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Although the leadership philosophies mostly represented the tenets of serv- ant leadership, the engineering mindset did push through in a sense that some of the leaders also mentioned proficiency in renewal, business, and general knowledge to be a part of their leadership philosophy. This was men- tioned to be especially relevant in the focal technology industry.
...it stems from the industry we operate in a little bit, this is a data driven, substance driven organisation. So in this, you al- ways need to know what you are doing and understand the
logic behind how these things work.
-Leader 8
However, many leaders did not explicitly state proficiency to be a part of their leadership philosophy but did give credit to their education background for building their implicit knowledge that eventually was relevant in the way they approached renewal.
Combining the servant leader aspects with the proficiency common with en- gineering leadership, the resulting philosophy represents a certain engineer- ing minded servant leadership, a Servant Engineer -mindset to leadership.
The major focus of this mindset is on empowerment & development, stew- ardship, interpersonal acceptance, direction providing, humility, and au- thenticity – tenets that are based on both servant leadership and exemplary engineering leadership. However, an additional focus on personal profi- ciency akin to the unique proficiency of technical and non-technical skills present in the exemplary engineering leadership is also observable in the Servant Engineer -mindset. Table 3 presents the themes and concepts defin- ing the Servant Engineer, the leadership philosophy commonly present in the leaders behind successful strategic renewal in the technology industry.
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Table 3: Themes and concepts defining a Servant Engineer Servant Engineer
Empowerment
& development
• Ensuring people have the means to succeed
• Letting people decide how to work
• Creating an environment that brings out the full potential of the organisation
Stewardship
• Participative and teamwork-oriented
• Choosing the right strategical priorities
• Responsibility of performance Interpersonal
acceptance
• Trust
• Diversity of thought
• Creating a sense of community Direction
providing
• Constantly communicating and reasoning a long-term di- rection
• Creating a purpose
• Guiding others towards the goal
Humble
• Constant learning
• Boldness to challenge existing thinking
• No need to have ready answers
• Actively being surrounded by more capable people Authentic
• Being present in the moment
• Transparency in everything
• Being consistent in actions Proficient
• Renewal mindset
• Generalist mindset
• Understanding business
Interestingly, this philosophy comprises the same positive qualities found in previous studies on Finnish leadership, namely the characteristics of humil- ity, authenticity, and acceptance. However, the leaders also embodied char- acteristics of empowerment, stewardship, and direction providing, which are not typically linked to common Finnish leadership qualities. These qualities are however admittedly relevant when one wishes to lead successful strategic renewal efforts, as all the interviewed leaders had. The following chapters will further explain each of the themes of the Servant Engineer philosophy.
55 4.1.1 Empowerment & development
All the leaders stated that leadership is about empowering and developing their subordinates. Three common concepts were present under this theme of empowerment and development. A key aspect of an empowering leader- ship philosophy is to ensure that people have the means to succeed.
Leaders need to constantly ensure and prioritise that everyone has the possi- bility to continuously grow and develop.
The second key concept of empowerment is to let people decide how to work. The leaders noted that if you try to achieve common targets by leading with control, the entire process will certainly end in failure. Although, the goal for the organisation can be presented by the leader, the employees must be given the autonomy of choosing how to reach this common goal. Support- ing employee autonomy will eventually provide the best solution for the or- ganisation.
The most important thing is to determine the Why and What and then leave the How up to the people, as in how they get
there.
-Leader 15
Finally, empowerment does not only happen in the interactions between the leaders and employees. Organisation design is also an important aspect of supporting employee empowerment and development. The leaders perceived that, to support employees, the leader’s job is to also create an environ- ment that brings out the full potential of the organisation.
56 4.1.2 Stewardship
Stewardship considers the leader’s responsibility towards the organisation, to its members, and to its success. Especially, the responsibility towards or- ganisation members by being participative and teamwork oriented was greatly emphasised as an important aspect of leadership:
The best team isn’t a team that is made up of stars, but a team that becomes a star in itself because it knows how to work to-
gether. I have a very strong belief in that.
-Leader 10
The leader’s responsibility towards organisation and its success was clear from the two other concepts belonging under stewardship. Choosing the right strategical priorities was seen as a key responsibility of a leader.
Organisations have constantly too much going on, and it is the leader’s re- sponsibility to ensure that people have sufficient time to accomplish the stra- tegically relevant tasks. Thus, leaders need to prioritise what needs to be done and especially communicate what is not done.
The other concept focusing on the organisational level was more general and focused on the leader’s overall responsibility of performance. Here re- sponsibility was also seen as the leader’s willingness to go towards conflict and do things that might not feel good but that can eventually benefit the larger organisation.
57 4.1.3 Interpersonal acceptance
Interpersonal acceptance focuses on the leader’s capacity to trust people and to foster an organisation where people are treated well, diverse thinking is not just accepted but encouraged, and where the organisation feels like a community.
