Salt+Light: Are You a Servant Leader?

Servant and leader – at its first glance, the juxtaposition of these two seemingly irreconcilable notions leaves many people confused. Yet, there never has been a time more timely and apt to learn and apply the concepts of servant leadership in our organizations, school, and family bereft of love, authenticity and character. Let me begin with a story that inspired Robert Greenleaf who coined the term servant leadership through his readings of Hermann Hesse’s Journey to the East.

“A band of men embarks on a mythical journey. A man named Leo accompanies the party as the servant who does the menial chores, but also sustains them with his spirit and his song. He is a person of extraordinary presence. All goes well until Leo disappears. Then the group falls into disarray and the journey is abandoned. They cannot make it without the servant Leo. The narrator, one of the party, after some years of wandering, finds Leo and is taken into the Order that had sponsored the journey. There he discovers that Leo, whom he had known first as servant, was in fact the titular head of the Order, its guiding spirit, a great and noble leader.”

Robert Greenleaf, inspired by Leo, defines servant-leadership with the following questions,

“Do others around the servant leader become wiser, freer, more autonomous, healthier, and better able themselves to become servants? Will the least privileged of the society be benefited or at least not further deprived?” Greenleaf suggest that the servant leader is a servant first, which begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve. Only once the desire to serve is made through conscious choice that brings one to aspire to lead.

I think Greenleaf is right in his conclusion; that is, the cornerstone of servant leadership originates from this desire to serve. But I found myself asking “What if people do not want to serve?,” “Where do these feelings of service come from anyway?,” “Why do people ought to subscribe to these view?” Sooner or later, I had a baggage of unanswered questions lingering me.

As a Christian, I began to ask myself how the responsible Christian leader approaches leadership. In studying the Scripture, I discovered there is a leadership model that is undergirded as the linchpin of of the body of Christ. This biblical brand of leadership is uniquely expressed through what is called the servant attitude of the leader – the desire to enrich and enhance the lives of those being led through unselfish servanthood.

Jesus Christ understood His own mission and He clearly articulated this as an attitude and value for leadership. Following an argument among his disciplines about greatness in the Kingdom, Jesus turned common assumptions and values of leadership upside down through a revolutionary teaching. After arriving at Capernaum, He questioned them: “What were you arguing about on the road?” He then sat down and called His twelve disciples. He said “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all” (Mark 9:33-35)

Jesus Christ intentionally used the term servant (diakonos) to clearly communicate with His disciplines. They knew the word accentuated the service given on behalf of others. The notion also carried the idea of deep devotion. Influenced by the norms of the day, the disciplines were most likely puzzled by his crucial lecture on how to climb the leadership ladder. Others serve leaders, they reasoned, but Jesus literally turned this thinking upside down. Authentic leaders are devoted to service that focuses on the needs, personal growth, and happiness of others. With time, the disciplines would recognize that Kingdom leaders was not about climbing the ladder, but serving at the bottom.

Greenleaf outlined ten characteristics that define a servant-leader:

1. Listening

2. Empathy

3. Healing

4. Awareness

5. Persuasion

6. Conceptualization

7. Foresight

8. Stewardship

9. Commitment to the growth of people

10. Building Community

Click here for the description of each characteristic of a servant leader.

Servant leadership works in any context. Leading organizations, Southwest Airlines and Starbucks have adopted servant leadership into their core values and principles. Please see the video below.

   Southwest Airlines – Colleen Barrett
   President of SouthWest Airlines, Colleen Barrett, speaks about Servant-Leadership at SouthWest while addressing
   UPenn Wharton.