A servant leader is never concerned with titles. He believes that every one in the organization can be a leader. Leadership guru and inspirational author John Maxwell said that leadership is influence. While our bosses have titles, they are not the only ones who can influence others.
The job title may demand some respect to the point that bosses are addressed as Sir/Ma’am due to their positional authority. But, a few organizations in some countries have promoted a “no boss” atmosphere to encourage everyone to be leaders. Author Robin Sharma said this model promotes the idea that all stakeholders in the company can be and should be leaders in their respective spheres of influence. In Sharma’s words: “This is really all about distributed leadership.” Hence, some companies have encouraged their work force to refrain from addressing their superiors as sirs.
Unfortunately, our culture in the Philippines requires superiors to be addressed as sirs. Especially in the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), regardless of rank or position, one who graduated earlier than the other will always be addressed as Sir/Ma’am. When I was in the Bureau of Immigration, I can vividly remember one meeting where my Commissioner Ricardo David Jr. (PMA 1977) and I met with Sen. Sonny Trillanes (PMA 1995). A colleague was amused as Trillanes, David and I, all academy graduates, were addressing each other as “sir” throughout the entire conversation. When I was working in the United States, I successfully eased out the “Sir/Ma’am” in my vocabulary, since the American culture was not as hierarchal than ours and, most important, I was made to pay a dollar every time I call my bosses as such.
In Philippine Airlines (PAL), our Vice President for Flight Operations Chuck Aquino (PMA 82) narrated to me one program initiated many years ago where pilots were penalized for calling their superiors as sirs. Aptly called as “sir-beer,” whenever junior pilots address their seniors as sirs, they pay a bottle of beer! Sadly, the program lost traction, and the pilot complement of PAL, almost half of which served in the Air Force, returned to the old ways of using titles. Chuck will relaunch a similar program soon.In a workshop in Batangas a few weeks ago, Capt. Ed Diaz, the counterpart of Capt. Chuck in PAL Express, also started a program to get rid of these titles. Much to my pleasant surprise, most pilots eagerly embraced the idea and, hopefully, will sustain until it becomes part of the culture of PAL Express. Believing in this idea of no more sirs, PAL President Jaime Bautista, when asked how should we address him, reportedly replied, “call me Jimmy or JJB.”
One of the most important attributes of a servant leader is listening. Some say that the Sir/Ma’am atmosphere impedes open and transparent communication between the leader and his followers. Out of fear, a subordinate will likely report only the good news and filter the bad news to the prejudice of the company. Positive feedback is just as valuable as negative feedback, especially from subordinates. Listening to our employees is also one great way of knowing and serving their needs.But there are still “leaders” who simply cannot embrace this servant philosophy. After all, they worked long and hard to get to where they are. They think that getting rid of sirs and serving the needs of their subordinates are not congruent to the fact that they were exactly placed in that position of respect.
In the Bible, Matthew 20:26-28 tells us, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.”
Chuck and Ed have provided the seeds to jump-start the servant- leadership philosophy in all flight decks in the PAL group. The most effective way to cultivate and nurture this little gesture of getting rid of sirs, although countercultural, is to understand the reason we should do it. And that reason, as exemplified by many leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Jesus Christ, is that leaders can get his followers to tow the line, not by barking orders but by influencing them by being a servant first.