About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Servant leadership

Encyclopedia : S : SE : SER : Servant leadership

Servant leadership is an approach to leadership development, coined and defined by Robert Greenleaf and advanced by several authors such as Stephen Covey, Peter Block, Peter Senge, Max De Pree, Margaret Wheatley, Ken Blanchard, and others. Servant-leadership emphasizes the leader's role as steward of the resources (human, financial and otherwise) provided by the organization. It encourages leaders to serve others while staying focused on achieving results in line with the organization's values and integrity.

The modern concept of Servant Leadership started with Robert Greenleaf, who published his essay, "The Servant as Leader" in 1970. This lead to further essays from Greenleaf, and further works from others, especially in recent years. However, the concept is thousands of years older than this and stems, at least partly, from Jesus' teachings on leadership. He sought to teach his disciples that in order to be first they must "wash each other's feet" (Jn. 13:14). In other words, they must seek to serve each other in order to be true leaders. And again, Jesus said that "many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first" (Matt. 19:30). meaning that true leadership, according to Jesus, was leadership based in servanthood. Servant Leadership is also the main principle concept behind the film, The Emperor's Club, that shows the relation of a teacher and student after years of distinctive differences in their ambitions and philosophies on life. Servant Leadership in the film, teaches how "it is not living that is important, but living rightly". In such a context, The Emperor's Club clearly defines "right" and brings out its moral implications on an heavily mortalised world.

It differs from other leadership approaches by eschewing the common top-down hierarchical style, and instead emphasizing collaboration, trust, empathy, and the ethical use of power. At heart, the individual is a servant first, making the conscious decision to lead; his drive is to lead because he wants to serve better, not because he desires increased power. The objective is to enhance the growth of individuals in the organization and increase teamwork and personal involvement.

Critics might dismiss Servant leadership as "yet another fad to line consultants' pockets", but its proponents counter that the ideals underlying it are timeless (witness its description in chapter 17 of the Tao Te Ching, ca. 6th century BCE), and the concept of Servant Leadership has been in development for over 40 years with involvement from AT&T and Harvard Business School.

Several companies have based or incorporated servant leadership into their corporate culture, including Herman Miller, Toro Company, Southwest Airlines, TDIndustries, Starbucks Coffee, Men's Warehouse, ServiceMaster, and others.

uses "educating Servant Leaders...." as a slogan.
Concordia University, Seward, a Lutheran Christian university in Nebraska, has incorporated servant leadership into its curriculum, under the slogan "Preparing servant leaders for church and world." Concordia students are required to take a servant leadership practicum in which they perform a 60 hour service project.

A Servant Leadership Program was established by the Right Rev. Bishop Bennet Sims, the Episcopal Bishop of Atlanta, after retirement at Emory University in Atlanta. The school was subsequently moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina.

See also

External links

References

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: