

ASSESSMENT EVALUATION 1

displaying weaknesses with early interventions. The instrument assesses conventions

(understanding the arbitrary conventions of reading and writing in English) and may be

inappropriate for students with limited English proficiency (i.e. ESL students).

Justification and Use of the Assessment

TERA has been in development since 1981, and revisions have been in accordance with

reviewers’ recommendations to increase the assessments validity and reliability. The authors,

taking reviewers recommendations into account, collected new normative data, addressed

appropriate demographic representation and conducted extensive reliability and validity studies,

and added them as per recommendations. The instrument is a reliable and valid source for

assessing individual children’s mastery of early reading skills and is useful in identifying the

scope and depth of reading development deficiencies.

DATA COLLECTION FOR ASSESSMENT EVALUATIONS

Name of Instrument Test of Early Reading Ability–Fourth Edition (TERA-4)

Author(s) of Instrument D. Kim Reid, Wayne P. Hresko, Donald D. Hammill

Date of Publication 2018

Publisher Pro-Ed

 

4. Describe the subtests (e.g., learning areas)

Reading

5. Describe the age range. Ages 3-6 to 8-6.

6. State the purpose of the instrument. Earlier versions were designed to assess children’s mastery of early developing reading skills,

help identify children who have significant problems in reading development, and to

determine the degree of their problems.

7. Describe the examiner qualifications. Nonclinical staff can administer. However, authors strongly recommend that the examiner

have formal training in assessment with a basic understanding of testing statistics and general

procedures regarding test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

8. Describe the available scores. Alphabet, Conventions, Meaning

9. Describe the instrument’s technical data provided (i.e., validity, reliability, norms, research).

 

 

ASSESSMENT EVALUATION 1

Reviews for TERA-4 are pending. The previous edition (TERA-3): Norm sample well

matched to the general school-age population (gender, race, ethnicity, SES, disability, and

urban/rural) and representative of regions across the United States. Reliability coefficient

ranged from 0.8 to 0.91 or higher across all subtests and age groups. Reliability, validity, and

norm-referenced measures instill confidence that the test scores can be considered highly

reliable and valid.

10. Describe features of the instrument that provide well-designed and easy-to-follow administration procedures.

The TERA-4 offers a quick tool, with easy one-to-one nonclinical administration, to

supplement other formal and informal assessments of development reading and can screen for

specific areas of strength and weaknesses in individual children. TERA provides

administrators with examiners’ manuals, record booklets (profile sheet with graphic

comparison across the three subtests, a graph to compare the Reading Quotient with other

comparable measures that might have been administered to the child). The examiner record

booklet has space for interpretation, comments, and diagnostic implications; the examiner can

note the testing conditions and the degree of validity under the recorded conditions.

11. State the approximate administration and scoring time. Individual administration; 30-45 minutes

12. Describe features of the scoring procedures that are well designed and easy to follow. The TERA-4 offers a quick tool, with easy one-to-one nonclinical administration and on-line

scoring available upon completion of assessment.

13. Explain this instrument’s adaptation for students with limited English proficiency None indicated; test norm referenced across regions of the United States (i.e. gender, race,

ethnicity, SES, disability, and urban/rural). The instrument assesses conventions

(understanding the arbitrary conventions of reading and writing in English) and may be

inappropriate for students with limited English proficiency (i.e. ESL students).

14. Explain the appropriateness of the instrument for use with children who have disabilities.

None indicated;

15. Describe the adaptation of the instrument for use with children who have special needs.

None indicated

16. Describe the strengths of the instrument. Strengths of TERA-4 lie in its ease of administration, its use of tables, and scoring. It is able

to assess the aforementioned objectives, identify children’s strengths and weaknesses, and be

used as a measure of research. TERA is an assessment quick tool

17. State any weaknesses of the instrument.

Weaknesses may lie in the usage of non-clinical examiners to administer and score the

assessment.

18. Additional comments, information, and observations: Instrument is under review. Used review of TERA-3 to analyze the TERA-4 assessment.

 

 

 

 

ASSESSMENT EVALUATION 1

References

Pearson. (2009). Wechsler Individual Achievement Test–Third Edition. Retrieved from

https://search-ebscohost-

com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mmt&AN=test.3194&site=ehost-

live&scope=site

Reid, D. K., Hresko, W. P., & Hammill, D. D. (2018). Test of Early Reading Ability–Fourth

Edition. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-

com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mmt&AN=test.11173&site=ehost-

live&scope=site

Reid, D. K., Hresko, W. P., & Hammill, D. D. (1981). Test of Early Reading Ability, Third

Edition. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-

com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mmt&AN=test.2309&site=ehost-

live&scope=site

Roswell, F. G., Chall, J. S., Curtis, M. E., & Kearns, G. (2006). Diagnostic Assessments of

Reading™, Second Edition. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-

com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mmt&AN=test.3028&site=ehost-

live&scope=site

Wiederholt, J. L., & Bryant, B. R. (2012). Gray Oral Reading Tests–Fifth Edition. Retrieved

from https://search-ebscohost-

com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mmt&AN=test.6455&site=ehost-

live&scope=site

 

 

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Aligned Learning Activities And Differentiation

Aligning learning objectives to instruction is an important element of the planning process. Additionally, there will be a diverse population of students to be considered in this process. Differentiating instruction means instructing diverse students in different ways to increase their likelihood of success.

For this assignment, use the state learning standard and learning objective chosen in Topic 2, as well as the “Class Profile,” to complete the “Aligned Learning Activities and Differentiation” template.

Include the following on the template:

  • Plan and explain an aligned learning activity for the “Class Profile.”
  • Choose three students from the “Class Profile” that require differentiation. Explain how you will differentiate the learning activity to meet each students’ individual needs.
  • Include an appropriate home extension activity for each of the selected students.

Support your findings with 2-3 resources.

Running head: Aligning standards and objectives 1

 

 

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Aligning standards and objectives 10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aligning standards and objectives

ELM-210

Vanessa Gonzalez

10.27.19

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part 1: Lesson Plan Analysis

What is the academic standard?

To utilize information gained from illustrations such as maps and photographs and the words in text to illustrate comprehension of the text. This entails identifying when, where and how major events occur.

· What is the learning objective?

At the end of the lesson students should be able to explain the importance of illustration in understanding a text. They should be able to utilize the pictures and words in the text to illustrate their comprehension of material with an accuracy of 80%.

· Are the standard and objective aligned? How do you know? Provide a rationale.

The standard and objective are entirely aligned. To determine whether standards and objective are aligned, one is supposed to determine to what level the learning objectives support and interact with the academic standards (Estes, 2015). The academic standards pay attention on utilization of illustrations to understand a text and the learning objectives support this because they focus on students being able to explain the importance of illustrations in comprehending a text.

 

 

· What is the lesson about? What does this lesson cover?

The lesson is about a medieval feast study. It focusses on reading information text. Students are supposed to utilize illustrations and words acquired from the Medieval Feast text to illustrated their understanding of the text.

· Do the assessments effectively measure the academic standard and learning objective? Justify your response.

The assessments adequately measure the academic standard and learning objective. Assessments adequately measure standards and objectives in case they are able to determine how well students have mastered what they were taught in the classroom (York, 2017). By completing a vocabulary activity, the instructor will be able to evaluate the results and determine how well the students mastered the concepts taught in class. By developing a list of vocabulary words and trying to determine their meanings, the instructor will be able to determine the areas students have understood and areas that he/she should teach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part 2

Section 1: Lesson Preparation

Teacher Candidate Name:  
Grade Level:

 

Grade level 3
Date: October 27th 2019.
Unit/Subject: Perimeter.
Instructional Plan Title: Mathematical problems involving perimeters.
Lesson Summary and Focus: The lesson focuses on how to determine the perimeter of polygons. The polygons range from three sided figures to even 10 sided figures. Students will practice how to measure the length of each side of a polygon and adding the measurements to determine the perimeter of the figure.
National/State Learning Standards: Solve actual world and mathematical problems that involve the perimeter of polygons including determining the perimeter of the given side lengths and finding the length of an unknown side.
Specific Learning

Target(s)/Objectives:

· By the end of the lesson, students should be able to determine the perimeter of polygons given the side length.

· Students should also be able to determine the unknown side length given the perimeter of a polygon.

· Students should also be able to name a polygon based on the number of sides.

Academic Language · Polygons.

· Unknown side length.

· Perimeter.

 

Resources, Materials, Equipment, and Technology: Worksheet, rulers, you-tube link for video and book.

 

 

 

 

 

Section 2: Instructional Planning

Anticipatory Set

Students will view various polygons and I will ask them the number of sides each polygon has.

Time

Needed

5 min

 

 

 

 

Multiple Means of Representation (Instruction)

· I will introduce the students to the topic by asking them to describe what perimeter is.

· I will then draw on the blackboard different polygons that have different number of sides and indicate the name given to each polygon based on the number of sides.

· I will call some students to draw some of the figures.

· I will indicate a measurement for every side of a polygon and then add them up to illustrate to the students how perimeter is calculated.

· The formula to be utilized is:

· Perimeter = The total measurements of all side lengths.

 

Time

Needed

10 min

Multiple Means of Engagement

· I will divide students into groups and ask them to calculate the perimeter of various figures.

· I will then ask the groups to present their work to the rest of the classroom.

· Other groups can indicate whether they disagree with the results of the selected group

Time

Needed

20 min

 

 

Multiple Means of Expression

· Students will draw various polygons and indicate the side lengths then calculate the perimeter.

· Students will share their diagrams with fellow students.

· Students will find the unknown length of a polygon provided its perimeter. I will draw the polygons on the blackboard and pick on students to calculate the unknown lengths infront of the entire classroom.

 

Time

Needed

10 min

 

 

Extension Activity and/or Homework

N/a

Time Needed

 

 

 

The objectives

· By the end of the lesson, student should be able to determine the perimeter of polygons given the side length.

· Students should also be able to determine the unknown side length given the perimeter of a polygon.

· Students should also be able to name a polygon based on the number of sides.

 

 

How the objectives and standards are aligned.

The first objective is aligned to the standard because it entails using understanding how to find the perimeter of a polygon. The first step in being able to solve real world problems and mathematical problems involving the perimeter of polygons is understanding how to calculate the perimeter. The second objective is aimed at ensuring students entirely understand the perimeter concept. It is a bit challenging compared to just calculating the perimeter therefore students will gain greater understanding of the concept. The third objective entails understanding the different kinds of polygons and how their perimeter can be computed. The three objectives are aligned to the standard because they support solving real world problems involving the perimeter of polygons.

Summary of the lesson

Lesson summary

The lesson should focus on how to determine the perimeter of polygons. The polygons range from three sided figures to even 10 sided figures. Students should be provided with an opportunity to practice how to measure the length of each side of a polygon and add the measurements to determine the perimeter of the figure. Students should also be provided with an opportunity to engage in groups and determine the perimeter of various polygons then present their results to the entire classroom.

 

 

 

 

 

References

Estes, T. H., Mintz, S. L., & Gunter, M. A. (2015). Instruction: A models approach. Pearson.

York, T. T., Gibson, C., & Rankin, S. (2015). Defining and Measuring Academic Success. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation20.

 

 

© 2018. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved.

Ethics in the Community

Ethics in the Community

 

Post on at least three separate days. There is only one discussion  this week. The prompt is below the list of requirements. The  requirements for the discussion this week include the following:

  • You must begin posting by Day 3 (Thursday).
  • You must post a minimum of four separate posts on at least three  separate days (e.g., Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, or Thursday,  Friday, and Sunday, or Thursday, Saturday, and Monday, etc.).
  • The total combined word count for all of your posts, counted together, should be at least 600 words, not including references.
  • You must answer all the questions in the prompt and show evidence of  having read the resources that are required to complete the discussion  properly (such as by using quotes, referring to specific points made in  the text, etc.).
  • In order to satisfy the posting requirements for the week, posts  must be made by Day 7 (Monday); posts made after Day 7 are welcome but  will not count toward the requirements.
  • Be sure to reply to your classmates and instructor. You are  encouraged to read posts your instructor makes (even if they are not in  response to your own post), and reply to those as a way of examining the  ideas in greater depth.
  • All postings (including replies to peers) are expected to be thought  out, proofread for mechanical, grammatical, and spelling accuracy, and  to advance the discussion in an intelligent and meaningful way (i.e.,  saying something like “I really enjoyed what you had to say” will not  count). You are also encouraged to do outside research and quote from  that as well.
  • For more information, please read the Frequently Asked QuestionsPreview the document.

Discussion: Ethics in the Community

In Chapter 1 of your text, you saw how moral reasoning involves  moving back and forth between general, abstract ideas like principles  and values and particular concrete judgments about what is good or  right, and seeking to find a kind of agreement or equilibrium between  those.

In Chapters 3, 4, and 5, you were introduced to utilitarianism,  deontology, and virtue ethics. Each of these ethical theories represents  different ways of reasoning about ethical questions, based in different  account of the principles, values, and other conceptions that inform  the “abstract” side of the dialectic.

