How to Practice Servant Leadership (Essay‪)‬

Currently, college teachers are overwhelmed by challenges ranging from high expectation from students and administrators, pressure to raise the passing rate to research efforts. But, it is a rewarding career for being a teacher allows you to become a better and fully developed person in time. And we are being evaluated by the intelligent young people all the time. Our students are remembering us for good or bad. The important thing is we can make all the differences in their lives because in the process of language learning, the students are exposed to all these aspects. While learning the language, they are absorbing the culture and the ideology and everything that may contribute to their character building. On the other hand, a vicious circle exists in language teaching in China. Different factors such as the test-oriented learning, much focus on the language itself, lack of motivation and confidence are at work. It is true to say that something is seriously missing in language teaching. How to make teaching more effective? How to educate students both in their academic development and moral development? In this article, a new role of teachers will be dealt with in depth. Teachers actually play different parts in classroom teaching. They are judges, participants, organizers, and also leaders. There are various styles of leadership observed in class. Some teachers are commanders; some lead by counseling or coaching; some lead by inspiring, encouraging, or empowering. And there are also teachers that manage to lead by example, which particularly refers to their personhood and character. Teachers cannot expect their students to be influenced by them if they don't live up to their own vision and values. In short, teachers need to lead by example and model. Students follow not because they have to or want to but because of who their teachers are and what the teachers represent. To lead is to guide by influencing. To clarify this, it is quite necessary to explain a new term--"servant leadership" here. According to Dwight D. Eisenhower, leadership is the ability to decide what is to be done, and then to get others to want to do it. True leadership, not to be confused with dictatorship, does not take away an individual's freedom, choice, accountability, or responsibility. Just as the leader is to be serving and taking into account the ideas and needs of those they lead, those following that lead are to be doing the same thing. In doing so, they, along with the leader, practice self-restraint, develop character, integrate discipline, and practice love and respect for other people. This creates a kind of self-leadership at all levels of the group. It promotes a self-leadership environment where all are empowered and working toward the good of the whole because it is in the best interest of all. Then, what is servant leadership? The words "servant" and "leader" are thought of as being opposites. A servant is weak while a leader is strong. A servant does as he or she is asked while a leader gives commandments. A servant always serves others while a leader is to be satisfied by other's work. When two opposites are brought together in a creative and meaningful way, a paradox emerges. Life is full of curious and meaningful paradoxes. Servant-leadership is one such paradox .The term was first coined by Robert K. Greenleaf (1904-1990) in a 1970 essay titled "The Servant as Leader" in which he wrote, "It 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?" Maxwell said, "servant hood is not about position or skill, it's about attitude". He defines that attitu