Stewardship
Stewardship
The Stewardship program forms the capstone for the leadership development program. Most organizations utilize agency theory, which states that the organization and its employees exist in an adversarial relationship. The principals (owners) of the organization create oversight systems and contracts to ensure the agents (employees) act in the company’s interests. Employees can act not in the company’s best interests, causing various issues and conflicts. The agency approach has been the underlying approach to organizational management since the introduction of the concept by Berle and Means in 1932.
The steward leader approach occurs when the organization's leadership and employees hold the assets and outcomes in trust for the owners or company stakeholders. The stewardship program helps the participants feel a sense of ownership, resulting in decisions that serve the organization's best interests rather than pursuing self-serving or unethical ends. Suppose your organization faces difficulties with people acting to accomplish the organization's needs. In that case, the stewardship module can help your organization change your organization's culture from self-serving to another-serving team approach. When your employees care for the organization and its results, the company can maximize organizational performance.
The Stewardship Program provides leaders with the knowledge and skills to build strong interpersonal relationships with others in the organization. Consistent with the servant leadership approach, steward leaders build relationships through service toward the follower and help the follower become the best they can be. The steward model runs counter to the command and control or micro-management leadership model. The program helps participants understand the critical role of empowering employees and providing the autonomy to pursue collective goals. With understanding, the program participants attain practical approaches to enable employees and provide the independence necessary for organizational success. The stewardship program enables leaders to develop cohesive teams focused on essential organizational objectives.
Companies often rely on external or extrinsic motivators such as money, bonuses, and additional perks to propel employees toward organizational goals. Extrinsic motivators play a role in all organizations, as people typically do not work for free. However, increases in productivity and efficiency are short-lived, requiring additional motivators to keep the gains coming. Stewardship provides the system to help leadership develop intrinsic motivation in employees. Intrinsic motivation generates a sense of ownership in employees, encouraging them to pursue goals through a desire for accomplishment, personal satisfaction, and the need to help others and the team succeed.
Employees' ethical and moral actions often determine an organization's longevity and long-term success. Employees engaging in unethical behaviors undermine the entire organization and destroy the team dynamic, leading to a breakdown of the team and a drop in effectiveness. The stewardship program enables participants to determine their core values and how they affect personal and company outcomes and engage in behaviors consistent with their values. The ability to act on one's values sets the foundation for people to self-actualize and become the best they can be. The self-actualization process results in increased confidence, engagement, and energy, to begin an upward spiral of outstanding achievement. The stewardship program is a capstone to the servant leadership development program and summarizes the other modules.
Stewardship provides a viable alternative to the agency approach. Stewardship theory assumes that organizational leaders and employees will work to achieve the wants and needs of the owners instead of pursuing self-serving ends. Employees choose service over self-interest. When employees choose service over self-interest, they become partners rather than pawns. Stewardship creates a sense of ownership across the organization, and employees take a stake in the company and its outcomes. Taking the stewardship approach often maximizes organizational performance. The stewardship program helps gain a deeper understanding of the approach, discover the positive aspects, and create the skills required to bring stewardship to life.