Princess Diana is the epitome of a servant leader. A “great leader is seen as a servant first, and the simple fact is the key to her greatness. What she is deep down inside” (Greenleaf, 19). In
Princess Diana is the epitome of a servant leader. A “great leader is seen as a servant first, and the simple fact is the key to her greatness. What she is deep down inside” (Greenleaf, 19). In her effort to serve others, Princess Diana brought awareness of AIDS research and hunger awareness in impoverished countries, showed empathy towards people with leprosy when it was still seen as an untouchable disease, and fought against the use of land mines. She exhibited the core traits of a servant leader, such as listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people and building community (Sendjaya, 57). Former President Bill Clinton recapitulated her servant leader traits in a 1987 quote:
There is a strong biblical relationship between charisma and servant leadership. Princess Diana was able to “empower her followers by enhancing their perceptions of self-efficacy and their confidence in their ability to overcome obstacles, by using verbal persuasion and verbal recognition, and by functioning as a role model” (Choi, 28). The charismatic quality of Princess Diana’s “individual personality by virtue of which she is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at the least specifically exceptional qualities” (Sendjaya, 61). When Princess Diana visited the sick or oppressed, she was seen as extraordinary by her followers.
In defining Princess Diana as a servant leader, it is important to differentiate a servant leader from a transformational leader. Servant leadership exceeds transformational leadership (Bass) in two ways 1) “its recognition of the leaders social responsibilities to 