In this course, and in much of life, the “concrete” ethical issues  that receive the most attention are frequently those that elicit  passionate responses and widespread debate, affect large numbers of  people, involve matters of deep significance like life and death or  fundamental rights, and so on. However, as important as these issues  are, there is often a limit to how much impact most individuals can have  on such matters; instead, the place where ethics and moral reasoning  have their greatest impact is in one’s local community. Thus, in this  final discussion board, you will demonstrate your grasp of the relation  between the abstract ideas in one of these theories and a concrete  ethical issue or social problem in your local community.

  • Engage the community:
    • Begin by finding an ethical issue or social problem that currently  impacts or has recently impacted your local or regional community (such  as your neighborhood, town or city, county, school district, religious  community, or something of similar scope to any of these).
    • Briefly summarize the issue or problem, and provide a link to a news  article, video, or some other resource that documents the issue or  problem so that your fellow students can learn more about it when  formulating their responses to you.
  • Apply the theory:
    • Next, choose one of the ethical theories and discuss how the moral  reasoning of the theory might be used to address or resolve the issue or  problem.
  • Evaluate the reasoning:
    • In evaluating the application of the moral theory you may, for example, consider one or more questions like:
      • Does this differ from the way this issue is currently being addressed?
      • Does it present a better response than another ethical approach would?
      • Does the theory present an adequate response to the issue, or does it leave significant aspects of the issue unresolved?
      • Does applying the theory to this issue raise other problems or concerns?
      • In light of this issue, are there ways the principles or values of  the theory might need to be modified from the form that we studied in  class?

        2 Skepticism About Ethics

        Bet_Noire/iStock/Thinkstock

        Learning Objectives

        After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

        • Explain what it means to be a moral skeptic.

        • Explain the notion of moral relativism and how it differs from moral objectivity.

        • Discuss challenges to relativism.

        • Explain the notion of egoism and how it differs from the notion that moral standards are unconditional.

        • Discuss Glaukon’s challenge from Plato’s Republic and identify the main claims made in the story.

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        Section 2.1 Introduction to Skepticism

        2.1 Introduction to Skepticism In contemporary usage, skepticism means a doubt that a belief or claim is true. We often use this word to refer to general doubts about all claims of a particular sort. For example, a reli- gious skeptic might have doubts about claims pertaining to the existence of God, the possibil- ity of knowing anything about God, and so on. A global warming skeptic might doubt claims that human activity is the main cause of average global temperature rise, or a 9/11 “truther” might be skeptical about claims that the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., were exclusively the doings of al-Qaida (as opposed to being supported by the U.S. gov- ernment). Likewise, many people regard the claims of politicians, salespersons, and media personalities with doubt and suspicion.

        Similarly, a moral skeptic—in the way we will be using this term here—will doubt common beliefs about morality itself. It is important to note that we are not referring to people who doubt specific moral claims, such as the claim that eating animals is wrong or that abortion is morally justified. Nor are we referring to those who doubt the truth of certain general moral theories or principles, such as utilitarianism or deontology. If we recall the discussion of the landscape of moral philosophy from Chapter 1, claims about concrete moral problems like eating animals or abortion fall under applied ethics, while claims about the general rules, principles, and values that should inform our judgments and choices fall under normative ethics. The kind of skepticism we are discussing in this chapter involves the more basic kinds of claims that fall under the scope of metaethics.

        Specifically, we will consider the reasons one might hold doubts about two commonly assumed features of morality itself:

        1. Moral standards are objective. 2. Moral standards are unconditional.

        The forms of moral skepticism we will consider in this chapter raise doubts about those two features.

        1. Relativism doubts whether moral standards are objective, instead maintaining that they are only true or false relative to a culture or individual.

        2. Egoism doubts whether moral standards are unconditional, instead maintaining that they are only good if they serve an individual’s self-interest, which in turn implies that it may be better for individuals to act contrary to moral standards if they can.

        We will focus a section of this chapter on each of these. First, however, it is important to note three features common to each form of skepticism.

        First, skepticism is not mere doubting or contradicting. One can doubt a claim without hav- ing any basis for doing so, and one can contradict any claim by merely saying the opposite of what another person says. Neither of these are worth taking seriously by themselves, because there is no good reason for those doubts or contradictions.

        The kinds of moral skepticism we will examine aim to provide such reasons. Indeed, the word skepticism itself comes from the Greek word skeptesthai, meaning “to examine” or “to consider.” Since the skeptic uses reason to undermine certain assumptions about morality,

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        Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

        we have every right to test the strength of his or her reasons. Perhaps doing so will lead us to question whether the reasons to doubt morality are good reasons (we might even become skeptical of the skeptics, so to speak). In other words, being skeptical about morality does not mean that one has abandoned the use of reason in thinking about what morality is, why it matters, and related issues. We should therefore approach skeptical views with as much criti- cal thought as a skeptic approaches the views he or she calls into question.

        Second, the general features of morality that skeptics question—such as its objectivity and unconditionality—are ones that most moral systems take for granted. Accordingly, skeptics of morality generally provide an alternative explanation for why most people take these fea- tures for granted. A skeptic will have to explain why certain assumptions about morality have such a grip on us, despite the fact that we are deeply misguided (as they would claim). In addition, just as we can test the strength of the skeptic’s reasons for doubt, we can test the strength of his or her alternative explanation.

        Third, we mentioned previously that the kind of skepticism we consider in this chapter is not primarily concerned with applied ethical issues like abortion or eating animals; nor does it focus on the general principles, rules, and values with which normative ethics is primarily concerned. Rather, it questions metaethical ideas like moral objectivity or unconditionality. However, questioning these ideas can have significant implications with respect to norma- tive and applied ethics.

        The relation between metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics is comparable to the way we might think of a house. The strength of the roof depends on the strength of the house’s framework—the walls, support beams, and so on. But the framework needs a strong founda- tion if it is to support the roof. If the foundation has serious problems (e.g., the concrete has major cracks, the ground is giving way), then the support system will be unstable. If the sup- port system is unstable, then the roof is weak and liable to give way. We can think of concrete moral judgments as the “roof,” normative theories as the “framework,” and metaethics as the “foundation.” Moral skepticism questions the strength of the foundation, and, by implication, the strength of the framework and roof.

        As we examine the different forms of skepticism, we should ask ourselves if the skeptic has provided good reasons to be skeptical of our common beliefs and assumptions about ethics. Has he or she provided a satisfactory alternative explanation for why we have these common beliefs and assumptions that adequately accounts for the role that ethics plays in our indi- vidual lives? And what would be the broader implications of accepting his or her skeptical claims about ethics?

        With these thoughts in mind, we will examine skepticism about moral objectivity.

        2.2 The Relativist Challenge American restaurant goers know that when a waiter or waitress provides good service, he or she deserves a decent tip; withholding a tip when good service has been provided is usually regarded as disrespectful. In Japan, however, the opposite is the case: Providing a tip is often a sign of disrespect. Similarly, consider that most Westerners believe that the way to show

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        40

        Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

        respect to the deceased is to cremate or bury their bodies, while leaving a body out in the open is the epitome of disrespect. However, in Himalayan cultures—partly because there is not much wood for burning and the hard ground makes it difficult to dig graves—it is custom- ary to leave the bodies of the dead out in the open to be consumed by animals and the ele- ments, which is regarded as dignifying.

        Countless other examples can be raised about behaviors that one culture regards as ethical but another regards as unethical, and vice versa. Over the past century or two, as contact with other cultures has become increasingly common, many people have come to doubt whether their way of behav- ing and judging is the only “right” way.

        Even within contemporary Western culture, there has been increased emphasis placed on individual self-determination of the values and principles that guide one’s life, which leads to doubts about whether any single set of values and principles should be authoritative for all. Indeed, bitter and sometimes violent conflicts often arise when one per- son or group is perceived as imposing its moral views on others. Instead, people commonly preface their expressions of moral commitment with phrases like “in my opinion” or “in my personal view”—the implication being that they have no right to suppose that others should agree.

        These factors have contributed to a sense that moral judgments are not true or false in any objective sense but are instead relative to a culture or individual. Moral objectivity is the view that at least some moral truths are independent of the beliefs and values of any particu- lar culture or individual. By contrast, relativism rejects moral objectivity. Instead, relativism holds that the truth of moral standards depends entirely on the beliefs and values that a cul- ture or individual subject happens to hold. This means that if a culture or individual believes or values certain ideas, the associated moral judgments are relatively true (i.e., true for them); if they lack those beliefs and values, any conflicting moral judgments are relatively false (i.e., false for them).

        Before examining this more closely, it is important to note that most people who think care- fully about what relativism means ultimately conclude that it has limits and cannot be entirely correct. Most people hold many deep beliefs that conflict with the relativist position, and there are significant ways in which the position itself may be incoherent. Moreover, relativism is not a normative ethical theory like utilitarianism or deontology; that is, one cannot invoke relativism as a reason to affirm or deny a particular moral judgment, as if it were an alterna- tive to, say, the principle of utility or the Categorical Imperative. For instance, one cannot say something like “According to utilitarianism, stealing this item would be wrong, but according to relativism it would not be wrong.” Before going into detail, we will look more closely at the general claims of relativism itself.

        Jupiterimages/Stockbyte/Thinkstock Different attitudes toward giving and receiving gifts represent one example of how cultures can have different ethical standards.

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        Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

        Two Types of Relativism Thinking back to the examples above, when an American claims that not tipping a waitress, leaving a dead body to rot in the open, or stoning a woman to death are wrong, one might suppose it is only wrong according to modern American culture; according to another culture, these behaviors may in fact be right. Such a view would be considered cultural relativism, since it acknowledges that within a particular culture, given a set of characteristic beliefs, val- ues, and customs, certain behaviors might be right or wrong; it denies, however, that the same judgment can be applied to similar behaviors in another culture with a different set of charac- teristic beliefs, values, and customs. In other words, it denies that there are any judgments of right and wrong that extend across all cultures regardless of whether their beliefs, values, and customs support those judgments. One might also subscribe to subjectivism, which is the view that matters of right and wrong are ultimately relative to the values that each individual subject recognizes and affirms.

        In either form, relativism can have great appeal. It can be taken as a sign of respect for other cultures or individuals by refusing to deny or denounce what they find important and mean- ingful or by refraining from imposing oneself on others. It can help us avoid the conflicts that can result from disagreeing over ethical matters. It can be an expression of honesty and humility, in that it helps us presume to know more than we really do about ethical questions. Finally, it can be a way to acknowledge that much of what we believe and how we think people should act has been shaped by our own culture and upbringing.

        Challenges to Relativism One can appreciate the appeal of relativism without being a relativist about everything of ethical significance; as we mentioned above, most people are relativists about some ethical matters but not all of them. The limits of both cultural relativism and subjectivism become clear when one considers personal experiences, the implications that relativism has, the con- sistency and coherence of the relativist position, and the interconnectedness of cultures and personal lives.

        Personal Experience To understand the problems with the relativist position, think about your own experiences for a moment. Each one of us has a story to tell about how we came to be where we are, which includes elements such as community, society, religion, family, friends, and many other factors that influenced and shaped who we are and what we believe. Each of these elements is quite diverse in and of itself, incorporating many different beliefs and forms of life (think of the diversity within American society, for instance). To come out of a culture is thus to have been exposed to a range of different and often conflicting perspectives out of which we have to form our own identity, values, and moral beliefs. Moreover, none of us has all of the same beliefs and values that our parents did or that we ourselves had when we were younger, and these beliefs and values continue to change throughout our lives in profound or subtle ways.

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        Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

        At least some of the ways we arrived at the beliefs and values we have is the result of reflec- tion and experiences that lead us to affirm, reject, or modify aspects of our own prior per- spectives, the perspectives with which we were raised, and those of our surrounding culture. That is, our own development was not wholly determined for us by some outside factor like family or culture, nor was it arbitrary or accidental. Rather, we had some reason indepen- dent of our culture to accept or reject certain elements of it. Likewise, we had some reason independent of how we were raised to accept or reject certain elements of our upbringing, and some reason independent of our subjective perspective would have led us to change that perspective. In short, our own experiences point to reasons for or against moral convictions that are independent of culture, upbringing, and personal values and thus not merely relative to those factors.

        We can strengthen this observation, though, by looking more closely at what holding a relativ- ist position would involve and whether it would have implications that conflict with much of what we otherwise believe about morality.

        Implications of Relativism First, what are the implications of relativism? When we become aware that different cultures have different views on whether it is respectful to tip a restaurant server, we may come to think that there is no objective truth about tipping that applies to all cultures. Let’s assume this is correct. We might then be tempted to think that all matters of respect or disrespect—or any other matter of ethical importance—are relative to one’s culture. But do we really think this? What would such a view imply about other matters of moral significance?

        For example, consider an issue such as whether certain kinds of people should be enslaved or exterminated. During the 1930s and 1940s, German Nazis engaged in the mass extermination of those they regarded as unworthy and unfit, such as Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and peo- ple with certain disabilities—we call this event the Holocaust. Relative to the beliefs, values, and customs characteristic of German Nazis, Jews and others deserve no respect, and thus it may have been true (for that culture) that the atrocities of the Holocaust were not wrong but necessary, even noble. Similarly, relative to the beliefs, values, and customs characteristic of southern White culture in America prior to the freeing of the slaves in the 19th century, it was true (for that culture) that people with dark skin did not deserve the basic freedoms owed to Whites and thus that slavery was not wrong; in fact, many in that culture regarded slavery as good and right.

