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. 

Dateline NBC – The Power of Faith

          Dateline NBC presented this piece on a more religion-focused view of Servant-Leadership. It includes an interview 

          with Larry Spears and a section on the success at Starbucks. 

Why Core Values Matter

Let me begin with my story. It was around the beginning of my junior year at UBC (University of British Columbia). You know that if you are a Commerce student, this is arguably the most critical year – a key stepping stone, if you will – in accelerating your professional career. Around junior year, most students come to this realization and start to frenetically attend multiple conferences, network like crazy, and embark on their job hunting journey. I was one of those students trying to find a way in to the corporate world and fight my way up the hills of the Great Recession. I cannot speak for others, though I presume a vast majority of them may share similar sentiments, but the journey I embarked on was difficult and onerous yet highly rewarding.

I simply cannot forget the countless hours spent in preparing for student-club and job-related interviews. It was a strenuous and time-consuming. I think I interviewed around 15 times during my entire university career. I would characterize the first half of my interviews weak and incomplete. As I became more serious about my professional endeavours in Human Resources, it suddenly dawned on to me the utmost importance of interviews. The fact of the matter is your entire image, perception, and future is created in 60-minutes or less.

Most companies employ behavioural questions since it’s widely known as the most valid and reliable measure of high performance and success in your job. However, I wanted to start with the basics – the foundation. First, I attempted to answer the foundational questions such as:

“What’s your greatest strengths and weaknesses?”
“Why do you want this job?”

“Why should we hire you?”

The most profound question I encountered  was, “What would be written on your epitaph at the end of your life?”

I found myself dumbfounded as I began to dribble nonsense on these ‘simple’ questions…. Consciously thinking and articulating my underlying values and beliefs was something unprecedented. I came to the conclusion that I lacked self-awareness.

When you come to think of it, the notion of an interview is quite simple. It’s about a dialogue between two parties who don’t know each other. It’s about telling your story and connecting it to the other party. Sounds easy, doesn’t it.. Now, who doesn’t dread interviews…The reason there is such fear is the lack of certainty and familiarity of who are we and what we stand for. Sounds crazy, but it’s quite true.

I felt worse and worse as I found myself struggling to answer even these simple questions. As days passed by, I wasn’t feeling any better either. I had to directly confront this situation. So, I began to ask my family, friends, and acquaintances what they thought of me. I began recording their candid thoughts and perceptions on my strengths and weaknesses. I asked deeper and probing questions, and what led them to think and feel in a certain way. This wasn’t an easy process. The hardest part was allowing myself to be vulnerable. I had to completely expose myself I could not argue back. I only listened, listened, and listened.

Next, I compiled and analyzed their comments and began to compare it with my own thoughts. There were some differences and similarities. The more time I spent time in isolation reading the Bible, praying and thinking, I felt better about myself. I had a stronger grasp of what constitutes my identity. Eventually, I discovered a pattern, a common theme, from the results of this undertaking. I decided I was going to write it down and etch it in my heart. This culminated in the five core values. Core values are a series of words or phrases defining who you are and what you stand for. They represent the internal navigation system for your life and the filter through which you process all of life’s decisions. They are the values you would fight for and the attributes you hope others say about you in your absence or after your death. They become key elements of your personal brand and define your character.

So here’s my personal core values:

·      Faith

·      Serving Others

·      Excellence

·      Integrity

·      Continuous Learning

All of this took about a year or so. The journey isn’t over. In fact, it’s a life-long process. I found myself much more confident, renewed, strengthened, now. One way I try to keep myself intact is writing a journal few times a week. This quiet time allows you to meditate and refine your thoughts and worldview.

Your Story:

So, now it’s your turn. What are your core values? Are you certain of who you are, what you stand for and believe? Everyone goes through this process and the earlier, the better. “With your values prioritized, you will see advantages when it comes to making decisions, too. Roy Disney once said, “It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” All jobs entail tradeoffs. Do you crave more prestige, higher pay, a chance to help others, increased job security, more variety, increased risk, and more independence? You may want them all, but the chances are good that you can't have them all. You have to make tradeoffs. The way to do that is by assessing each desire in light of your core values. Your values won't change, but you will decide which ones are more important to you right now in your present circumstances. Ultimately, values provide guidelines for answering the question: “What is most important to me?” When it comes to your career, there is no question more important than that.”

I stumbled upon a blog from a Sauder alumnus and consultant Mike Desjardins who shared his story of core values. He gave a speech at UBC and a core values worksheet with step-by-step instructions. For those who are still in the process of discovering your core values, I highly recommend you to take this seriously and start thinking about your fundamental personal values. This will truly change your life. 

Here it is video: Core Values Video

Here is the worksheet: Core Values Worksheet

If you have previously established a set of core values for your life, would you please take a couple minutes to share the impact your core values have had on your life in the comments sections below this post.

What Race Are You Running?

