When I first arrived at my host organization to work on my fellowship project, I don’t think I fully anticipated being responsible for shaping the direction of (and eventually leading) a business. After all, I am a humanitarian not an entrepreneur. As I hired interns and began exploring ideas, I very quickly found myself needing to determine what kind of leader I was going to be.
While I can’t say that I sat down to formulate a leadership plan, the 10 principles of servant leadership that were deeply instilled during my years of undergrad intuitively rose to the surface and ultimately defined how I would move the project forward. I am convinced that this is a viable model for leadership that should be strongly considered in India’s development sector.
Ecowrap’s Muskaan is a women’s empowerment project that aims to help rural women secure sustainable livelihoods through opportunities in up-cycling. It began in the thick of Covid-19 when Ecowrap, a tech-based startup that focuses on source segregation of waste, began exploring alternative ways to bring waste back into the value chain. Rural women, whether they realize it or not, are some of India’s best up-cyclers. Acknowledging that, Ecowrap decided to partner with them to create up-cycled products to sell to a wider market. Servant Leadership has defined how Muskaan now runs, and I think, is a convincing case-study for considering the use of this leadership model in India’s development sector.
Below I will share the 10 guiding principles of Servant Leadership and how they were implemented over the course of leading Ecowrap’s project Muskaan. I will also share what I personally learned from assuming a posture of servanthood when stepping into a leadership role.
10 Guiding Principles of Servant Leadership
1. Listening. When I joined Ecowrap’s Muskaan, it was important for me to learn some of the challenges that the project had faced since its inception and understand the heart behind how the project got started. It was really only after understanding what they had faced before that I was able to move forward in a way that was informed and would best serve those we partnered with. Listening also meant creating space for others to share their opinions, ideas, and talents. I strongly believe that people do their best work when they are put in positions where they are doing what they love. As I learned what our interns and creative partners enjoyed, I invited them into those positions.
2. Empathy. It can be stressful when plans must change – especially in a position of leadership where you hold the larger picture of the goals and deadlines the team must meet. However, in this type of women’s empowerment project, when we are invested in communities where it is less common for women to work, it has been essential to understand the responsibilities our creative partners have beyond their commitment to the project. It has been necessary to be flexible and adapt to changes in deadlines due to commitments to further studies, familial obligations, societal roles, as well as other day-to-day household tasks. Having the empathy to understand this has helped us to make accommodations where needed and invest more deeply in the lives of the women we work with. In the words of Urmila Devi, one of our creative partners; “I have freedom at work now that I didn’t have before.” This freedom, that comes from empathizing with our creative partners, has lead to greater productivity and women taking ownership of the tasks they are assigned.
3. Healing. While working on a team (especially a multi-cultural one) differences of opinion are inevitable. As I have missed cultural cues and sometimes offended others on my team, it became necessary to mend and restore relationships before moving forward in the project. These humbling and sometimes difficult conversations have only strengthened our communication. Learning from my local team how to restore relationships in ways that align with the cultural context when I miscommunicate has improved my ability to communicate with our creative partners.
4. Self-awareness. Coming into this project, I was acutely aware of where I was lacking knowledge or experience. As the project went on, I uncovered newfound strengths as well as areas where I still needed to grow. Being in-tune with myself and encouraging others on my team to do the same has helped us to come together to fill in the gaps. As we invite others to join the project, we intentionally look for those who have strengths where we have weaknesses. While this makes for an incredibly diverse team, we have been able to do far more than we could if we all had the same skill-sets.
5. Persuasion. This is truly an art in and of itself. While it can sometimes be difficult for me to assert myself, I learned a lot about trusting my gut and creative eye. When I started the fellowship, the project had already been considering creating products out of scrap tires. Realizing the logistical challenges of shipping and storing such products, I felt strongly about shifting the direction we were headed to explore a wider market. This meant persuading the founder who had already spent a significant amount of time making furniture from scrap tires.
I wanted to honor the time the founder had invested in the project yet show that we could diversify our market if we considered a wider range of materials. I spent the first few weeks of my fellowship learning to make tables from scrap tires. This helped communicate that I valued the work that was done before me, but also helped me to understand the problems I thought the project might face. With the mutual goal of helping the women secure sustainable livelihoods, we decided to put the tire project on hold to explore more versatile options. When you put in the time to persuade your team and allow for questions and pushback, rather than simply exerting your authority, your team has the potential to become more unified. Everyone begins working together for the same goal rather than harboring resentment towards you for change you brought about.
6. Conceptualization. As a team, we regularly meet to explore big ideas of where the project could go next. Collaborating to explore such ideas has helped us to align ourselves more closely with our core values. Because we have a shared sense of where we are going as an organization, we are able to manage our day-to-day tasks more effectively. When we are sometimes discouraged by setbacks or changes in the timeline, we are grounded by the larger goals we have for the future of the project.
7. Foresight. When deciding on the art forms that the women would be trained in, one of the qualifiers we looked for was versatility. We settled on “cane”weaving and embossing as both can be used to create numerous products that could be adapted or changed to meet the needs of the customer. This versatility will help the women secure livelihoods for an extended period of time. As trends change, they are able to adapt and grow their product lines to meet the market’s needs rather than having one static skillset that limits their product range.
8. Stewardship. When creating new products from waste, not every step of the creative process is enjoyable. When exploring the use of plastic water bottles for “cane”weaving one of the most cumbersome tasks was washing the bottles and removing their adhesive labels. When our product design intern and I arrived in the village a few days after delivering the plastic bottles and training the women on how they needed to be washed, we were a bit surprised that the ladies hadn’t started washing them yet. Unable to train them further until that task was completed, my intern and I both rolled up our sleeves and immediately started washing.
Reflecting on the drive back from the village, we discussed how important it was that the women saw us doing that “not-so fun” task alongside them. It helped us understand and empathize with the challenges and frustration of the task, and communicated to the women non-verbally that we are all on the same team. I deeply believe that you shouldn’t ask anyone to do work you aren’t first willing to do yourself, and looking back that deliberate move was instrumental in defining how the our creative partners perceived us.
9. Commitment to Growth. A few weeks after the women in the village learned how to “cane”weave, we knew that they would be the best teachers for the next women joining the project. Once women are able to weave with consistency, they are incentivized and put in positions of leadership to train new weavers. Similarly, women who express interest in design are encouraged to help think through our next product line. Women are regularly invited to develop new skills or grow the ones they have already acquired.
10. Build Community. Throughout the project it has been important to build a sense of community as we work. This has looked like me and our project’s interns traveling to the village to weave alongside our creative partners, meeting and hosting our creative partners whenever they are in the city, and making time for fun outside of the project. We share new product ideas in our group chat and check in on each other throughout the week simply to talk about day-to-day life. While we genuinely care about one another, through these interactions we grow a more unified vision and share responsibility for the success of the project.
I have learned so much from implementing this leadership model and am confident that servant leadership has the power to strengthen teams, increase productivity, and contribute to the continued success of projects in the development sector.
Works Referenced: Indeed Editorial Team. “10 Principles of Servant Leadership (With Examples).” Indeed, 3 Feb. 2023, https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/servant-leadership. Accessed 27 May 2023.