        If we accept the cultural relativist position, two important implications follow. First, cultural relativism implies that we would have to abandon the judgments most of us make about the absolute rightness or wrongness of certain kinds of actions. For example, since exter- minating Jewish people, enslaving Blacks, or persecuting and killing those of different faiths are morally justified relative to the beliefs, values, and customs of cultures that engage in those actions, we cannot legitimately say that they are wrong, even if our culture disapproves of them. Likewise, our own rejection of such things cannot legitimately be called right, since this judgment is merely relative to our culture. However, hardly anyone accepts this: Most people maintain that regardless of the beliefs, values, and customs of the cultures that engage or engaged in such actions, their behavior is or was despicable and wrong, period. In that case one is not a relativist about such matters.

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        Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

        The second implication of cultural relativism is that we must reject any notions of cultural progress and decline. In addition to no longer permitting slavery, American society no longer allows the segregation of Blacks and Whites in schools, restaurants, buses, and many other contexts, as it did long after the end of slavery. American society also once refused women the right to vote and allowed children to work long hours in mines and factories, but none of these practices are legal or generally accepted nowadays. Recently, homosexuals have been given the right to marry and serve openly in the military, more women are being given equal pay for equal work, and increased efforts are being made to ensure that children and those with disabilities are protected. There may be controversy regarding whether certain specific cultural changes represent progress or decline, but in either case, in the words of the philoso- pher James Rachels (2003), “that is just the sort of transcultural judgment that, according to cultural relativism, is impossible” (p. 22). In other words, if one were to judge that American

        The Bacha Bāzī

        Recent military activity by American and other Western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has embroiled them in some challenging cultural conflicts. One of the most challenging and contentious conflicts concerns the practice in Afghanistan of bacha bāzī, which those in the West would call pederasty or pedophilia. In short, bacha bāzī involves powerful warlords and other prominent men taking prepubescent and adolescent boys as their sexual slaves. This practice seems to have been present in some Asian cultures for centuries, and though it was officially outlawed by the Taliban, the ouster of that regime by Western forces in 2002 removed the penalties for participating in this practice. Thus, it became more commonplace among the Afghan warlords and police commanders that the U.S. and allied forces depended on to secure the nation (Londoño, 2012).

        Is the practice of using vulnerable boys as sexual slaves merely wrong relative to our own culture, or is it wrong no matter the cultural traditions, beliefs, or practices?

        One way to frame this question is to ask whether a child has a set of basic human rights that would be violated by this practice. This is certainly the view taken by the United Nations and the 196 countries that have signed its Convention on the Rights of the Child, among which is a provision that protects children from sexual abuse (UN News Center, 2015; United Nations, 1989). These provisions are based on the “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” (United Nations, 1989, para. 1), which is to say that it recognizes that all people have certain rights above and beyond particular cultural beliefs and practices, among which is the right of a child not to be sexually abused.

        Now, denying the relativist position and acknowledging such rights does not settle all of the ethical issues, for there is still the question of how one should respond when confronted with practices like bacha bāzī. The U.S. military’s policy has been to look the other way so as to maintain good relationships with the Afghan leaders who perpetrate this abuse (Goldstein, 2015). However, there have been several cases of soldiers disobeying such orders and attempting to prevent the abuse (Goldstein, 2015). Whether they were right to do so is a question we cannot address here, but surely we can presume that they would not have done so unless they regarded the actions of the abusers as a violation of objective standards—that no one should abuse children regardless of whether such abuse is accepted by a culture.

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        Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

        culture has progressed by outlawing slavery and segregation and by granting women the right to vote, one must deny cultural relativism. Likewise, if one were to judge that American cul- ture has declined in certain ways, one must deny cultural relativism. Why?

        The reason is that any notion of a culture’s progress or decline must refer to standards that are independent of the culture as it happens to be. If increased racial or gender equality is to count as progress, it is because we think that racial or gender equality is good, and so a cul- ture that has more equality is better than one that has less. Or if we think that a culture has declined in certain ways, it would be because we regard certain norms as good and judge that the culture has veered from those norms. Either way, we are judging a culture by standards that are independent of the beliefs, values, and customs they happen to have. This is contrary to the relativistic view that there are no such independent standards. If we accept relativism, then we have no basis on which to hold that cultural changes like the elimination of slavery or granting women the right to vote is progress or that any changes could represent decline.

        Similar problems arise for subjectivism. While we can appreciate that individuals within a culture have a wide variety of lifestyles and conceptions of what is good and worthwhile and that a “one-size-fits-all” perspective is often unjustified, most people recognize limits to this relativistic attitude. For instance, Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016, may have acted consistently with his beliefs, as do others who per- petrate terrible atrocities. But few of us would be content to suppose that the wrongness of such actions is merely relative to our own personal values. Moreover, as we previously dis- cussed, many of us have changed our moral views and behavior as we have matured, and we experience this change as one of personal growth or progress. Just as the notion of cultural progress is difficult to square with a belief in cultural relativism, the experience of personal growth in one’s moral convictions and choices is inconsistent with the view that moral truth is only relative to the beliefs and values that an individual happens to have. The best we can say is that we had certain beliefs and made certain choices at one point in our lives and sim- ply changed at a later point. Again, however, most of us experience that kind of change not as arbitrary, but as one of genuine development. All of this implies that one is not a relativist about moral matters.

        In short, the implications of relativism are that we can no longer sustain judgments that things such as slavery, genocide, terrorist attacks, rape, child molestation, and others are truly wrong; nor can we do adequate justice to the notion of cultural progress and the experience of personal moral development. Thus, we find that while most people are relativists about some matters of cultural or personal difference, very few people are relativists about all such matters.

        Consistency and Coherence of Relativism The second set of challenges to relativism has to do with the consistency and coherence of the relativist position. Think back to the appealing aspects of relativism: It may seem to show respect for other persons or cultures, can help us avoid conflicts, and can be an expression of honesty and humility. Notice that each appealing aspect refers to some value that the rela- tivist position seems to affirm or embody: respect, peace, honesty, humility, and so on. All of these are adduced as good reasons to adopt a relativist position.

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        Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

        However, respect for other cultures or for individual choices has a particular value that many of us affirm but some others may not. Peace is also something that many, but not all, value. Honesty and humility are generally regarded as virtues, but not everyone agrees. If the value of respect, peace, honesty, and humility are to count as reasons in favor of relativism, this value must be independent of whether others recognize it; in other words, they must have objective value. But if this is the case, then relativism must be false. Thus, what we thought were reasons in favor of relativism turn out, upon examination, to be reasons to reject it.

        To see how defenses of relativism undermine relativism by appealing to nonrelative values and principles, think about the consistency and coherence of a few common expressions one might hear in support of relativism:

        • “We should not pass judgment on other cultures.” In other words, passing judgment on other cultures is wrong. What should we say about a culture that passes judgments on other cultures? Are we not saying that what they do is wrong? By saying that what they do is wrong, are we not still passing judgment?

        • “Who am I to say that what someone else does is wrong?” This saying means that no one has a right to say that what someone else does is wrong. But what if someone does say that what someone else does is wrong? Doesn’t that mean that they have done something wrong?

        • The Bible says, “Judge not, lest ye be judged” (Matthew 7:1). The Bible seems to indicate that we should not pass judgment on another. But the Bible also contains a great many ethical teachings that seem to be presented as objec- tively true. Many of those teachings challenged the prevailing culture and its leaders to whom Jesus was speaking in this verse. Does this suggest that this verse should be understood as a warning against the objective wrong of hypocrisy rather than as a support of relativism?

        One can see the inconsistency that arises when phrases like these are used to express or sup- port a relativist view. There may be contexts in which the sentiment they express is appro- priate, but the bottom line is that these expressions endorse values or principles that other cultures or persons may not share or ones that apply in some contexts but not all. In doing so, they do not support a position of moral relativism but rather one of nonrelativism.

        Respect for Others Not only does the relativist’s endorsement of respect, honesty, and humility imply these ideas’ objective value, but their value may even be undermined if we were to adopt a consistently relativist position. Take respect, for example. As we noted before, a relativist position is often taken to express respect for other persons or cultures by refusing to pass negative judgment on their beliefs and practices. However, what does respect really mean? Generally, it means that we recognize some kind of value or merit in whatever we respect. We are making a judg- ment that a person or culture is worthy of respect.

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        Section 2.2 The Relativist Challenge

        Moreover, as the philosopher Mary Midgley (1981) notes, “To respect someone [or some cul- ture], we have to know enough about [the person or culture] to make a favourable judgment” (p. 69). In other words, to show respect requires a certain level of understanding of a person’s or a culture’s beliefs and practices that allows us to recognize their potential value and merit. However, the level of understanding that would justify respect and praise has to allow for the possibility of negative judgments as well. “It is hardly possible that we could praise them effectively,” Midgley observes, “if we could not, in principle, criticize them” (p. 71). What does she mean by this?

        The popular radio show A Prairie Home Companion includes a regular segment about the fic- tional town of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, where “all the children are above average.” The joke behind this description of the community is that it is impossible: No child can be above aver- age except in comparison to other children who are average and still others who are below average. In other words, describing a child as above average requires us to have a standard for “average” according to which a child can be judged to be at, above, or below. By declaring that all children are above average, one is essentially saying that no child is above average, since all are at the same level. Thus, the praise and esteem implied by the term above average is meaningless.

        Just as being above average constitutes a positive judgment about a child, being worthy of respect is a positive judgment about a person’s or culture’s beliefs and practices. But for the positive judgment to be meaningful, there has to be the possibility of a negative judgment as well. Just like the positive judgment that a child is above average must entail that some chil- dren are average or below average, the positive judgment that cultural beliefs and practices are worthy of respect must entail that some cultural beliefs and practices are not worthy of respect. If we declare that all cultural beliefs and practices are worthy of respect, that is just as vacuous as declaring that all children in a community are above average.

        To put it another way, if we refuse to judge other cultures at all, we “are not taking the other culture seriously” (Midgley, 1981, p. 73), a point that can be applied to judging other persons as well. It is a powerful idea: Would a positive judgment like “worthy of respect” be meaning- ful or significant if there wasn’t the possibility of negative judgments, that some things are not worthy of respect?

        Consider this same idea as it pertains to a value like honesty. Imagine you were seeking a friend’s honest opinion on your new outfit. Would you trust her thoughts if you knew that she would never say anything negative? If you suspected that she would say you look good no matter what, would you turn to her if you really wanted to know if the outfit looked good? Probably not. Genuine honesty, like genuine respect, depends on the possibility of a negative judgment; otherwise, any positive remark would be empty and meaningless.

        In short, by insisting that all value judgments are merely relative, a stance of relativism entails that we cannot make positive judgments about another culture or individual, including the judgment that they are worthy of respect. Thus, relativism does not, in fact, show respect for others, as some defenders maintain.

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        Intellectual Humility Perhaps the most common and familiar way to defend relativist attitudes is by using phrases like “Who am I to say what’s right or wrong for someone else?” Such phrases seem to call us to intellectual humility: How can we pass judgment on others when we know so little of their circumstances or when we cannot be sure our judgments are well grounded? This is important, but we can only account for its importance if we reject relativism and accept there are certain standards by which we can, at least in principle, judge others and ourselves. Why is this?

        As we saw in Chapter 1, acting on the basis of reasons—which is fundamental to human life— depends on the capacity to judge that certain choices are better than others. It is easy to see that in many everyday situations, such as deciding on the best car to buy or how to treat an illness, our own knowledge is limited; we may not have better judgment than someone else, and we can probably learn a lot from others if we open ourselves up to their judgment and perspective. Because of these limitations, humility and a willingness to learn from others seems to be in order.

        But this only makes sense if there are, in fact, better or worse judgments on such matters. Why suppose that we may be limited in our knowledge of how to treat an illness or buy a car if there were no such thing as better and worse judgments about them? If humility and being open to learning from others is important, we must suppose that there are some judgments that are good and others that are not.

        In most everyday situations, this is not hard to see: If a doctor recommends a certain treat- ment for an illness, it would be absurd to suppose that the effectiveness of this treatment is relative to one’s beliefs and values. Likewise, if humility and an openness to learning from others are important regarding ethical matters, then we would have to presuppose that there are some ethical judgments that are good and others that are not. To put it another way, if we think we might have something to learn from another people or cultures, we have to suppose that their ethical judgment might be better than ours, but this logically entails that their ethi- cal judgment might also be worse than ours in certain respects. Both of these possibilities, however, imply that relativism is false, and phrases like “Who am I to judge?” actually deny relativism rather than support it.

        At this point you might be thinking, “Relativ- ists don’t have to suppose that there aren’t better and worse ethical judgments at all. They simply maintain that what’s ‘ethically better or worse’ for one person, culture, or society might not be the same for another.” As a factual matter, this is true—individu- als and cultures have many different ethi- cal beliefs. But remember that relativists do not simply point out that different people or

        Thinking About Relativism

        Relativism is more than the acknowledg- ment of differences in beliefs; it is the claim that we have no way of comparing the merits of different ethical beliefs and values.