Preface: 

What is the purpose of life? I believe there is no answer as uplifting, encouraging, and fulfilling than knowing who you are and why you were born into this earth. As I reflect on my earlier days in high school and university, I recall periods in life singularly marked by peace and confidence -- whereas some of my peers were uncertain of their life's future. This lack of understanding and confidence in who I am generated an unsettling effect on every aspect in their lives. All these unanswered baggage of questions begin to boil inside you, such as "Why do I need to study?...Is this to merely earn a good living and live a happy life?...What is a happy life anyways?  What is a successful life and why do I need to part of it? These are some of the difficult questions my friends were struggling with. 

As I consider the numerous blessings God has bestowed in my life, one of them is the confidence in life. Growing in my faith through reading and studying the lives of prominent Christian thinkers and writers such as C.S Lewis, Ravi Zacharias, William Wilberforce, and Tim Keller became instrumental in forming a biblically sound worldview. 

A new beginning and a new chapter in life... I'm at a crossroads in life. Past 20 years of formal schooling is over. I began to realize different competencies or skill sets are required in different stages of life. I spent the last decade or so being focused on few things: success as a student, cultivating skill sets for future career, and building relationships. Now I think I need to readjust my priorities and begin to unlearn and relearn many of the new skill sets required as a professional. Embracing change is always difficult especially when you see what it is required of you in the future.

Nonetheless, one thing should never change. Our relationship with Jesus Christ. I will be honest. As I've been preoccupied with all my efforts acclimating to the new environment, people, and job, I seem to have neglected the most important thing in life. I felt a sense of shame and embarrassment after reading an article which I'd like to share with all of you. It helped to realign my priorities and rediscover what race I am running. I hope you enjoy it. 

In our book, Lead like Jesus – Lessons from the Greatest Leadership Role Model of All Time, Ken Blanchard describes an early morning scenario -- the daily conflict between the task oriented "Human Doing" and the reflective "Human Being" side of our nature. "We all have, in a sense, two selves. We have a task-oriented self that is used to getting the job done and a more reflective side that is very thoughtful. Which of the two selves wakes up quicker in the morning: our external, task-oriented self or our internal and reflective self? Of course, it's our external, task-oriented self. 

What happens in the morning?  The alarm goes off! Have you ever thought about that phrase – alarm clock? What an awful concept! Why isn't it the "Opportunity clock?” Or the "It's going to be a great day clock?” The "alarm" immediately ignites your task- oriented self and you jump out of bed. Pretty soon you're trying to eat breakfast while you washing. You race to the car and immediately pick up the cell phone and rush off to meetings all morning, followed by lunch meetings, and a dinner meeting. Finally you get home at 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. and fall into bed exhausted, without any energy to say goodnight to your spouse. What happens the next day? The "alarm "goes off and you’re at it again. Pretty soon your life becomes a rat race. As Lily Tomlin once said, “The problem with a rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.”

Not only does life on the run turn into a rat race, but it also turns into an act of just trying to survive the day no matter how noble and worthy the activities may be. When short term survival become the long term pattern of your life and ministry, it is easy to fall into the joy killing mindsets of victim and martyr.  Considering an over busy schedule as a badge of honor or a legitimate rationalization for not taking time to care for your own spiritual health or the mundane needs of  those relationships that make up your private world, is a dangerous act of self deception.

A striking aspect of the life of Jesus was His continuous habit of engaging in times of solitude. Time alone with the Father was an antidote to the ever present pressures of a life filled with people and situations that laid claim to all He had to offer in mind, body, and spirit. As you read Matthew 4:1-11 (a time of temptation), Luke 6:12-13 (a time of decision), Matthew 14:13 (a time of receiving bad news), Matthew 14:23 (a time of success and popularity), and Mark 1-32-38 (a time of choosing the best use of His time), one thing becomes clear -- Jesus always came away from times of solitude with renewed, purpose, energy and perspective to maximize the moment not just survive it. May this be so with you!

Phil Hodges
Phil Hodges, a lifelong friend of Ken Blanchard, served as a human resource and industrial relations manager in corporate America for 36 years with Xerox Corporation and U.S. Steel. In 1997, he served as a Consulting Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies where he had responsibilities in leadership and customer service programs. In addition to helping leaders of faith walk their talk in the marketplace, Phil developed a passion for bringing effective leadership principles into the church  when he served as member and chairman of his local church elder council for over ten years. Phil finds his great joy in his life-role relationships as husband, father and grandpa. In 1999, Ken and Phil co-founded Lead Like Jesus where he serves as Chief Content Officer. He is the co-author of five books: Lead Like Jesus: Lessons from the Greatest Leadership Role Model of All Time, The Most Loving Place in Town: A Modern Day Parable for the Church, Leadership Development for Every Day of the Year and The Servant Leader with Ken Blanchard and Leadership by the Book with Ken Blanchard and Bill Hybels. Phil and his wife, Jane Kinnaird Hodges, live in southern California

Are you Emotionally Intelligent?

