#13 The Servant Leadership Required to Build a Successful Community Product
“Servant leadership” is a phrase often buzzed around in corporate America. I think my first introduction to the phrase was when I worked at Kin + Carta where the CEO used the title “Servant Leader” everywhere (even LinkedIn) instead of CEO.
Servant leaders strive to create an empowered workforce. True servant leaders demonstrate integrity, fairness, and ethical behavior in their decision-making.
Their strengths?
Self-awareness
Humility
Empathy
They believe in collaboration, inclusivity and open communication.
To build a successful community product you must embody a servant leader mindset, sometimes willing to throw out your own personal vision to answer the call of your community.
Product leadership is about service
Wes Kao, Co-Founder of Maven, writes about the value of having a spiky point of view. Today we’re getting spiky and I’m sharing mine.
I believe that product leadership is about service. Service to our community, customers, and team. And as a product leader, I’ve made a promise to make the world better. When you lead with service, that’s what happens.
The majority of people that have a desire to build community-driven products also have a strong desire to help people. Their goal is that with their product, peoples lives will be easier and they will create a positive impact on the world. Does this resonate?
With that sentiment and intention, you might also want to … make a lot of money. And that’s okay too– you can have both!
You can lead with service and make money too
You can do good in the world and make a healthy profit as well. Even David Spinks says the hill he will die on is that community builders have every right to charge and earn a living.
Unfortunately far too often we see companies choose profit over people. No one ever admits it and in many cases even realize they’re doing it but it happens all of the time.
The truth?
You can have an extremely profitable business without thinking profit-first.
Recently I shared my Mom’s story of managing a community for 30+ years with 99% retention. This retention was unheard of in her industry which meant it also resulted in unheard of profit.
Guess what? It was because she focused community-first. The member experience and servant leadership was so stellar, that the money flowed easily.
I have experienced leaders that focus profit-first with the attitude of ‘how much money can I possibly make’ versus ‘how much value can I possibly provide’. It’s toxic.
Sure, a business will fail if it doesn’t have profit, but it’s also on a path to failure if leaders and business values aren’t service-driven.
Both are a priority but it’s really about what you prioritize first.
Prioritize people first: your community, customers and team. When you do that you’ll provide value, deeply understand their problems and do what it takes to solve them. The money will flow.
Be a servant leader to build a community-driven product
There are so many parallels between servant leadership and building a community-driven product. Both philosophies are about building a community-centric and collaborative approach to building business. Your actionable takeaways:
Listen to your community
Practice active listening and incorporate the feedback you get into improving your work. Listen so that you can hear and understand the pain points you’re not solving today.
By focusing here, you uncover countless opportunities that can both solve a problem in the world, and build profit in your business.
Collaborate with your community
Facilitate collaboration, encourage participation and empower the community to make decisions and take ownership of the product. You might do this through allowing sub-communities.
Allow the community opportunities to make suggestions to improve your business. Support their projects and goals, too. It’s about give and take.
Build relationships, not power dynamics
In order to build meaningful relationships with your community trust has to be formed. You do this though being transparent, reliable and accountable.
Don’t be too good to respond. When you treat your community like it’s an even playing field, they’ll show up and participate. And they’ll invite their friends.
Lastly, in all things, act with integrity, inclusiveness, fairness and respect. Your product will be better, your community will be happier, and your revenue will trend up. Serve, serve, serve.
Onward.
If you’re not subscribed to the bpd beat yet, get the latest essay + other resources every Friday.