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        cultures happen to have different ethical beliefs and values; they maintain that we have no way of comparing the merits of these different beliefs and values. What critics of relativism argue, however, is that the sense many people have—that we should not be quick to judge and that we should exercise humility in the face of such differences—is based on the assumption that there are nonrelative truths on ethical matters about which we may have only limited understanding. But this seems to call for an honest and open consideration of the different beliefs and values rather than simply refusing to pass any form of judgment whatsoever.

        Cultural and Interpersonal Differences There is one final challenge to relativism, which is perhaps the most powerful of all. Cultural relativism seems to rest on the idea that cultures are completely isolated from each other, such that one culture would be so disconnected from another that they could not understand each other enough to judge each other’s beliefs or practices. Subjectivism would seem to pre- suppose something similar about our inability to understand, and thus judge, the values and beliefs of another person. But is it plausible to suppose that we are disconnected from each other to such a radical degree?

        To suppose so would be to suppose that the beliefs and values of different cultures or indi- viduals developed and were shaped in isolation, but this is clearly not the case. With very few exceptions (such as isolated tribes in the Amazon rain forest), all cultures, along with their beliefs and values, have been shaped and formed by their encounters with others; as Midgley (1981) puts it, “all cultures are formed out of many streams” (p. 74).

        Early human societies had to overcome similar obstacles and challenges in the face of a hos- tile natural world, despite differences in conditions such as climate and resources. Migra- tions, wars, and trade brought different cultures into contact, and they had to find ways to relate to each other. Modern societies are even more interconnected than previous societies due to technological advances. The notion of a culture that is radically disconnected from oth- ers is difficult to imagine, and the idea that an individual can be so disconnected as to rule out judgment on others’ values and beliefs is even more implausible. Thus, there is good reason to suppose that we may find common, rationally justified grounds for many moral values and principles, and that a relativist stance is not justified on the grounds of cultural or interper- sonal differences.

        Limited Relativism We have presented relativism as a form of skepticism about whether values, principles, and norms are objectively true—that is, true for all cultures and individuals. Relativism maintains instead that their truth is only in relation to a particular culture or individual, such that what- ever is true for one culture or individual is not necessarily true for another. It is important to note that we have been considering a somewhat extreme form of relativism that maintains that one culture or individual cannot pass judgment on the moral standards of another. Reject- ing this form of relativism does not necessarily mean that all moral standards are objectively true; there may be good reasons to suppose that at least some moral standards are relative. Distinguishing between those that are merely relative, objective, or somewhere in between

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        requires critical thought, open-mindedness, and a willingness to engage in dialogue with the other. By the same token, immediately declaring a different moral view as simply wrong on the one hand, or merely different (i.e., neither right nor wrong) on the other would be too hasty in most cases and would fail to demonstrate respect and intellectual humility or acknowledge the interrelated- ness of cultures and individuals.

        Moreover, rejecting relativism and accept- ing that there may be objective moral truths does not mean we would necessarily expect all people to accept or acknowledge those truths. Similarly, we may have good reason to pass judgment on other cultures’ or indi- viduals’ beliefs and practices, but that should be distinguished from a judgment about the specific culture or individual. That is, I may believe that a certain cultural practice is wrong (perhaps because it demeans women, for example), but that does not necessarily entitle me to declare that members of that culture or the culture as a whole are bad.

        Having concluded this discussion of the relativist’s challenge to morality, we now turn to skepticism about the other assumption we identified—skepticism about the unconditionality of moral standards.

        2.3 The Egoist Challenge We all know the feeling: you really want to do something, but you know that it goes against the moral rules. Sometimes, though, you’re pretty sure you could do it and not get caught. What holds you back?

        We have been taught to regard certain kinds of behavior as good and other kinds as bad, and often these rules stand in contrast to what we feel inclined to do. These claims about good and bad might come from our parents or teachers, religious authorities, media personalities, and many others trying to tell us how we ought to live. Are these claims unconditional in the sense of describing standards for how one ought to live regardless of whether they directly benefit us as individuals? Or are their rationality and force conditional on this benefit?

        One reason for supposing that such behaviors are merely conditional is to regard them as nothing more than social conventions or sets of rules that society imposes on its members whose primary purpose is to constrain them from doing what they would otherwise want to do. Why might we have such conventions? Lots of possibilities spring to mind. Such conven- tions help maintain social order, for instance. If there was no prohibition on stealing, we could not be secure in holding on to the things we need to live our lives. Prohibitions on murder

        Going Deeper: Are Ethical Standards Merely Expressions of Attitude?

        In addition to relativism and egoism, some philosophers have questioned the assumption that there are such things as moral properties or moral facts at all. Instead, they maintain that moral statements are expressions of feeling or attitude that are neither true nor false. One such theory is called “emotivism,” which you can read more about in Are Ethical Standards Merely Expressions of Attitude? in the Going Deeper section at the end of the chapter.

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        ensure that our lives are relatively safe, while prohibitions on lying ensure that we can trust other people, which is vital to most social interactions. These conventions also protect weaker members from being taken advantage of by stronger ones, and moral values such as generos- ity and beneficence compel those who have more to share with those who have less. We can also imagine how certain groups of people might use such conventions to exercise power over others, in terms of keeping them in line and making them easier to control.

        Whatever explanation we might have for why we have these conventions, one thing to notice is that they are all consistent with the assumption that each individual is and/or ought to be primarily concerned with his or her own interests and benefit. We call this kind of view egoism. If egoism were true, we could understand moral standards as social conventions designed to ensure a certain level of cooperation and to keep us from seeking our own advan- tage at the expense of others. However, if morality is nothing more, and each of us is com- pletely self-interested, why should we respect those conventions?

        Most social conventions—especially those codified as formal rules or laws—come with sanc- tions or punishments for breaking them. Therefore, one obvious reason to respect them is that we do not want to be punished. But what if you could avoid punishment? What if you had the ability to transgress these moral conventions and not get caught? Would there be any rea- son to be moral? Therefore, the questions at the heart of the egoist challenge are, do we only have reason to be moral if doing so benefits us, and would we be better off acting immorally if doing so had greater self-benefit?

        Glaukon’s Challenge This is not a new question; in fact, humans have been wrestling with the question of “Why be moral?” for ages. Twenty-five hundred years ago, the great philosopher Plato raised this issue in his most famous text, the Republic. Plato explored philosophical ideas mostly through fictional dialogues, many of which featured Plato’s real-life teacher Socrates as a main char- acter. Prior to the passage we will examine, Socrates had proposed that the person who lives a just life (similar to what we would call a moral life) is better off than the person who lives unjustly (or, roughly, immorally). Acting justly isn’t good simply because it happens to fulfill one’s interests or because it helps maintain social order, Socrates claimed. Rather, he main- tained that the life of justice is good in itself. In other words, those who act justly live the truly best kind of life, and so justice is worth choosing even when it might seem that acting unjustly would be advantageous. This is a familiar idea to us: We often hear about the value of integ- rity, or doing the right thing even when no one is looking. However, it is this very idea that is called into question in Glaukon’s challenge.

        In the passage, Socrates’s friend (and Plato’s own real-life brother) Glaukon is challenging him on the concept of integrity. He does so by offering a story designed to question Socrates’s claim that justice is truly best. It is important to note that Glaukon is most likely playing dev- il’s advocate; there is no reason to suppose that Glaukon actually disagreed with Socrates. In offering his story, Glaukon can be considered part of a dialectical movement. He is suggesting a concrete case (though fictional and far-fetched) that forces Socrates to clarify his account

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        of why justice is truly good and injustice is truly bad, despite the fact that we are often inclined toward injustice.

        As you read the text, try to identify Glau- kon’s primary claims and how the story he tells helps him argue for those claims. Read “The Ring of Gyges” in the Primary Source section of the chapter, then return to this point in the book.

        In Glaukon’s speech, he puts forth three pri- mary claims:

        1. No one is willingly just. 2. Justice is a social convention that benefits the weak. 3. The best sort of life is that of the unjust person who seems just.

        How does Glaukon argue for these claims?

        Claim 1: No One Is Willingly Just Imagine a situation in which you can do anything you choose and not incur punishment or social condemnation. This is the scenario Glaukon invokes when he tells the story of the Ring of Gyges. In this story, a poor shepherd finds a ring that can make him invisible by turning it a certain direction. With this newfound tool, the shepherd realizes that he can get away with many things that would be considered unjust, now that he no longer risks being caught and punished. If Socrates is right, finding the ring should make no difference as to whether the shepherd respects principles of justice. Since justice is good in itself, Socrates claims, the possibility that one can get away with injustice is irrelevant. In Glaukon’s story, of course, the shepherd decidedly does not see things the same way and instead engages in murder, seduc- tion, and other illicit activities.

        Dialectical Reasoning

        Recall that dialectical reasoning involves moving back and forth between abstract principles and concrete cases in such a way that the concrete cases challenge us to revise and refine the abstract principles, leading us to form more refined judgments about the concrete cases.

        Ethics FYI

        Symbolism in the Ring Notice that when the ring is facing outward toward others, the wearer is visible to others and thus must be concerned with how society views him. By turning the ring inward toward himself, he becomes invisible to society, and thus his true inner condition becomes manifest. It is this inner condition with which both Socrates and Glaukon are ultimately concerned. (Author’s note: This interpretation is indebted to one of my students, David Plunkett.)

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        Glaukon suggests that when the shepherd respected and abided by principles of justice before he found the ring, he never did so willingly. He knew that if he engaged in murder, seduction, and the like, he would likely be caught and punished and would lose his reputation. The risks outweighed any benefits of unjust behavior, and so the shepherd acquiesced to the system of justice in place. We know that he did so unwillingly by the simple fact that once he acquired the means to avoid such negative repercussions, the standards of justice went out the window.

        Glaukon thinks that if we are honest, we will agree that even if a person we would normally regard as just or moral were to acquire the means to act unjustly without consequence, his

        Ancient and Modern Fantasy Stories

        The Ring of Gyges story contains themes that may be familiar to some readers from literature and film.

        Those who are familiar with The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien will no doubt recognize the similarity of that story and Plato’s (indeed, the idea of a magic ring of invisibility is present in the myths of many cultures). In each myth, there is a ring that grants its wearer the power of invisibility, but it also corrupts its wearer in some sense. Glaukon would say that the only corruption is in terms of the standards of society, but that in reality the person who uses the ring to his advantage is living better than before. Tolkien’s account presents a different picture, one of not just external but internal corruption.

        A similar scenario is presented in the 1993 film Groundhog Day. In the movie, Phil Connors (played by Bill Murray) wakes up to the same day over and over. No matter what he does, the day is reset and there are no negative consequences—to himself or anyone else—from his actions.

        When Phil realizes this, he is elated. “It’s the same thing your whole life,” he says. “Clean up your room. Stand up straight. Pick up your feet. Take it like a man. Be nice to your sister. Don’t mix beer and wine, ever. And, oh yeah, don’t drive on the railroad tracks” (Albert, Erikson, White, & Ramis, 1993), after which he proceeds straight onto a railroad track. He spends the next part of the movie doing things that he would never be able to do because of society’s rules. Here is a man who, like Glaukon’s shepherd, felt like he had to obey those rules to remain respectable and avoid condemnation, while deep down he wished that he could blow them off and have fun. Once the negative consequences are no longer a factor, he sees no point to the rules anymore, and he can just let loose: “I’m not gonna play by their rules anymore!” (Albert et al., 1993). As one of Phil’s drunk companions put it when asked what he would do in such a situation, “I’d just spend all my time drivin’ fast, gettin’ loaded and gettin’ laid” (Rubin & Ramis, 1992, p. 45).

        However, Groundhog Day takes a significantly different turn than Glaukon’s story. After indulging himself for a while, Phil finds himself in a state of such depression and misery that he attempts to kill himself over and over, only emerging from that state once he no longer concerns himself merely with satisfying his own interests and desires. Instead, he pursues artistic excellence, helps others in need, and finds himself caring for others for their own sake, not simply for what he can get out of it.

        Can The Lord of the Rings and Groundhog Day provide a clue as to how one might respond to Glaukon’s challenge?

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        or her actions would be no different from those of an unjust person; both the just and the unjust would follow the same path. If this is true, it shows that no one is just willingly, but only because they are compelled to be. Glaukon seems to be saying that we are interested only in ourselves—satisfying our own wants and desires and securing our own advantages—which brings us back to egoism. According to the egoist view, everyone is ultimately self-centered, which implies that no one is truly just, there are no truly selfless actions, and we only have reason to respect justice and morality or care about the needs of others when doing so ben- efits us.

        Is Glaukon right? Are even the most ethical of people only acting that way to build a good reputation, avoid condemnation and punishment, and so forth? Naturally, there are people (perhaps you are one of them) who would insist that they would continue acting ethically even if they could act otherwise and get away with it. What would someone defending Glau- kon’s claim say about such persons? Perhaps they are deluding themselves because they are so used to the idea that acting unethically would be too risky. Perhaps they would feel a strong sense of internal guilt at pursuing their own advantages at the expense of others.

