Servant Leadership : Menyoal Aspek Spiritual dalam Kepemimpinan

Abstract

This article aims to show that the spiritual aspect must be highlighted in terms of leadership style and significance, because every leader is always marked with oath of office before fulfilling his tour of duty. Leaders should also be accountable not only on the horizontal level but also at the vertical level. With phenomenological studies and literature about the practice of leadership is faced with a number of theories about leadership and then to be synthesized the more authentic leaderships than just imaging or false branding leadership. Current assumption tends to say that leadership (either in political or organizational sphere) is merely a sociological problem devoid of spiritual aspects. However, seen from the historical development of leadership perspective, it is never excluded from the spiritual dimension. In the form of manipulative style, some versions of leadership are derived from the “sky” (gods), so then these gave way to tyrannical king and rulers’ model of leadership. In this article, I will argue that these days one must ponder on the birth and growth of authentic leadership as popularized by Robert K. Greenleaf, framed within the term of servant leadership. This article resumes on the conviction that authentic leadership will give more benefit to develop the life system as well as the purpose of leadership itself rather than merely the pseudo leadership, which actually, in the long run, will damage the people because of its failure to meet members’ expectations in satisfactory way.