Page 109 - Harnessing the Strengths

92 ■ Servant-Leadership in the Intercultural Practice

tive. If you are adept at both approaches, you can use either
at will.
In this specific dilemma different qualities and charac-

teristics of the servant-leader play a role, which are closely
related to the general concepts we dealt with in Chapter 1.
The essential qualities of a servant-leader comprise the ability
to facilitate a process that allows creative individuals to serve
the team in order to jointly reach higher productivity. Con-
versely, the servant-leader can also ensure that the team feels
and takes responsibility to serve the individual as the foun-
dation of the whole. Naturally, in individualistic cultures
the servant-leader will have the preference to begin with the
creative individuals and encourage them to share the fruits
of their endeavors for the collective. In more group-oriented
cultures the servant-leader will rather spend that energy
stimulating the team to encourage individual creativity. And
thus, servant-leadership works in, and between, each and all
cultures.

Resolution
Back to Peter Webber’s reality: What should he do with
the reward system at Cloverpill? How can he encourage
the Moroccans, Americans, Japanese, and Dutch to work
constructively together? One good option could be to give
50 percent of the variable reward to the individual, based
on the contribution to the team as a team player. The other
50 percent could go to the teams that have successfully
demonstrated their commitment to increasing individual
creativity.
The reward system for the marketing staff and sales-
people could be based on what the sellers have learned
from their clients, as a form of co-opetition, much like in