        Notice, however, that the feeling of guilt is itself a form of punishment, albeit one that is imposed on ourselves rather than by an outside force. If ethical standards are simply con- straints on what we really want to do, as Glaukon’s account maintains, then a powerful way to ensure that people abide by them would be to condition them in such a way that they would punish themselves for breaking those standards. Feelings of guilt would be one such form of punishment. However, the presence of these feelings does not necessarily mean that the behaviors one would feel guilty about are wrong. It may only mean that one has been condi- tioned by society to feel bad about certain behaviors.

        Huck Finn and the Guilty Conscience

        In Mark Twain’s classic novel Huckleberry Finn, set in the days of slavery, the title character befriends a runaway slave named Jim. Even though Huck recognizes Jim’s humanity and regards him as a friend, he is plagued by feelings of guilt over the fact that he isn’t fulfilling his supposed duty to turn in a runaway slave. At one point, he contemplates turning in his friend but ultimately decides against it.

        Thinking that the decision to not turn in Jim was wrong, morally speaking, Huck says:

        I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn’t no use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don’t get STARTED right when he’s little ain’t got no show—when the pinch comes there ain’t nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat. Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s’pose you’d a done right and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I, I’d feel bad—I’d feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what’s the use you learning to do right, when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? (Twain, 1885/2001, pp. 87–88)

        (continued on next page)

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        Huck Finn and the Guilty Conscience (continued)

        Huck feels a sense of guilt at not turning in a runaway slave. Yet he recognizes that he would have felt guilty if he had turned Jim in as well, since Jim is his friend. Thus torn, he decides that if he’s going to feel guilty either way, he might as well do what he wants to do, rather than what he’s “supposed” to do, given the standards of his society. After all, he figures, he’s a bad kid anyway, so there’s no point to trying to do what’s “right.”

        Later, still wrestling with this decision, Huck composes a letter to Jim’s owner telling her where her runaway slave is. Just before sending it, he reflects:

        I took it up, and held it [the letter betraying Jim] in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. (Twain, 1885/2001, p. 192)

        Huck was brought up in a society that held to the view that Black people could be the property of Whites, and if a White person’s property escaped, it was the moral responsibility of other Whites to return that property to its rightful owner. He regarded his reluctance to do so as a sign of moral depravity and experienced feelings of guilt at that failure. These days, we would not consider Huck’s reluctance to betray Jim to be a failure at all. However, it goes to show that feelings of guilt do not, by themselves, indicate that one’s actions are truly wrong.

        In similar fashion, someone defending Glaukon’s claims might acknowledge that people may feel guilt at the thought of acting immorally even when they would not be punished or condemned. However, these feelings would be considered a sign that someone has been conditioned to regard such actions as wrong. In reality, says someone defending Glaukon’s claims, the person would be better off overcoming such feelings and pursuing the personal advantages that come with possessing the ring.

        If egoism is right, moral standards constrain the basic motivation we all have to pursue our individual interests above all else. This implies that we would rather avoid such constraints if we could, and thus we are not willingly just; rather, we are just only because we fear punish- ment, whether internal or external. If this is the case, why are moral standards such a power- ful force in society?

        We considered a few possibilities earlier: These constraints help maintain social order, ensure safety and security, and protect weaker members of society. Notice, however, that these are good reasons for us to want others to respect these constraints; they aren’t necessarily rea- sons why we as individuals should respect them. What if we could get away with injustice while everyone else respected the constraints that maintained social order? If we would ulti- mately prefer that situation, that indicates that we don’t willingly do what is just, but rather we do it because we cannot get away with acting otherwise.

        In the real world, of course, rings of invisibility do not exist; but we can think of it as repre- senting the real power some people may have to act unjustly without the risk of punishment.

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        All real societies have stronger and weaker members. The stronger members have the means to obtain more of what they want; they can find ways to secure what they desire through force, persuasion, or money. They also have the means to prevent others from trying to take advantage of them, and they have less need for the generosity of others. Weaker members of society, on the other hand, are those who lack such means. They are thus the ones who would benefit most when the rest of society complies with standards of ethics and justice. Hence, we arrive at Glaukon’s second claim.

        Claim 2: Justice Is a Social Convention That Benefits the Weak If Glaukon’s egoistic view is correct, no one really wants to act morally. However, we recognize these standards because they seem to be good for soci- ety—it is good for us if people are not murdering others and stealing things. But who most benefits from this?

        To see Glaukon’s answer, imagine two people: Big Jim and Tiny Tim. Big Jim is strong, well connected, wealthy, and charismatic. Tiny Tim is weak, a bit of a loner, poor, and socially awkward. Both Big Jim and Tiny Tim are self-centered and want as many per- sonal advantages as possible, regardless of how that might harm others. For obvious reasons, Big Jim is much better at getting what he wants than Tiny Tim. In fact, when Big Jim goes after something, it often ends up harming Tiny Tim in some way.

        Is there anything people like Tiny Tim can do to prevent people like Big Jim from doing what- ever they feel like, gaining all the advantages for themselves, and stepping all over the Tiny Tims?

        What if we established a system of rules that constrained people’s capacity to pursue what- ever they want for themselves?

        People like Tiny Tim are already constrained by their own weakness, especially when com- peting against people like Big Jim. Such a system of rules would level the playing field a bit more, which benefits the Tiny Tims when it comes to their capacity to pursue what they want and avoid harm from the Big Jims. But it hinders the Big Jims, since they wouldn’t be able to use their superior means as freely as before.

Post An Evaluation Of The Effectiveness Of Transactional And Transformational Leadership In Business.

Post an evaluation of the effectiveness of transactional and transformational leadership in business. (I work in logistics) In your evaluation, do the following:

· Describe two well-known business leaders who respectively exhibit transactional and transformational business leadership behavior, and explain how each business leader exemplifies the identified type of leadership.

· Explain whether you believe that transformational leadership is the most effective type of business leadership and why. Be sure to include specific examples, if any, in which transactional leadership might be more appropriate.

· Describe any potential negative consequences of transformational leadership.

Be sure to support your work with a minimum of two specific citations from this week’s Learning Resources and one or more additional scholarly sources.

Please use the attached text.

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice(7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

· Chapter 7, “Leader–Member Exchange Theory” (pp. 137–160)

· Chapter 9, “Authentic Leadership” (pp. 200–224)

· Chapter 10, “Servant Leadership” (pp. 225–256)

10 Servant Leadership

Description

Servant leadership is a paradox—an approach to leadership that runs counter to common sense. Our everyday images of leadership do not coincide with leaders being servants. Leaders influence, and servants follow. How can leadership be both service and influence? How can a person be a leader and a servant at the same time? Although servant leadership seems contradictory and challenges our traditional beliefs about leadership, it is an approach that offers a unique perspective.

Servant leadership, which originated in the writings of Greenleaf (1970, 1972, 1977), has been of interest to leadership scholars for more than 40 years. Until recently, little empirical research on servant leadership has appeared in established peer-reviewed journals. Most of the academic and nonacademic writing on the topic has been prescriptive, focusing on how servant leadership should ideally be, rather than descriptive, focusing on what servant leadership actually is in practice (van Dierendonck, 2011). However, in the past 10 years, multiple publications have helped to clarify servant leadership and substantiate its basic assumptions.

Servant Leadership

Image 1

Everyday Servant Leadership

Image 5

Similar to earlier leadership theories discussed in this book (e.g., skills approach and behavioral approach), servant leadership is an approach focusing on leadership from the point of view of the leader and his or her behaviors. Servant leadership emphasizes that leaders be attentive to the concerns of their followers, empathize with them, and nurture them. Servant leaders put followers first, empower them, and help them develop their full personal capacities. Furthermore, servant leaders are ethical (see Chapter 13, “Leadership Ethics,” for an extended discussion of this topic) and lead in ways that serve the greater good of the organization, community, and society at large.

Servant Leadership Defined

What is servant leadership? Scholars have addressed this approach from many different perspectives resulting in a variety of definitions of servant leadership. Greenleaf (1970) provides the most frequently referenced definition:

[Servant leadership] begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. . . . The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant—first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test . . . is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived? (p. 15)

Although complex, this definition sets forth the basic ideas of servant leadership that have been highlighted by current scholars. Servant leaders place the good of followers over their own self-interests and emphasize follower development (Hale & Fields, 2007). They demonstrate strong moral behavior toward followers (Graham, 1991; Walumbwa, Hartnell, & Oke, 2010), the organization, and other stakeholders (Ehrhart, 2004). Practicing servant leadership comes more naturally for some than others, but everyone can learn to be a servant leader (Spears, 2010). Although servant leadership is sometimes treated by others as a trait, in our discussion, servant leadership is viewed as a behavior.

Historical Basis of Servant Leadership

Robert K. Greenleaf coined the term servant leadership and is the author of the seminal works on the subject. Greenleaf’s persona and writings have significantly influenced how servant leadership has developed on the practical and theoretical level. He founded the Center for Applied Ethics in 1964, now the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, which provides a clearinghouse and focal point for research and writing on servant leadership.

Being a Servant Leader

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Serving on Southwest

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Greenleaf worked for 40 years at AT&T and, after retiring, began exploring how institutions function and how they could better serve society. He was intrigued by issues of power and authority and how individuals in organizations could creatively support each other. Decidedly against coercive leadership, Greenleaf advocated using communication to build consensus in groups.

Greenleaf credits his formulation of servant leadership to Hermann Hesse’s (1956) novel The Journey to the East. It tells the story of a group of travelers on a mythical journey who are accompanied by a servant who does menial chores for the travelers but also sustains them with his spirits and song. The servant’s presence has an extraordinary impact on the group. When the servant becomes lost and disappears from the group, the travelers fall into disarray and abandon the journey. Without the servant, they are unable to carry on. It was the servant who was ultimately leading the group, emerging as a leader through his selfless care of the travelers.

In addition to serving, Greenleaf states that a servant leader has a social responsibility to be concerned about the “have-nots” and those less privileged. If inequalities and social injustices exist, a servant leader tries to remove them (Graham, 1991). In becoming a servant leader, a leader uses less institutional power and control while shifting authority to those who are being led. Servant leadership values community because it provides a face-to-face opportunity for individuals to experience interdependence, respect, trust, and individual growth (Greenleaf, 1970).

Ten Characteristics of a Servant Leader

In an attempt to clarify servant leadership for practitioners, Spears (2002) identified 10 characteristics in Greenleaf’s writings that are central to the development of servant leadership. Together, these characteristics comprise the first model or conceptualization of servant leadership.

1. Listening. Communication between leaders and followers is an interactive process that includes sending and receiving messages (i.e., talking and listening). Servant leaders communicate by listening first. They recognize that listening is a learned discipline that involves hearing and being receptive to what others have to say. Through listening, servant leaders acknowledge the viewpoint of followers and validate these perspectives.

2. Empathy. Empathy is “standing in the shoes” of another person and attempting to see the world from that person’s point of view. Empathetic servant leaders demonstrate that they truly understand what followers are thinking and feeling. When a servant leader shows empathy, it is confirming and validating for the follower. It makes the follower feel unique.

Unexpected Servant Leaders

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3. Healing. To heal means to make whole. Servant leaders care about the personal well-being of their followers. They support followers by helping them overcome personal problems. Greenleaf argues that the process of healing is a two-way street—in helping followers become whole, servant leaders themselves are healed.

4. Awareness. For Greenleaf, awareness is a quality within servant leaders that makes them acutely attuned and receptive to their physical, social, and political environments. It includes understanding oneself and the impact one has on others. With awareness, servant leaders are able to step aside and view themselves and their own perspectives in the greater context of the situation.

5. Persuasion. Persuasion is clear and persistent communication that convinces others to change. As opposed to coercion, which utilizes positional authority to force compliance, persuasion creates change through the use of gentle nonjudgmental argument. According to Spears (2002), Greenleaf’s emphasis on persuasion over coercion is perhaps related to his denominational affiliation with the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

6. Conceptualization. Conceptualization refers to an individual’s ability to be a visionary for an organization, providing a clear sense of its goals and direction. This characteristic goes beyond day-to-day operational thinking to focus on the “big picture.” Conceptualization also equips servant leaders to respond to complex organizational problems in creative ways, enabling them to deal with the intricacies of the organization in relationship to its long-term goals.

7. Foresight. Foresight encompasses a servant leader’s ability to know the future. It is an ability to predict what is coming based on what is occurring in the present and what has happened in the past. For Greenleaf, foresight has an ethical dimension because he believes leaders should be held accountable for any failures to anticipate what reasonably could be foreseen and to act on that understanding.

8. Stewardship. Stewardship is about taking responsibility for the leadership role entrusted to the leader. Servant leaders accept the responsibility to carefully manage the people and organization they have been given to lead. In addition, they hold the organization in trust for the greater good of society.

Stewardship

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9. Commitment to the growth of people. Greenleaf’s conceptualization of servant leadership places a premium on treating each follower as a unique person with intrinsic value that goes beyond his or her tangible contributions to the organization. Servant leaders are committed to helping each person in the organization grow personally and professionally. Commitment can take many forms, including providing followers with opportunities for career development, helping them develop new work skills, taking a personal interest in the their ideas, and involving them in decision making (Spears, 2002).

