Servant Leadership is quite old, going back over 2000 years. Its roots include the radical teachings of a Jewish religious leader who is quoted in scripture as saying that he had come to serve.
Robert K. Greenleaf then coined the term "servant leadership" in 1970. Greenleaf was motivated to find and articulate an alternative to the Autocratic Leader, the style of leadership that seemed to predominate in organizations everywhere.
In Greenleaf's thinking:
The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant - first to make sure that other people's needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer is: Do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wise, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And what effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or at least not be further deprived?
In my work, teaching leadership to client companies, I am inspired by the concept and convey it without using the term "servant leadership." Instead, I teach that effective leaders do everything in their power to support the success of their people.
In so doing, such leaders then find the meaning in the quote attributed to Lao Tzu:
"When the best leader’s work is done, the people say: We did it ourselves."
If I were to design a training module on Servant Leadership, I would return to the original source material. Drawing upon it, I would identify the elements of Servant Leadership, such as these three:
The Servant Leader calls others to discipleship ("disciple" = 'discere' to learn) to learn and follow The Way
The Servant Leader teaches and develops them as leaders who serve, giving them what they need to spread the Good News and call others
The Servant Leader commissions and sends them
Perhaps the most central, and difficult, concept is what it means to be a "leader who serves." In his essay and book, Greenleaf explored this and started a movement away from the predominant leadership paradigm, the leader who commands and controls.
One organization implemented servant leadership a long time ago: the early Christian church. It has over 2000 years of experience training both professionals and lay persons in the model. As an active and practicing member for close to 60 years, I can attest to the lifelong formation process that is available to members. Not all choose to take full advantage of it, sad to say.
But for those of us who are steeped in it, the values that we are taught are both challenging and transformative.
Posted by Terrence Seamon on Saturday May 25, 2013