I cannot conceal the growing fascination on the subject of leadership. Leadership, at its core, is inherently ambiguous. The beauty of leadership, in fact, originates from ambiguity. The leadership guru Warren Bennis is right when he remarked "Leadership is a lot like beauty; it's hard to define but you know it when you see it." 

For the past few years, I've declared myself as a student of leadership -- one who continuously thinks, learns and applies key leadership principles in my daily life. One of the most positive realizations through this exercise has been a heightened sense of self-awareness - knowing, analyzing, evaluating, and appreciating my God-given talents, strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, I have cultivated a coherent worldview of who I am, what I stand for, and what I live for.

I'd like share a book on Emotional Intelligence that I read last year with a good friend of mine, Bob Wang.  In essence, this book served as an ice-axe that has broken the frozen sea within me. A leading psychologist Daniel Goleman - author of his masterpiece "Primal Leadership." provides a ground-breaking perspective on the subject of leadership. He argues that the fundamental task of leaders is to prime good feelings in those they lead. That is, leaders create resonance - a reservoir of positivity that frees the best in people. Great leaders are more than strategy, vision or powerful ideas. The reality is that much more primal; they work through the emotions. 

Goleman proposes that the four dimensions of EI - self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management are the vehicle of primal leadership. Here, I'd like to share a list of EI dimensions and competencies that I found rather intriguing. I hope you this will be a food for thought and provide useful take aways. 

A good exercise on developing Emotional Intelligence is to identify the top two dimensions to which your capability is the highest. Also, write down the top five competencies you consider your strengths. Also, select the top five competencies you'd like to develop throughout the course of your life. Lastly, think of some specific, practical ways to harness and cultivate these competencies. 

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE DOMAINS AND ASSOCIATED COMPETENCIES

PERSONAL COMPETENCE:
SELF-AWARENESS

• Emotional self-awareness:

o Leaders are attuned to their inner signals, recognizing how their feelings affect them and their job performance

o Attuned to their guiding values and can often intuition the best course of action
o Candid and authentic, and speak openly about their emotions or with conviction about vision

• Accurate self-assessment:
o Know their limitations and strengths and exhibit a sense of humor about themselves.
o Exhibit a gracefulness in learning where they need to improve
o Welcome constructive criticism and feedback
o Enables leaders to know when to ask for help and where to focus in cultivating new leadership strengths

• Self-confidence
o Know their abilities with accuracy and allow leaders to play their strengths
o Welcome difficult assignment
o Such leaders often have a sense of presence, a self-assurance that lets them stand out in a group

SELF-MANAGEMENT
• Self-control:
o Find ways to manage their disturbing emotions and impulses and even to channel them in useful ways
o Stay clam and clear-headed under high stress or during a crisis

• Transparency:
o Live their values
o Allow integrity through authentic openness to others about feelings, beliefs, and actions
o Openly admit mistakes or faults, and confront unethical behavior in others rather turn blind eye

• Adaptability:
o Juggle multiple demands without losing their focus or energy
o Comfortable with the inevitable ambiguities of organizational life
o Flexible in adapting to new challenges, nimble in adjusting to fluid change

• Achievement:
o Higher personal standards that drive them to constantly seek performance improvements
o Pragmatic, setting measureable but challenging goals
o Continual learning and teaching ways to do better

• Initiative:
o Seize opportunities or create them rather than simply waiting
o Does not hesitate to cut through red tape, or even bend the rules when necessary to create better possibilities for the future

• Optimism:
o See others positively, expecting the best of them
o Their “glass half-full” outlook leads them to expect that changes in the future will be for the better

SOCIAL COMPETENCE:
SOCIAL AWARENESS

• Empathy:
o Attune to wide range of emotional signals, letting them sense the felt, but unspoken, emotions in a person or group
o Listen attentively and can grasp the other person’s perspective.
o Makes a leader able to get along well with people of diverse backgrounds or from other cultures

• Organizational awareness:
o Politically astute, able to detect crucial social networks and read key power relationships
o Understand the political forces at work in an organization, as well as the guiding values and unspoken rules that operate among people there

• Service:
o Foster an emotional climate so that people directly in touch customer will keep the relationship on the right track
o Monitor customer or client satisfaction carefully to ensure they are getting what they need.
o Make themselves available as needed

RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

• Inspiration:
o Create resonance and move people with a compelling vision or shared mission
o Embody what they ask of others, and are able to articulate a shared mission in a way that inspires others to follow
o Offer a sense of common purpose beyond the day-to-day tasks, making work exciting

• Influence:
o Finding just the right appeal for a given listener to knowing how to build buy-in from key people and a network of support for an initiative.
o Persuasive and engaging when they address a group

• Developing others:
o Show a genuine interest in those they are helping along, understanding their goals, strengths, and weaknesses
o Give timely and constructive feedback and are natural mentors or coaches

• Change catalyst:
o Able to recognize the need for the change, challenge the status quo, and champion the new order.
o Strong advocates for the change eve in the face of opposition, making the argument for it compellingly
o Find practical ways to overcome barriers to change

• Conflict management:
o Able to draw out all parties, understand the differing perspectives,
o Find a common ideal that everyone can endorse
o Surface the conflict acknowledge the feelings and views of all sides, and then redirect the energy toward a shared ideal

• Teamwork and collaboration:
o Generate an atmosphere of friendly collegiality and are themselves models of respective, helpfulness and cooperation
o Draw others into active, enthusiastic commitment to the collective effort, and build spirit and identity.
o Spend time forging and cementing close relationships beyond mere work obligations

P.S. Here's a 10-minute short clip on EI from Dr. Goleman. Enjoy!

Five Golden Rules of Effective Change Efforts: People

Ashley Harshak, Deanne Aguirre, and Anna Brown, leading organizational change experts at Booz & Company, offers five indispensable factors that make the greatest difference in fostering behaviors that are needed for successful transformations.

Underlying these five pointers is a heavy emphasis and importance of people in this equation of reaping the benefits of change efforts. Change is, at the heart of it, a people process, and people are creatures that are hardwired to defy resistance of status quo and adoption of new mind-sets and behaviors. Companies often overlook the people-oriented change process prior to rolling out a change management initiative. It is no wonder why two third of organizations grind to a half because of their failure to produce for hoped-for results. A successful business transformation efforts must capture the hearts and minds of people who need to operate differently to deliver the desired results.

What is Change Management? 
Harshak suggests that change management is both a capability and a set of interventions that deliver the people-oriented side of change effort. The main target of the change efforts are geared toward employees in all level of hierarchy. It helps embed desired behaviors to sustain the longevity  of the success of change efforts.

Five Golden Rules:
1. Understand and spell out the impact of the change on people. 
A clear-eyed assessment of the impact on its various employee groups is a pre-requisite to such a transformation efforts. This means identifying the type and scale of changes affecting each segment of employees. More importantly, this assessment allows team members to define what the change means to them personally.

A well-known global energy firm did exactly that when it produced a change impact analysis with a “heat map” illustrating the intensity of change for each group of employees, and a detailed description of the changes each role would need to deliver. As a result, the leadership team was able to focus and redirect the transformation program to address the challenges facing those in the roles most affected. Moreover, project teams identified areas of potential overlap and conflict in the impact of various initiatives. Finally, the analysis informed the plans and sequencing of the overall transformation program and became the basis for communications with managers. In cascade fashion, managers received the message from their supervisors and then delivered it to their teams.

2. Build an emotional and rational case for change. 

I often noticed already during my first day at work, making a rational case for change is done systematically and with great success. However, only few initiatives appeal to the people's emotional core. In actuality, it is the people's emotions where the strength of the real transformation lies. Therefore, the communication of such changes need to be targeted to each segment of the workforce and allow a two-way medium for interpreting the change. If you ask an employee to follow a creative way of doing work, you need to make a strong emotional case for the change so they become genuinely committed to the transformation. By providing every details of what will change - and what won't into the presentation allows leaders to paint a vivid picture for what the change means for the employees personally, not only why it benefits the business. 

3. Ensure that the entire leadership team is a role model for the change.

Senior leaders must be not only 'on top' of the change program, but also 'in front' of it by modelling the new behaviors they ask asking for their people to adopt and holding one another accountable for the initiative's success. Only by walking the talk, employees will take the new change seriously. 

An aligned and committed leadership team is the foundation for any major corporate undertaking. When executives lead by example, the impact can be profound. One senior director found that it was only after he introduced ongoing performance discussions with his direct reports that his team started to hold similar sessions with their own direct reports. This requires consistent attention, but that level of engagement will make the difference between success and failure.

4. Mobilize your people to 'own' and accelerate the change. 

The fact of the matter is most change efforts are done "to" employees, not implemented "with" them or "by" them. Although a formal structure and system is in place to pushing behavior change from the top, an informal culture left isolated may dig in its heels. Jon Katzenbach, calls the informal organization - the network of peer-to-peer interactions - vital for encouraging and motivating such desired change in behaviors. A delicate balance between the formal organization and informal organization must be in order. 

5. Embed the change in the fabric of the organization. 

Most change initiatives' sponsors declare victory prematurely, diverting leadership, commitment, and focus from the ongoing effort. To embed the changes, there should moments of discussion acknowledging the lessons learned. Also by investigating into how to engage and involve employees over the long term and how to institutionalize best practices to capture the full benefit of this change .


For full article, please click here.

Think on These Things

The following article is one that I've referred back to many times over the last several years, especially when I embark on a new year. I assure you that it's worth 3 minutes you will invest in reading this-- I can promise you that. 

