A Tipping Point for Servant Leadership?

Do you feel that Servant Leadership will reach a critical mass, or tipping point, and become a pervasive leadership concept in our world?

For those of you not familiar with Servant Leadership, Robert Greenleaf wrote his groundbreaking essay, The Servant as Leader, in 1969. The book, Servant Leadership, was released in 1977. The cover flap reads, "With the publication of Servant Leadership in 1977, a new paradigm of management entered the boardrooms and corporate offices of America. Robert K. Greenleaf, a retired AT&T executive, proposed that service ought to be the distinguishing characteristic of leadership."

Greenleaf writes, "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. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. For such, it will be a later choice to serve -- after leadership is established" (p. 27). He continues, "The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people's highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is this: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived" (Greenleaf, 1977, p. 27).

Larry Spears, past Director of The Greenleaf Center for Servant- Leadership identifies Ten Characteristics of the Servant Leader* as:

• Awareness
• Community Building
• Commitment to the Growth of People
• Conceptualization
• Empathy
• Foresight
• Healing
• Listening
• Persuasion
• Stewardship

What are the odds of this emerging form of leadership making it to top spot in the long list of leadership philosophies and styles?

References:

- Greenleaf, R. (1977). Servant leadership. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press

- Horsman, J. (2009). The philosophy of servant leadership. Journeying on the Path of Leadership. Spokane, WA: School of Professional Studies, Gonzaga University