10. Building community. Servant leadership fosters the development of community. A community is a collection of individuals who have shared interests and pursuits and feel a sense of unity and relatedness. Community allows followers to identify with something greater than themselves that they value. Servant leaders build community to provide a place where people can feel safe and connected with others, but are still allowed to express their own individuality.

These 10 characteristics of servant leadership represent Greenleaf’s seminal work on the servant as leader. They provide a creative lens from which to view the complexities of servant leadership.

Building a Theory About Servant Leadership

For more than three decades after Greenleaf’s original writings, servant leadership remained a set of loosely defined characteristics and normative principles. In this form it was widely accepted as a leadership approach, rather than a theory, that has strong heuristic and practical value. Praise for servant leadership came from a wide range of well-known leadership writers, including Bennis (2002), Blanchard and Hodges (2003), Covey (2002), DePree (2002), Senge (2002), and Wheatley (2002). At the same time, servant leadership was adopted as a guiding philosophy in many well-known organizations such as The Toro Company, Herman Miller, Synovus Financial Corporation, ServiceMaster, Men’s Wearhouse, Southwest Airlines, and TDIndustries (Spears, 2002). Although novel and paradoxical, the basic ideas and prescriptions of servant leadership resonated with many as an ideal way to run an organization.

More recently, researchers have begun to examine the conceptual underpinnings of servant leadership in an effort to build a theory about it. These studies have resulted in a wide array of models that describe servant leadership using a multitude of variables. For example, Russell and Stone (2002) developed a practical model of servant leadership that contained 20 attributes, nine functional characteristics (distinctive behaviors observed in the workplace), and 11 accompanying characteristics that augment these behaviors. Similarly, Patterson (2003) created a value-based model of servant leadership that distinguished seven constructs that characterize the virtues and shape the behaviors of servant leaders.

Dave Ramsey

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Servant Leadership Framework

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Table 11

SOURCE: Adapted from van Dierendonck, D. (2011). Servant leadership: A review and syntheses. Journal of Management, 37(4), 1228–1261.

Other conceptualizations of servant leadership have emerged from researchers’ efforts to develop and validate instruments to measure the core dimensions of the servant leadership process. Table 10.1 provides a summary of some of these studies, illustrating clearly the extensiveness of characteristics related to servant leadership. This table also exhibits the lack of agreement among researchers on what specific characteristics define servant leadership. While some of the studies include common characteristics, such as humility or empowerment, none of the studies conceptualize servant leadership in exactly the same way. In addition, Table 10.1 demonstrates how servant leadership is treated as a trait phenomenon (e.g., courage, humility) in some studies while other researchers regard it as a behavioral process (e.g., serving and developing others). Although scholars are not in agreement regarding the primary attributes of servant leadership, these studies provide the groundwork necessary for the development of a refined model of servant leadership.

Model of Servant Leadership

This chapter presents a servant leadership model based on Liden, Wayne, Zhao, and Henderson (2008) and Liden, Panaccio, Hu, and Meuser (2014) that has three main components: antecedent conditions, servant leader behaviors, and leadership outcomes (Figure 10.1). The model is intended to clarify the phenomenon of servant leadership and provide a framework for understanding its complexities.

Antecedent Conditions

As shown on the left side of Figure 10.1, three antecedent, or existing, conditions have an impact on servant leadership: context and culture, leader attributes, and follower receptivity. These conditions are not inclusive of all the conditions that affect servant leadership, but do represent some factors likely to influence the leadership process.

Context and Culture.

Servant leadership does not occur in a vacuum but occurs within a given organizational context and a particular culture. The nature of each of these affects the way servant leadership is carried out. For example, in health care and nonprofit settings, the norm of caring is more prevalent, while for Wall Street corporations it is more common to have competition as an operative norm. Because the norms differ, the ways servant leadership is performed may vary.

Dimensions of culture (see Chapter 16, “Culture and Leadership”) will also influence servant leadership. For example, in cultures where power distance is low (e.g., Nordic Europe) and power is shared equally among people at all levels of society, servant leadership may be more common. In cultures with low humane orientation (e.g., Germanic Europe), servant leadership may present more of a challenge. The point is that cultures influence the way servant leadership is able to be achieved.

Figure 10.1 Model of Servant Leadership

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SOURCE: Adapted from Liden, R. C., Panaccio, A., Hu, J., & Meuser, J. D. (2014). Servant leadership: Antecedents, consequences, and contextual moderators. In D. V. Day (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of leadership and organizations. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press; and van Dierendonck, D. (2011). Servant leadership: A review and syntheses. Journal of Management, 37(4), 1228–1261.

Leader Attributes.

As in any leadership situation, the qualities and disposition of the leader influence the servant leadership process. Individuals bring their own traits and ideas about leading to leadership situations. Some may feel a deep desire to serve or are strongly motivated to lead. Others may be driven by a sense of higher calling (Sendjaya, Sarros, & Santora, 2008). These dispositions shape how individuals demonstrate servant leadership. In addition, people differ in areas such as moral development, emotional intelligence, and self-determinedness, and these traits interact with their ability to engage in servant leadership.

The Ripple Effect

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Antecedents of Servant Leadership

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Follower Receptivity.

The receptivity of followers is a factor that appears to influence the impact of servant leadership on outcomes such as personal and organizational job performance. Follower receptivity concerns the question “Do all followers show a desire for servant leadership?” Research suggests the answer may be no. Some followers do not want to work with servant leaders. They equate servant leadership with micromanagement, and report that they do not want their leader to get to know them or try to help, develop, or guide them (Liden, Wayne, et al., 2008). Similarly, Meuser, Liden, Wayne, and Henderson (2011) found empirical evidence showing that when servant leadership was matched with followers who desired it, this type of leadership had a positive impact on performance and organizational citizenship behavior. The opposite was seen when there was no match between servant leadership and the desire of followers for it. It appears that, for some followers, servant leadership has a positive impact and, for others, servant leadership is not effective.

Servant Leader Behaviors

The middle component of Figure 10.1 identifies seven servant leader behaviors that are the core of the servant leadership process. These behaviors emerged from Liden, Wayne, et al.’s (2008) vigorous efforts to develop and validate a measure of servant leadership. The findings from their research provide evidence for the soundness of viewing servant leadership as a multidimensional process. Collectively, these behaviors are the central focus of servant leadership. Individually, each behavior makes a unique contribution.

Conceptualizing.

Conceptualizing refers to the servant leader’s thorough understanding of the organization—its purposes, complexities, and mission. This capacity allows servant leaders to think through multifaceted problems, to know if something is going wrong, and to address problems creatively in accordance with the overall goals of the organization.

For example, Kate Simpson, a senior nursing supervisor in an emergency room of a large hospital, uses conceptualizing to lead her department. She fully understands the mission of the hospital and, at the same time, knows how to effectively manage staff on a day-to-day basis. Her staff members say Kate has a sixth sense about what is best for people. She is known for her wisdom in dealing with difficult patients and helping staff diagnose complex medical problems. Her abilities, competency, and value as a servant leader earned her the hospital’s Caregiver of the Year Award.

Servant Leader Beginnings

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Emotional Healing.

Emotional healing involves being sensitive to the personal concerns and well-being of others. It includes recognizing others’ problems and being willing to take the time to address them. Servant leaders who exhibit emotional healing make themselves available to others, stand by them, and provide them with support.

Emotional healing is apparent in the work of Father John, a much sought-after hospice priest on Chicago’s South Side. Father John has a unique approach to hospice patients: He doesn’t encourage, give advice, or read Scripture. Instead he simply listens to them. “When you face death, the only important thing in life is relationships,” he says. “I practice the art of standing by. I think it is more important to come just to be there than to do anything else.”

Putting Followers First.

Putting others first is the sine qua non of servant leadership—the defining characteristic. It means using actions and words that clearly demonstrate to followers that their concerns are a priority, including placing followers’ interests and success ahead of those of the leader. It may mean a leader breaks from his or her own tasks to assist followers with theirs.

Dr. Autumn Klein, a widely published health education professor at a major research university, is responsible for several ongoing large interdisciplinary public health studies. Although she is the principal investigator on these studies, when multiauthored articles are submitted for publication, Dr. Klein puts the names of other researchers before her own. She chooses to let others be recognized because she knows it will benefit them in their annual performance reviews. She puts the success of her colleagues ahead of her own interests.

Helping Followers Grow and Succeed.

This behavior refers to knowing followers’ professional or personal goals and helping them to accomplish those aspirations. Servant leaders make followers’ career development a priority, including mentoring followers and providing them with support. At its core, helping followers grow and succeed is about aiding these individuals to become self-actualized, reaching their fullest human potential.

Community Health Nursing

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An example of how a leader helps others grow and succeed is Mr. Yon Kim, a high school orchestra teacher who consistently receives praise from parents for his outstanding work with students. Mr. Kim is a skilled violinist with high musical standards, but he does not let that get in the way of helping each student, from the most highly accomplished to the least capable. Students like Mr. Kim because he listens to them and treats them as adults. He gives feedback without being judgmental. Many of his former students have gone on to become music majors. They often visit Mr. Kim to let him know how important he was to them. Yon Kim is a servant leader who helps students grow through his teaching and guidance.

Behaving Ethically.

Behaving ethically is doing the right thing in the right way. It is holding to strong ethical standards, including being open, honest, and fair with followers. Servant leaders do not compromise their ethical principles in order to achieve success.

An example of ethical behavior is how CEO Elizabeth Angliss responded when one of her employees brought her a copy of a leaked document from their company’s chief competitor, outlining its plans to go after some of Angliss’s largest customers. Although she knew the document undoubtedly had valuable information, she shredded it instead of reading it. She then called the rival CEO and told him she had received the document and wanted him to be aware that he might have a security issue within his company. “I didn’t know if what I received was real or not,” she explains. “But it didn’t matter. If it was the real thing, someone on his end did something wrong, and my company wasn’t going to capitalize on that.”

Empowering.

Empowering refers to allowing followers the freedom to be independent, make decisions on their own, and be self-sufficient. It is a way for leaders to share power with followers by allowing them to have control. Empowerment builds followers’ confidence in their own capacities to think and act on their own because they are given the freedom to handle difficult situations in the way they feel is best.

For example, a college professor teaching a large lecture class empowers two teaching assistants assigned to him by letting them set their own office hours, independently grade student papers, and practice teaching by giving one of the weekly class lectures. They become confident in their teaching abilities and bring new ideas to the professor to try in the classroom.

Creating Value for the Community.

Servant leaders create value for the community by consciously and intentionally giving back to the community. They are involved in local activities and encourage followers to also volunteer for community service. Creating value for the community is one way for leaders to link the purposes and goals of an organization with the broader purposes of the community.

Community Building

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An example of creating value for the community can be seen in the leadership of Mercedes Urbanez, principal of Alger High School. Alger is an alternative high school in a midsize community with three other high schools. Mercedes’s care and concern for students at Alger is remarkable. Ten percent of Alger’s students have children, so the school provides on-site day care. Fifteen percent of the students are on probation, and Alger is often their last stop before dropping out entirely and resuming criminal activities. While the other schools in town foster competition and push advanced placement courses, Alger focuses on removing the barriers that keep its students from excelling and offers courses that provide what its students need including multimedia skills, reading remediation, and parenting.

Under Mercedes, Alger High School is a model alternative school appreciated at every level in the community. Students, who have failed in other schools, find they have a safe place to go where they are accepted and adults try to help them solve their problems. Law enforcement supports the school’s efforts to help these students get back into the mainstream of society and away from crime. The other high schools in the community know that Alger provides services they find difficult to provide. Mercedes Urbanez serves the have-nots in the community, and the whole community reaps the benefits.

Outcomes

Although servant leadership focuses primarily on leader behaviors, it is also important to examine the potential outcomes of servant leadership. The outcomes of servant leadership are follower performance and growth, organizational performance, and societal impact(see Figure 10.1). As Greenleaf highlighted in his original work (1970), the central goal of servant leadership is to create healthy organizations that nurture individual growth, strengthen organizational performance, and, in the end, produce a positive impact on society.

Follower Performance and Growth.

In the model of servant leadership, most of the servant leader behaviors focus directly on recognizing followers’ contributions and helping them realize their human potential. The expected outcome for followers is greater self-actualization. That is, followers will realize their full capabilities when leaders nurture them, help them with their personal goals, and give them control.

Servant Leadership Review

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Another outcome of servant leadership, suggested by Meuser et al. (2011), is that it will have a favorable impact on follower in-role performance—the way followers do their assigned work. When servant leaders were matched with followers who were open to this type of leadership, the results were positive. Followers became more effective at accomplishing their jobs and fulfilling their job descriptions.

Finally, another expected result of servant leadership is that followers themselves may become servant leaders. Greenleaf’s conceptualization of servant leadership hypothesizes that when followers receive caring and empowerment from ethical leaders they, in turn, will likely begin treating others in this way. Servant leadership would produce a ripple effect in which servant leaders create more servant leaders. Further research is needed, however, to test this hypothesis.

Organizational Performance.