One of the tragic casualties of our age has been that of the contemplative life--a life that thinks, a life thinks things through, and more particularly, thinks God’s thoughts after Him. A person sitting at his or her desk staring out the window would never be assumed to be working. No! Thinking is not equated with work. Yet, had Newton under his tree, or Archimedes in his bathtub, bought into that prejudice, some natural laws would still be up in the air or buried under an immovable rock. Pascal’s Pensees, or “Thoughts,” a work that has inspired millions, would have never been penned.

What is even more destructive is the assumption that silence is inimical to life. The radio in the car, Muzak in the elevator, and the symphony entertaining callers "on hold" all add up as grave impediments to personal reflection. In effect, the mind is denied the privilege of living with itself even briefly and is crowded with outside impulses to cope with aloneness. Aldous Huxley’s indictment, “Most of one’s life... is one prolonged effort to prevent thinking,” seems frightfully true. Moreover, the price paid for this scenario has been devastating. As T.S. Eliot questioned:

Where is the life we have lost in the living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries

bring us farther from God and nearer to dust.

Is there a remedy? May I make some suggestions for personal and corporate benefit? Nothing ranks higher for mental discipline than a planned and systematic study of God’s Word, from whence life’s parameters and values are planted in the mind. Paul, who loved his books and parchments, affirmed the priority of Scripture: “Do not go beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6). And Psalm 119 promises that God’s statutes keep us from being double-minded.

The church as a whole and the pulpit in particular must challenge the mind of this generation. The average young person today actually surrenders the intellect to the world, presuming Christianity to be bereft of intelligence. Many a pulpit has succumbed to the lie that anything intellectual cannot be spiritual or exciting.

Thankfully there are exceptions. When living in England, our family attended a church where preaching was taken quite seriously and one-hour sermons to packed auditoriums were the norm. Cambridge, being rife with skepticism, demanded a meticulous defense of each sermon text. I mention this to say one thing. When we were leaving Cambridge, our youngest child, who was nine years old, declared the preaching of this church to be one of his fondest memories. Even as a little boy he had learned that when the mind is rightly approached, it filters down to the heart. The matter I share here has far-reaching implications. We do a disservice to our youth by not crediting them with the capacity to think. We cannot leave this uncorrected.

The Bible places supreme value on the thought-life as that which shapes all of life. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he,” Solomon wrote. Jesus asserted that sin’s gravity lay at the level of the idea itself, not just the act. Paul admonished the church at Philippi to have the mind of Christ, and to the same people he wrote: “[W]hatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8). The follower of Christ must demonstrate to the world what it means not just to think, but to think justly. That is, in the words of aging David to his son Solomon, to “acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever" (1 Chronicles 28:9).

Let us serve the God of creation with both hearts and minds. After all, it is not that I think, therefore, I am, but rather, the great I Am has asked us to think, and therefore, we must.

Ravi Zacharias is founder and president of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. He has arguably best followed the footsteps of C.S.Lewis. He is a spiritual role-model in the 21st century. Unlike most theologians, his rare talent of capturing the essence of the Bible through interweaving the various disciplines (philosophy, science, and history) and speaking with such eloquence and genuineness lends not intellectual credibility as an ambassador for Christ. 


I often visit his website(RZIM) to listen to the free podcasts. Listening to his sermons are like finding an oasis in the lost desert. I assure you that you'll find it likewise.


Please do check out the following lecture. It'll be worth it -- trust me. It's one of my favorite ones:

• Apologetics and Worldviews (Part 1 of 2)
• Apologetics and Worldviews (Part 2 of 2)

The Top 10 HR Reports

As I reflect on the vicissitudes of 2010, one word perfectly sums up the year: change. Change is inevitable and the fact of the matter is we are all trying to survive in this evolving business landscape lest we be eaten up by the Fittest. 

From a Human Resources perspective, we are seeing an emergence of the new era - the period of HR 3.0 Unless we, as HR professionals, develop the capacity to adeptly navigate through this rampant change, we'll become outmoded and value-less.

I took some time reviewing the year of 2010 and wanted to share the top HR reports that are worth re-reading, studying, analyzing. This will equip us with the right tools and knowledge to prevail in this fight for change. 

Here you go. The Top 10 HR Reports: 

1. Are We There Yet? by Dave Ulrich
Many in HR seem to be asking the question, “Are we there yet?” Too often, many in HR seek but never seem to arrive at their destination. HR must move beyond 'administrative service' or 'compliance function' and arrive at 'business partner with credibility.' In this article, Dave Ulrich suggests and discusses steps in the journey ahead.

2. Boston Consulting Group's Creating People Advantage 2010

• This report details which HR practices and methodologies are helping companies to create competitive advantage and which need a different approach to suit the times. This analysis of a broad range of HR topics is based on the second survey conducted by The Boston Consulting Group and the World Federation of People Management Associations, which generated responses from more than 5,500 executives in 109 countries covering five continents and spanning many industries.