Trust is an important part of accepting others and believing in them. Two types of trust relations emerged as important to leadership: Trust in people and mutual trust. Leaders should be almost blue-eyed in their trust to- wards their employees while simultaneously show themselves to be worthy of trust. In essence, trust requires leaders to have a positive outlook on people and their capabilities. Interestingly, the leaders explicitly stated that trust is important not just for the general leadership philosophy or for increasing employee autonomy, but for the overall success and growth of organisations.
Diversity of thought was an especially interesting finding, as only women explicitly stated it to be an important part of their leadership philosophy. In- terestingly this difference was also present in the enabling factors of success- ful renewal (See chapter 4.3.3). Diversity of thought is separate from the broader concept of diversity. The importance of diversity of thought is that it allows more varied knowledge, competencies, and experiences to be present in decision making.
You have to make sure you are surrounded by people who are better than you in those different areas. It’s the diversity of
thought that is the most essential factor.
-Leader 10
Finally, creating a sense of community, where people are not just group of individuals but part of a larger whole, was seen as an important aspect of leadership. Leaders should not only focus on coaching and motivating indi- viduals to success but also create a sense of community, to which others can relate not just as individuals but as a larger entity.
58 4.1.4 Direction providing
Providing a direction is admittedly a key aspect of leadership. Communicated direction helps create an organisational alignment towards common goals.
However, as stated by a previous study in Finnish leadership (TEM, 2018), clear direction giving was seen missing from the Finnish leadership context.
The leaders experienced in successful strategic renewal did, however, empha- sise the importance of providing an understandable direction. Leaders stated that constantly communicating and reasoning a long-term direc- tion is essential for leadership. To succeed, there is a continuous need to clarify where the organisation is heading. It is not sufficient to seldomly tell the organisation where it is going. Instead, leaders need to constantly, and meticulously, make certain that every member of the organisation at every point in time knows the long-term direction of the organisation.
It all starts with clarity, we are constantly trying to clarify it, what the situation is and which way we are going and know
where we are at.
-Leader 5
Closely connected to constantly communicating the long-term direction was creating of a purpose for the followers and the organisation. As the direc- tion focuses on describing the target, the purpose instead attempts at reason- ing to organisation members why they exist in the organisation and why they should go towards a chosen and shared direction.
To ensure that the purposeful long-term direction is achieved, the leaders also emphasised the importance of guiding others towards the goal. Alt- hough members of the organisation might share a common purpose and un- derstand where the goal is, the leader must continuously be present to help and direct them towards the goal.
59 4.1.5 Humble
According to the interviewees, humility could be summarised as actively try- ing to be in a room surrounded by smarter people and not being afraid to ask questions when there. Thus, an important aspect of leadership is to focus on constant learning to help serve the organisation as well as possible.
I would describe myself with a life-long learner concept in that every day, if you haven’t learned anything about leader-
ship, that day has been a failure, so you have to learn some- thing every day.
-Leader 11
Humility is also courage to admit that you do not know everything. There is no need to have ready answers. Leaders should be humble about their knowledge and openly tell others if they currently do not have the answers for a topical problem. However, being humble does not mean being content with your current knowledge. Instead, leaders should focus on constantly gaining more knowledge and experiences by actively being surrounded by more capable people. Being honest about one’s knowledge is also ben- eficial to the leader and their organisation. For example, humble leaders can empower others to voice their thoughts, which again provides the leader with further knowledge in new topic areas. Humility is also boldness to ask ques- tions and challenge presented ideas. Leaders should embody a certain bold- ness to challenge existing thinking. This not only helps the leaders to learn but also supports their organisations in making the best possible deci- sions.
60 4.1.6 Authentic
The final linkage between the leaders’ narratives and servant leadership is in the form of authenticity. Authenticity was defined as being present in the moment and being consistent in actions. Leadership is not a one-and- done act. Instead, leadership is a continuous process of being consistent and present in the moment to ensure that the organisation and its members suc- ceed not only on a single day, but every day.
Whether you are competent, a good leader or not, it is deter- mined again in every single situation, that meeting with a person, are you present, are you listening, do you know how
to give feedback, etc.
-Leader 1
Finally, being present and consistent is supplemented by the leader ensuring transparency in everything. Consistent with the tenets of servant leader- ship, a leader cannot make decisions behind closed doors and then surprise their subordinates with a completely new direction. Instead, transparency should be present in everything the leader does.
Leaders experienced in successful renewal journeys tend to base their lead- ership philosophy on the tenets of servant leadership with a little hint of pro- ficiency in the skills relevant to the organisation’s success. In the following chapters we’ll shift our focus from the topic of leadership philosophy to suc- cessful strategic renewal journeys, with the next chapter focusing on the con- text of successful strategic renewal.
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