In addition to positively affecting followers and their performance, initial research has shown that servant leadership has an influence on organizational performance. Several studies have found a positive relationship between servant leadership and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), which are follower behaviors that go beyond the basic requirements of their duties and help the overall functioning of the organization (Ehrhart, 2004; Liden, Wayne, et al., 2008; Neubert, Kacmar, Carlson, Chonko, & Roberts, 2008; Walumbwa et al., 2010).

Servant leadership also affects the way organizational teams function. Hu and Liden (2011) found that servant leadership enhanced team effectiveness by increasing the members’ shared confidence that they could be effective as a work group. Furthermore, their results showed that servant leadership contributed positively to team potency by enhancing group process and clarity. However, when servant leadership was absent, team potency decreased, despite clearer goals. In essence, it frustrates people to know exactly what the goal is, but not get the support needed to accomplish the goal.

Current research on organizational outcomes is in its initial stages. Further study is needed to substantiate the direct and indirect ways that servant leadership is related to organizational performance.

Cultural Servant Leadership

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Societal Impact.

Another outcome expected of servant leadership is that it is likely to have a positive impact on society. Although societal impact is not commonly measured in studies of servant leadership, there are examples of servant leadership’s impact that are highly visible. One example we are all familiar with is the work of Mother Teresa whose years of service for the hungry, homeless, and unwanted resulted in the creation of a new religious order, the Missionaries of Charity. This order now has more than 1 million workers in over 40 countries that operate hospitals, schools, and hospices for the poor. Mother Teresa’s servant leadership has had an extraordinary impact on society throughout the world.

In the business world, an example of the societal impact of servant leadership can be observed at Southwest Airlines (see Case 10.3). Leaders at Southwest instituted an “others first” organizational philosophy in the management of the company, which starts with how it treats its employees. This philosophy is adhered to by those employees who themselves become servant leaders in regards to the airline’s customers. Because the company thrives, it impacts society by providing jobs in the communities it serves and, to a lesser extent, by providing the customers who rely on it with transportation.

In his conceptualization of servant leadership, Greenleaf did not frame the process as one that was intended to directly change society. Rather, he visualizes leaders who become servants first and listen to others and help them grow. As a result, their organizations are healthier, ultimately benefiting society. In this way, the long-term outcomes of putting others first include positive social change and helping society flourish.

Summary of the Model of Servant Leadership

In summary, the model of servant leadership consists of three components: antecedent conditions, servant leader behaviors, and outcomes. The central focus of the model is the seven behaviors of leaders that foster servant leadership: conceptualizing, emotional healing, putting followers first, helping followers grow and succeed, behaving ethically, empowering, and creating value for the community. These behaviors are influenced by context and culture, the leader’s attributes, and the followers’ receptivity to this kind of leadership. When individuals engage in servant leadership, it is likely to improve outcomes at the individual, organizational, and societal levels.

Servant Leaders

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Iron Man Helps the Homeless

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How Does Servant Leadership Work?

The servant leadership approach works differently than many of the prior theories we have discussed in this book. For example, it is unlike the trait approach (Chapter 2), which emphasizes that leaders should have certain specific traits. It is also unlike path–goal theory (Chapter 6), which lays out principles regarding what style of leadership is needed in various situations. Instead, servant leadership focuses on the behaviors leaders should exhibit to put followers first and to support followers’ personal development. It is concerned with how leaders treat followers and the outcomes that are likely to emerge.

So what is the mechanism that explains how servant leadership works? It begins when leaders commit themselves to putting their followers first, being honest with them, and treating them fairly. Servant leaders make it a priority to listen to their followers and develop strong long-term relationships with them. This allows leaders to understand the abilities, needs, and goals of followers, which, in turn, allows these followers to achieve their full potential. When many leaders in an organization adopt a servant leadership orientation, a culture of serving others within and outside the organization is created (Liden, Wayne, et al., 2008).

Servant leadership works best when leaders are altruistic and have a strong motivation and deep-seated interest in helping others. In addition, for successful servant leadership to occur, it is important that followers are open and receptive to servant leaders who want to empower them and help them grow.

It should be noted that in much of the writing on servant leadership there is an underlying philosophical position, originally set forth by Greenleaf (1970), that leaders should be altruistic and humanistic. Rather than using their power to dominate others, leaders should make every attempt to share their power and enable others to grow and become autonomous. Leadership framed from this perspective downplays competition in the organization and promotes egalitarianism.

Finally, in an ideal world, servant leadership results in community and societal change. Individuals within an organization who care for each other become committed to developing an organization that cares for the community. Organizations that adopt a servant leadership culture are committed to helping those in need who operate outside of the organization. Servant leadership extends to serving the “have-nots” in society (Graham, 1991). Case 10.2 in this chapter provides a striking example of how one servant leader’s work led to positive outcomes for many throughout the world.

Service Leadership

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Strengths

In its current stage of development, research on servant leadership has made several positive contributions to the field of leadership. First, while there are other leadership approaches such as transformational and authentic leadership that include an ethical dimension, servant leadership is unique in the way it makes altruism the central component of the leadership process. Servant leadership argues unabashedly that leaders should put followers first, share control with followers, and embrace their growth. It is the only leadership approach that frames the leadership process around the principle of caring for others.

Second, servant leadership provides a counterintuitive and provocative approach to the use of influence, or power, in leadership. Nearly all other theories of leadership treat influence as a positive factor in the leadership process, but servant leadership does just the opposite. It argues that leaders should not dominate, direct, or control; but rather, leaders should share control and influence. To give up control rather than seek control is the goal of servant leadership. Servant leadership is an influence process that does not incorporate influence in a traditional way.

Third, rather than imply that servant leadership is a panacea, research on servant leadership has shown there are conditions under which servant leadership is not a preferred kind of leadership. Findings indicate that servant leadership may not be effective in contexts where followers are not open to being guided, supported, and empowered. Followers’ readiness to receive servant leadership moderates the potential usefulness of leading from this approach (Liden, Wayne, et al., 2008).

Fourth, recent research has resulted in a sound measure of servant leadership. Using a rigorous methodology, Liden, Wayne, et al. (2008) developed and validated the Servant Leadership Questionnaire (SLQ), which appears at the end of the chapter. It comprises 28 items that identify seven distinct dimensions of servant leadership. Studies show that the SLQ is unique and measures aspects of leadership that are different from those measured by the transformational and leader–member exchange theories (Liden, Wayne, et al., 2008; Schaubroeck, Lam, & Peng, 2011). The SLQ has proved to be a suitable instrument for use in future research on servant leadership.

Criticisms

In addition to the positive features of servant leadership, this approach has several limitations. First, the paradoxical nature of the title “servant leadership” creates semantic noise that diminishes the potential value of the approach. Because the name appears contradictory, servant leadership is prone to be perceived as fanciful or whimsical. In addition, being a servant leader implies following, and following is viewed as the opposite of leading. Although servant leadership incorporates influence, the mechanism of how influence functions as a part of servant leadership is not fully explicated in the approach.

Second, there is debate among servant leadership scholars regarding the core dimensions of the process. As illustrated in Table 10.1, servant leadership is hypothesized to include a multitude of abilities, traits, and behaviors. To date, researchers have been unable to reach consensus on a common definition or theoretical framework for servant leadership (van Dierendonck, 2011). Until a larger body of findings is published on servant leadership, the robustness of theoretical formulations about it will remain limited.

Third, a large segment of the writing on servant leadership has a prescriptive overtone that implies that good leaders “put others first.” While advocating an altruistic approach to leadership is commendable, it has a utopian ring because it conflicts with individual autonomy and other principles of leadership such as directing, concern for production, goal setting, and creating a vision (Gergen, 2006). Furthermore, along with the “value-push” prescriptive quality, there is an almost moralistic nature that seems to surround servant leadership. As a result, many practitioners of servant leadership are not necessarily researchers who want to conduct studies to test the validity of servant leadership theory.

Finally, it is unclear why “conceptualizing” is included as one of the servant leadership behaviors in the model of servant leadership (see Figure 10.1). Is conceptualizing actually a behavior, or is it a cognitive ability? Furthermore, what is the rationale for identifying conceptualizing as a determinant of servant leadership? Being able to conceptualize is undoubtedly an important cognitive capacity in all kinds of leadership, but why is it a defining characteristic of servant leadership? A clearer explanation for its central role in servant leadership needs to be addressed in future research.

Application

Servant leadership can be applied at all levels of management and in all types of organizations. Within a philosophical framework of caring for others, servant leadership sets forth a list of behaviors that individuals can engage in if they want to be servant leaders. The prescribed behaviors of servant leadership are not esoteric; they are easily understood and generally applicable to a variety of leadership situations.

Unlike leader–member exchange theory (Chapter 7) or authentic leadership (Chapter 9), which are not widely used in training and development, servant leadership has been used extensively in a variety of organizations for more than 30 years. Many organizations in the Fortune 500 (e.g., Starbucks, AT&T, Southwest Airlines, and Vanguard Group) employ ideas from servant leadership. Training in servant leadership typically involves self-assessment exercises, educational sessions, and goal setting. The content of servant leadership is straightforward and accessible to followers at every level within the organization.

Liden, Wayne, et al. (2008) suggest that organizations that want to build a culture of servant leadership should be careful to select people who are interested in and capable of building long-term relationships with followers. Furthermore, because “behaving ethically” is positively related to job performance, organizations should focus on selecting people who have high integrity and strong ethics. In addition, organizations should develop training programs that spend time helping leaders develop their emotional intelligence, ethical decision making, and skills for empowering others. Behaviors such as these will help leaders nurture followers to their full potential.

Servant leadership is taught at many colleges and universities around the world and is the focus of numerous independent coaches, trainers, and consultants. In the United States, Gonzaga University and Regent University are recognized as prominent leaders in this area because of the academic attention they have given to servant leadership. Overall, the most recognized and comprehensive center for training in servant leadership is the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership (www.greenleaf.org).

In summary, servant leadership provides a philosophy and set of behaviors that individuals in the organizational setting can learn and develop. The following section features cases illustrating how servant leadership has been manifested in different ways.

Emotional Intelligence in Servant Leaders

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Case Studies

This section provides three case studies (Cases 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3) that illustrate different facets of servant leadership. The first case describes the servant leadership of a high school secretary. The second case is about Dr. Paul Farmer and his efforts to stop disease in Haiti and other parts of the world. The third case is about the leaders of Southwest Airlines who created a servant leadership culture that permeates the company. At the end of each case, several questions are provided to help you analyze the case from the perspective of servant leadership.

Case 10.1

Everyone Loves Mrs. Noble

Sharon Noble is in charge of the main office at Essex High School, a position she has held for nearly 30 years. She does not have a college degree, but that does not seem to hinder her work as “secretary” for the school. She is an extravert, and people say her jokes are corny, but she runs the office efficiently and well, getting along with teachers and students and dealing with the rules and procedures that govern day-to-day Essex school life.

When people describe Sharon, they say that she is wise and seems to know just about everything there is to know about the school. She understands the core curriculum, testing, dress code, skip policy, after-school programs, helicopter parents, and much more. If students want to have a bake sale, she tells them the best way to do it. If they want to take Advanced Placement courses, she tells them which ones to take. The list of what she knows is endless. For years parents have told one another, “If you want to know anything about the school, go to Mrs. Noble—she is Essex High School.”

There is nothing pretentious about Mrs. Noble. She drives an old car and wears simple clothes. Students say they’ve never seen her wear makeup. But nevertheless, she is still “with it” when it comes to student fads and eccentricities. When students had long hair and fringed vests in the 1970s, Sharon was cool with it. She never mocks students who are “way out” and seems to even enjoy these students. When students wear clothes to get attention because they feel ostracized, Sharon is accepting and even acknowledges the “uniqueness” of their act, unless it violates the dress code. In those cases, she talks nonjudgmentally with students about their clothing, guiding them to make different choices to stay out of trouble.

Even though it isn’t technically in her job description, Mrs. Noble excels at helping juniors prepare applications for college. She knows all the requirements and deadlines and the materials required by the different universities. She spends hours pushing, nudging, and convincing students to stay on task and get their applications submitted. She doesn’t care if students go to Ivy League schools, state schools, or community colleges; but she does care if they go on to school. Mrs. Noble regrets not having been able to attend college, so it is important to her that “her” students do everything they can to go.

At times her job is challenging. For example, the principal made teaching assignments that the faculty did not like, and Sharon was the one they shared their concerns with. She was a great listener and helped them see the differing perspectives of the situation. One year, when a student was in a car accident and unable to come to school for several months, Sharon personally worked with each one of the student’s teachers to get her assignments, delivered them to the student’s home, and picked them up when they were complete. When the seniors held a dance marathon to raise money for cancer research, it was Sharon who pledged the most, even though she didn’t make very much as the school’s secretary. She wanted to make sure each senior participating had at least one pledge on his or her roster; in most cases it was Sharon’s.

In 2010, the class of 1989 had its 25-year reunion, and of all the memories shared, the most were about Sharon Noble. Essex High School had a wonderful principal, many good teachers, and great coaches, but when alumni were asked, who runs the school? The answer was always “Mrs. Noble.”