3. The Future of HR From a Shareholders Perspective by Dr. John Sullivan
Most pundits that forecast the future of the human resource function do so from a narrow perspective that assumes the future offers little more than an evolution of the past or present.  The forecasts fail to consider how radically different the profession might be if we threw out all that we do today and started with a blank slate, or if we handed functional leadership over to other functional professionals with little exposure to legacy HR thinking.

4. PriceWaterhouseCoopers' Who Gets the Top HR Job? 
A new study examines where the top HR leaders in the largest US organisations are coming from and where they may be headed. The financial crisis has offered an opportunity to rethink where many aspects of business are heading. Perhaps no functional area has gone through more turmoil than human resources. HR seems to be subject to renewed scrutiny by CEOs. Examining the background of top HR executives is instructive and may help inform how corporate leadership sees the HR function itself.

5. Center for Performance Led-HR's Engaged to Perform: A New Perspective on Employee Engagement
Our fundamental purpose in this White Paper is to examine this issue on behalf of HR Directors. We explore how thinking about the issue has developed over time, how assumptions have been created, sometimes tested, sometimes not. We guide the reader through the many, and sometimes conflicting, views about engagement and in so doing, help bring HR Directors to a better understanding of what can be done with this idea. In deconstructing the ideas behind engagement, we then put them back together again in to what we believe is a better HR strategy, and one that will endure over the forthcoming – and crucially important – few years.

6. Changing Mental Models- HR's Most Important Task by Jeffrey Pfeffer
In the “managerial knowledge” marketplace, there is little evidence of much diffusion of ideas, innovative business models, or management practices. In organizations not implementing what they know they should be doing based on experience and insight, and in companies not acting on the basis of the best available evidence, one main factor explains the difficulties—the mental models or mind-sets of senior leaders. How they are formed, what they are about, and a multitude of examples that show how those mind-sets can be improved are presented here.

7. Corporate Leadership Council's Building NextGeneration HR-Line Partnerships

8. IBM's Unlocking the DNA of the adaptable workforce

IBM interviewed over 400 HR executives at organizations from 40 countries to find out how they were addressing these workforce challenges. The 2008 Global Human Capital Study shows that in order to succeed in today and tomorrow's marketplace, there are key areas of focus that require the immediate attention of not just the HR function, but senior executives across the organization. The Human Capital Study highlights how addressing these key focus areas can help transform your workforce and take its performance to the next level.

9. Deloitte's  Tailored to the Bottom Line

The most profitable large companies share three practice areas that differentiate them from the least profitable companies:• Defining a clear and explicit people strategy that is linked to the business strategy• Performing formal succession planning across the workforce.• Linking employee pay directly with productivity of the company or to the respective manufacturing plant.

10. IBM's 2010 Chief Executive Officer Study

In a world fraught with uncertainty, what are today's CEOs doing to strengthen their situations against competitors? Previously, CEOs have consistently identified change as their most pressing challenge. Today, CEOs are telling us that the complexity of operating in an increasingly volatile and uncertain world is their primary challenge. And, a surprising number of them told us that they feel ill-equipped to succeed in this drastically different world. How are leaders dealing with this level of complexity? What strategies are the most successful organizations employing to tap into new opportunities, and overcome the barriers to growth? To find out, we conducted over 1500 face-to-face interviews—the largest known study of its kind with CEOs from companies of all sizes across 60 countries, representing 33 industries.

BONUS: 

11. Deloitte's Heading Off a Resume Tsunami

In a tough economy, voluntary turnover isn’t considered much of a problem. In fact, companies struggling to reduce costs any way they can might even welcome the idea of people leaving voluntarily. At the same time, most employees are hunkering down and not even bothering to look for other jobs.Of course, when the economy starts to turn around, it could be a whole new ball game. As companies scramble to find qualified talent, workers who suffered through years of anxiety and belt-tightening may defect in droves for better opportunities. Is this a real problem that business leaders should worry about now? Or should they wait and see what happens?

Sobering Remarks on Servant Leadership

Servant Leadership Quotes

FROM LISTENING TO SERVING

"We must be silent before we can listen. We must listen before we can learn. We must learn before we can prepare. We must prepare before we can serve. We must serve before we can lead." ~ by William Arthur Ward as quoted in Leadership . . . with a human touch. June 1,1999. p.11.

"The goal of many leaders is to get people to think more highly of the leader. The goal of a great leader is to help people to think more highly of themselves." ~ J. Carla Nortcutt

"Leaders we admire do not place themselves at the center; they place others there. They do not seek the attention of people; they give it to others. They do not focus on satisfying their own aims and desires; they look for ways to respond to the needs and interests of their constituents. They are not self-centered; they concentrate on the constituent. . . Leaders serve a purpose and the people who have made it possible for them to lead . . . . In serving a purpose, leaders strengthen credibility by demonstrating that they are not in it for themselves; instead, they have the interests of the institution, department, or team and its constituents at heart. Being a servant may not be what many leaders had in mind when they choose to take responsibility for the vision and direction of their organization or team, but serving others is the most glorious and rewarding of all leadership tasks." ~ by James Kouzes and Barry Posner in Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It.

"If leadership serves only the leader, it will fail. Ego satisfaction, financial gain, and status can all be valuable tools for a leader, but if they become the only motivations, they will eventually destroy a leader. Only when service for a common good is the primary purpose are you truly leading." ~ Sheila Murray Bethel, Making a Difference: 12 Qualities That Make You a Leader.

"Few people are successful unless other people want them to be." ~ Charlie Brown

"We are here to add what we can to, not get what we can from life." ~ Sir William Osler

"People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care." ~ John C. Maxwell

"Being a leader who serves is very different from being a servant leader." ~ Isabel O. Lopez

"A leader lives with people to know their problems. A leader lives with God in order to solve them." ~ John C. Maxwell

"Servant-leadership is more than a concept, it is a fact. Any great leader, by which I also mean an ethical leader of any group, will see herself or himself as a servant of that group and will act 
accordingly." ~ M. Scott Peck

"A person who is worthy of being a leader wants power not for himself, but in order to be of service." ~ US Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr.

"There is no more noble occupation in the world than to assist another human being to help someone succeed." ~ Alan Loy McGinnis

"To help others become something that they could never on their own become, is putting value into that other person." ~ Unknown

"My research debunks the myth that many people seem to have . . . that you become a leader by fighting your way to the top. Rather, you become a leader by helping others to the top. Helping your employees is as important, and many times more so, than trying to get the most work out of them." ~ William Cohen, The Stuff of Heroes: The Eight Universal Laws of Leadership.

"You will find yourself in service to your fellow man, your country, and your God." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

"Use power to help people. For we are given power not to advance our own purposes nor to make a great show in the world, not a name. There is but one just use of power and it is to serve people." ~ US President George Bush

"Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it." ~ Marian Anderson

"The measure of a leader is not the number of people who serve the leader, but the number of people served by the leader." ~ Adapted from a quote by John C. Maxwell.

"Whatever our career may be, true leadership means to receive power from God and to use it under Gods rule to serve people in Gods way." ~ Leighton Ford

"As leaders shift their focus to customers and quality, they realize that the old authoritarian leadership style does not work anymore. To achieve quality, service, and rapid response, leaders must utilize all available talent. They must find ways to inspire, involve, and empower employees. They must create a work environment that encourages commitment, innovation, and cooperation. Instead of evaluating, leaders now coach. Instead of doing, they delegate. Instead of telling, they facilitate. No one is expected to boss anyone. Everyone is expected to participate." ~ Dr. Suzanne Willis Zoglio in The Participative Leader, p. v.

"The adventure of life is to learn. The purpose of life is to grow. The nature of life is to change. The challenge of life is to overcome. The essence of life is to care. The opportunity of like is to serve. The secret of life is to dare. The spice of life is to befriend. The beauty of life is to give." ~ William Arthur Ward

"The most valuable "currency" of any organization is the initiative and creativity of its members. Every leader has the solemn moral responsibility to develop these to the maximum in all his people. This is the leader's highest priority." ~ W. Edwards Deming in Principle Centred Leadership.

"Life is a place of service. Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness." ~ Leo Tolstoy

"No enterprise can exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others; or failing therein it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist." ~ US President Calvin Coolidge

"At Western [Baptist College] we help students prepare to make a difference in the world for Jesus Christ as servant leaders who are informed Christians, competent thinkers and effective communicators. We have a reason to be in business and we know what it is! AND sometimes that clarity of purpose even drives us to heroic activity." ~ Julie Jantzi Vice President for Academic Affairs, Western Baptist College, 
Salem, Oregon

"A Godly Leader finds strength by realizing his weakness, finds authority by being under authority, finds direction by laying down his own plans, finds vision by seeing the needs of others, finds credibility by being an example, finds loyalty by expressing compassion, finds honor by being faithful, finds greatness by being a servant." ~ Roy Lessin

"No leader can possibly have all the answers . . . .The actual solutions about how best to meet the challenges of the moment have to be made by the people closest to the action. . . .The leader has to find the way to empower those frontline people, to challenge them, to provide them with the resources they need, and then to hold them accountable. As they struggle with . . . this challenge, the leader becomes their coach, teacher, and facilitator. Change how you define leadership, and you change how you run a company." ~ Steve Miller, Group Managing Director, Royal Dutch/Shell.