Questions

1. What servant leader behaviors would you say Mrs. Noble demonstrates?

2. Who are Mrs. Noble’s followers?

3. Based on the model of servant leadership (Figure 10.1), what outcomes has Mrs. Noble’s servant leadership attained?

4. Can you think of someone at a school or organization you were part of who acted like Mrs. Noble? Describe what this person did and how it affected you and the school or organization.

Case 10.2

Doctor to the Poor

“Education wasn’t what he wanted to perform on the world . . . He was after transformation.”

—Kidder (2003, p. 44)

When Paul Farmer graduated from Duke University at 22, he was unsure whether he wanted to be an anthropologist or a doctor. So he went to Haiti. As a student, Paul had become obsessed with the island nation after meeting many Haitians at local migrant camps. Paul was used to the grittier side of life; he had grown up in a family of eight that lived in a converted school bus and later on a houseboat moored in a bayou. But what he observed at the migrant camps and learned from his discussions with Haitian immigrants made his childhood seem idyllic.

In Haiti, he volunteered for a small charity called Eye Care Haiti, which conducted outreach clinics in rural areas. He was drawn in by the deplorable conditions and lives of the Haitian people and determined to use his time there to learn everything he could about illness and disease afflicting the poor. Before long, Paul realized that he had found his life’s purpose: He’d be a doctor to poor people, and he’d start in Haiti.

Paul entered Harvard University in 1984 and, for the first two years, traveled back and forth to Haiti where he conducted a health census in the village of Cange. During that time he conceived of a plan to fight disease in Haiti by developing a public health system that included vaccination programs and clean water and sanitation. The heart of this program, however, would be a cadre of people from the villages who were trained to administer medicines, teach health classes, treat minor ailments, and recognize the symptoms of grave illnesses such as HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria.

His vision became reality in 1987, thanks to a wealthy donor who gave $1 million to help Paul create Partners In Health (PIH). At first it wasn’t much of an organization—no staff, a small advisory board, and three committed volunteers. But its work was impressive: PIH began building schools and clinics in and around Cange. Soon PIH established a training program for health outreach workers and organized a mobile unit to screen residents of area villages for preventable diseases.

In 1990, Paul finished his medical studies and became a fellow in infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He was able to remain in Haiti for most of each year, returning to Boston to work at Brigham for a few months at a time, sleeping in the basement of PIH headquarters.

It wasn’t long before PIH’s successes started gaining attention outside of Haiti. Because of its success treating the disease in Haiti, the World Health Organization appointed Paul and PIH staffer Jim Yong Kim to spearhead pilot treatment programs for multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Paul’s attention was now diverted to the slums of Peru and Russia where cases of MDR-TB were on the rise. In Peru, Paul and PIH encountered barriers in treating MDR-TB that had nothing to do with the disease. They ran headlong into governmental resistance and had to battle to obtain expensive medications. Paul learned to gently navigate governmental obstacles, while the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation stepped in with a $44.7 million grant to help fund the program.

In 2005, PIH turned its attention to another part of the world: Africa, the epicenter of the global AIDS pandemic. Beginning its efforts in Rwanda, where few people had been tested or were receiving treatment, PIH tested 30,000 people in 8 months and enrolled nearly 700 in drug therapy to treat the disease. Soon, the organization expanded its efforts to the African nations of Lesotho and Malawi (Partners In Health, 2011).

But Paul’s efforts weren’t just in far-flung reaches of the world. From his work with patients at Brigham, Paul observed the needs of the impoverished in Boston. The Prevention and Access to Care and Treatment (PACT) project was created to offer drug therapy for HIV and diabetes for the poor residents of the Roxbury and Dorchester districts. PIH has since sent PACT project teams across the United States to provide support to other community health programs.

By 2009, Partners in Health had grown to 13,600 employees working in health centers and hospitals in 8 countries (Partners In Health, 2013), including the Dominican Republic, Peru, Mexico, Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi, Navajo Nation (U.S.), and Russia. Each year the organization increases the number of facilities and personnel that provide health care to the residents of some of the most impoverished and diseased places in the world. Paul continues to travel around the world, monitoring programs and raising funds for PIH in addition to leading the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Questions

1. Would you characterize Paul Farmer as a servant leader? Explain your answer.

2. Putting others first is the essence of servant leadership. In what way does Paul Farmer put others first?

3. Another characteristic of a servant leader is getting followers to serve. Who are Paul’s followers, and how did they become servants to his vision?

4. What role do you think Paul’s childhood had in his development as a servant leader?

Case 10.3

Servant Leadership Takes Flight

A young mother traveling with a toddler on a long cross-country flight approached the flight attendant looking rather frantic. Because of weather and an hour-and-a-half wait on the runway to take off, the plane would arrive at its destination several hours late. The plane had made an intermediate stop in Denver to pick up passengers but not long enough for travelers to disembark. The mother told the attendant that with the delays and the long flight, her child had already eaten all the food she brought and if she didn’t feed him soon he was bound to have a total meltdown. “Can I get off for five minutes just to run and get something for him to eat?” she pleaded.

“I have to recommend strongly that you stay on the plane,” the attendant said, sternly. But then, with a smile, she added, “But I can get off. The plane won’t leave without me. What can I get your son to eat?”

Turns out that flight attendant not only got the little boy a meal, but brought four other children on board meals as well. Anyone who has traveled in a plane with screaming children knows that this flight attendant not only took care of some hungry children and frantic parents, but also indirectly saw to the comfort of a planeload of other passengers.

This story doesn’t surprise anyone familiar with Southwest Airlines. The airline’s mission statement is posted every 3 feet at all Southwest locations: Follow the Golden Rule—treat people the way you want to be treated.

It’s a philosophy that the company takes to heart and begins with how it treats employees. Colleen Barrett, the former president of Southwest Airlines, says the company’s cofounder and her mentor, Herb Kelleher, was adamant that “a happy and motivated workforce will essentially extend that goodwill to Southwest’s customers” (Knowledge@Wharton, 2008). If the airline took care of its employees, the employees would take care of the customers, and the shareholders would win, too.

From the first days of Southwest Airlines, Herb resisted establishing traditional hierarchies within the company. He focused on finding employees with substance, willing to say what they thought and committed to doing things differently. Described as “an egalitarian spirit,” he employed a collaborative approach to management that involved his associates at every step.

Colleen, who went from working as Herb’s legal secretary to being the president of the airline, is living proof of his philosophy. A poor girl from rural Vermont who got the opportunity of a lifetime to work for Herb when he was still just a lawyer, she rose from his aide to become vice president of administration, then executive vice president of customers, and then president and chief operating officer in 2001 (which she stepped down from in 2008). She had no formal training in aviation, but that didn’t matter. Herb “always treated me as a complete equal to him,” she says.

It was Colleen who instituted the Golden Rule as the company motto and developed a model that focuses on employee satisfaction and issues first, followed by the needs of the passengers. The company hired employees for their touchy-feely attitudes and trained them for skill. Southwest Airlines developed a culture that celebrated and encouraged humor. The example of being themselves on the job started at the top with Herb and Colleen.

This attitude has paid off. Southwest Airlines posted a profit for 35 consecutive years and continues to make money while other airlines’ profits are crashing. Colleen says the most important numbers on the balance sheet, however, are those that indicate how many millions of people have become frequent flyers of the airline, a number that grows every year.

Questions

1. What type of servant leader behaviors did Herb Kelleher exhibit in starting the airline? What about Colleen Barrett?

2. How do the leaders of Southwest Airlines serve others? What others are they serving?

3. Southwest Airlines emphasizes the Golden Rule. What role does the Golden Rule play in servant leadership? Is it always a part of servant leadership? Discuss.

4. Based on Figure 10.1, describe the outcomes of servant leadership at Southwest Airlines, and how follower receptivity may have influenced those outcomes.

Leadership Instrument

Many questionnaires have been used to measure servant leadership (see Table 10.1). Because of its relevance to the content, the Servant Leadership Questionnaire (SLQ) by Liden, Wayne, et al. (2008) was chosen for inclusion in this chapter. It is a 28-item scale that measures seven major dimensions of servant leadership: conceptualizing, emotional healing, putting followers first, helping followers grow and succeed, behaving ethically, empowering, and creating value for the community. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, Liden, Wayne, et al. established the multiple dimensions of this scale and described how it is uniquely different from other leadership measures.

By completing the SLQ you will gain an understanding of how servant leadership is measured and explore where you stand on the different dimensions of servant leadership. Servant leadership is a complex process, and taking the SLQ is one way to discover the dynamics of how it works.

Servant Leadership Questionnaire

Instructions: Select two people who know you in a leadership capacity such as a coworker, fellow group member, or follower. Make two copies of this questionnaire and give a copy to each individual you have chosen. Using the following 7-point scale, ask them to indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with the following statements as they pertain to your leadership. In these statements, “He/She” is referring to you in a leadership capacity.

Image 15

SOURCE: Reprinted (adapted version) from “Servant Leadership: Development of a Multidimensional Measure and Multi-Level Assessment,” by R. C. Liden, S. J. Wayne, H. Zhao, and D. Henderson, 2008, The Leadership Quarterly, 19, 161–177. Copyright © Reprinted with permission from Elsevier Science.

Scoring

Using the questionnaires on which others assessed your leadership, take the separate scores for each item, add them together, and divide that sum by two. This will give you the average score for that item. For example, if Person A assessed you at 4 for Item 2, and Person B marked you as a 6, your score for Item 2 would be 5.

Once you have averaged each item’s scores, use the following steps to complete the scoring of the questionnaire:

1. Add up the scores on 1, 8, 15, and 22. This is your score for emotional healing.

2. Add up the scores for 2, 9, 16, and 23. This is your score for creating value for the community.

3. Add up the scores for 3, 10, 17, and 24. This is your score for conceptual skills.

4. Add up the scores for 4, 11, 18, and 25. This is your score for empowering.

5. Add up the scores for 5, 12, 19, and 26. This is your score for helping followers grow and succeed.

6. Add up the scores for 6, 13, 20, and 27. This is your score for putting followers first.

7. Add up the scores for 7, 14, 21, and 28. This is your score for behaving ethically.

Scoring Interpretation

· High range: A score between 23 and 28 means you strongly exhibit this servant leadership behavior.

· Moderate range: A score between 14 and 22 means you tend to exhibit this behavior in an average way.

· Low range: A score between 8 and 13 means you exhibit this leadership below the average or expected degree.

· Extremely low range: A score between 0 and 7 means you are not inclined to exhibit this leadership behavior at all.

The scores you received on the Servant Leadership Questionnaire indicate the degree to which you exhibit the seven behaviors characteristic of a servant leader. You can use the results to assess areas in which you have strong servant leadership behaviors and areas in which you may strive to improve.

Summary

Originating in the seminal work of Greenleaf (1970), servant leadership is a paradoxical approach to leadership that challenges our traditional beliefs about leadership and influence. Servant leadership emphasizes that leaders should be attentive to the needs of followers, empower them, and help them develop their full human capacities.

Servant leaders make a conscious choice to serve first—to place the good of followers over the leaders’ self-interests. They build strong relationships with others, are empathic and ethical, and lead in ways that serve the greater good of followers, the organization, the community, and society at large.

Based on an idea from Hermann Hesse’s (1956) novel The Journey to the East, Greenleaf argued that the selfless servant in a group has an extraordinary impact on the other members. Servant leaders attend fully to the needs of followers, are concerned with the less privileged, and aim to remove inequalities and social injustices. Because servant leaders shift authority to those who are being led, they exercise less institutional power and control.

Scholars have conceptualized servant leadership in multiple ways. According to Spears (2002), there are 10 major characteristics of servant leadership: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community. Additional efforts by social science researchers to develop and validate measures of servant leadership have resulted in an extensive list of other servant leadership attributes.

Liden, Panaccio, et al. (2014) have created a promising model of servant leadership that has three main components: antecedent conditions, servant leader behaviors, and leadership outcomes. Antecedent conditions that are likely to impact servant leaders include context and culture, leader attributes, and follower receptivity. Central to the servant leader process are the seven servant leader behaviors: conceptualizing, emotional healing, putting followers first, helping followers grow and succeed, behaving ethically, empowering, and creating value for the community. The outcomes of servant leadership are follower performance and growth, organizational performance, and societal impact.

Research on servant leadership has several strengths. First, it is unique because it makes altruism the main component of the leadership process. Second, servant leadership provides a counterintuitive and provocative approach to the use of influence wherein leaders give up control rather than seek control. Third, rather than a panacea, research has shown that there are conditions under which servant leadership is not a preferred kind of leadership. Last, recent research has resulted in a sound measure of servant leadership (Servant Leadership Questionnaire) that identifies seven distinct dimensions of the process.

The servant leadership approach also has limitations. First, the paradoxical nature of the title “servant leadership” creates semantic noise that diminishes the potential value of the approach. Second, no consensus exists on a common theoretical framework for servant leadership. Third, servant leadership has a utopian ring that conflicts with traditional approaches to leadership. Last, it is not clear why “conceptualizing” is a defining characteristic of servant leadership.

Despite the limitations, servant leadership continues to be an engaging approach to leadership that holds much promise. As more research is done to test the substance and assumptions of servant leadership, a better understanding of the complexities of the process will emerge.

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