THE SERVANT KING
(FROM HEAVEN YOU CAME)
by Graham Kendrick
(Based on Philippians 2:4-8; Matthew 26:39; Isaiah 53:7; Ephesians 6:7)
From heaven You came, helpless Babe, Entered our world, Your glory veiled; Not to be served, but to serve, And give Your life that we might live. This is our God, the Servant King, He calls us now to follow Him; To bring our lives as a daily offering Of worship to the Servant King. There in the garden of tears, My heavy load He chose to bear; His heart with sorrow was torn, "Yet not My will, but Yours," He said. Come, see His hands and His feet, The scars that speak of sacrifice, Hands that flung stars into space, To cruel nails surrendered. So let us learn how to serve, And in our lives enthrone Him; Each other's needs to prefer, For it is Christ we're serving.

"Few things will pay you bigger dividends than the time and trouble you take to understand people. Almost nothing will add more to your stature as an executive and a person. Nothing will give you greater satisfaction or bring you more happiness." ~ Kienzle and Dare In Climbing the Executive Ladder
Researchers from the Center for Creative Leadership say that "insensitivity to others" in the primary reason why successful executives tumble off the track to the executive suite. ~ McCall and Lombardo, Off the Track

"Studies of unsuccessful executives portray people as loners -- managers who prefer to work independently, who are highly critical of their staff, and who are unwilling to share control of projects and problem solutions. Unsuccessful executives generally view team participation and discussion an a waste of time and have poor interpersonal skills, according to these studies; they're ill at ease with others, frequently making intensitive and undiplomatic remarks, and they look on other people with a great deal of mistrust. Managers who focus on themselves and are insensitive to others fail, because there's a limit to what they can do by themselves. Those leaders who succeed realize that little can be accomplished if people don't feel strong and capable. In fact, by using their own power in service of others rather than in service of self, successful leaders transform their constituents into leaders themselves -- and wind up with extraordinary results." ~ Kouzes and Posner, The Leadership Challenge, pp. 190-91.

"Servant-leadership is more than a concept, it is a fact. Any great leader, by which I also mean an ethical leader of any group, will see herself or himself as a servant of that group and will act accordingly." ~ M. Scott Peck

A STUDENT'S PERSPECTIVE ON SERVANT-LEADERSHIP

"It its through my experiences as a Servant Leader that I have grown as a human being. I stand before you a stronger and more compassionate leader. One valuable lesson I have learned is this: Happiness is not something to be pursued - It is through the service and kindness of others that happiness simply finds you!" ~ Suzy Meyer, Highland Community College, Freeport, Illinois

"A new moral principle is emerging which holds that the only authority deserving one's allegiance is that which is freely and knowingly granted by the led to the leader in response to, and in proportion to, the clearly evident servant stature of the leader. Those who choose to follow this principle will not casually accept the authority of existing institutions. Rather, they will freely respond only to Individuals who are chosen as leaders because they are proven and trusted servants. To the extent that this principle prevails in the future, the only truly viable institutions will be those that are predominantly servant-led." ~ Robert K. Greenleaf

"Servant leadership is easy for people with high self-esteem. Such people have no problem giving credit to others and have no problem listening to other people for ideas. They have no problem in building other people up and they don't feel other people's success threatens them In any way. . . . Servant leadership builds self-esteem and encourages Individual growth while obtaining the organization's objectives." ~ Ken Blanchard, Convene (February 1998) p75.

"As you wait upon the Lord, you learn to see things from His perspective, move at His pace, and function under His directives. Waiting times are growing times and learning times. As you quiet your heart, you enter His peace: as you sense your weakness, you receive His strength: as you lay down your will, you hear His calling. When you mount up, you are being lifted by the wind of His Spirit . . . When you move ahead, you are sensitive to His timing. When you act, you give as yourself only to the things He has asked you to do. ~ Roy Lessin

TEN CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SERVANT-LEADER - LARRY SPEARS

Listening receptively
Acceptance of (and empathy with) others
Foresight and intuition
Awareness and perception
Highly-developed powers of persuasion
Ability to conceptualize and communicate concepts
A healing influence upon people and institutions
Ability to build a sense of community in the workplace
Practice contemplation
Willingness to change.

"Servant-leadership begins with the desire to change oneself. Once that process has begun, it then becomes possible to practice servant-leadership at an institutional level."

"Servanthood is the chief modifier of the power implicit in all leadership - a quality of innerness, an attribute of soul that checks the corruptibility of power ... Real power is always an exchange of leadership to use power to call out the God-given power of others." ~ Bennett J. Sims in Servanthood pp. 3l & 34

"Servant-leadership is all about making the goals clear and then rolling your sleeves up and doing whatever it takes to help people win. In that situation, they don't work for you, you work for them." ~ Ken Blanchard in "Servant Leadership" The Management Forum volume 4 number 3.

"Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love." ~ Martin Luther King Jr. as quoted in Even Eagles Need a Push p. 109.

"The purpose of life is not to win. The purpose of life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you have brought into other people's lives than you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them." ~ Rabbi Harold Kushner

"Leadership is getting people to help you when they are not obligated to do so." ~ John C. Maxwell

"True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not to enrich the leader." ~ John C. Maxwell