Leaders Must Serve Life
- olivierbranford
- Mar 30, 2024
- 16 min read
Updated: Jan 29
Why is the world so broken? It's because we are lacking servant leadership.
Everyone feels like they are drowning (this applies to leaders, organisations, institutions, employees, and private individuals alike) and so they act as though they must be ‘out for themselves ’ in order to survive. This damages all of us and causes us to fail collectively.
Servant leadership is the most current, potent, transformative, personal, and public of all business models, as it has a deep history and embraces the full range of the human condition.
There are passages related to servant leadership in the fifth-century 'Tao Te Ching', attributed to Lao-Tzu, who wrote, “The highest type of ruler is one of whose existence the people are barely aware…. The Sage is self-effacing and scanty of words. When his task is accomplished and things have been completed, all the people say, ‘We ourselves have achieved it!'”
What is servant leadership? Why is it so powerful? It is the solution
In modern history, servant-leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and the Dalai Lama have led some of our most lasting movements without any formal role or authority.
When Gandhi went to London to negotiate with the monarchy regarding India’s release, a British journalist asked him: “What is your secret?” In other words, "How does a tiny Hindu ascetic with homespun clothes and no shoes bring the largest empire in history to its knees? Gandhi’s answer was simply six words: “I strive to make myself zero.” By “Zero”, Gandhi was referring to arriving at a place of such selfless love that each thought, word and deed was motivated wholly by the welfare and wellbeing of others, and not for his own gratification. He didn’t claim to have arrived at that place, in fact he often admitted quite the opposite, but he was striving.
I believe this is the missing link in leadership today, and I am not alone in saying that.
Albert Schweitzer said that "The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others." Leo Tolstoy "The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity."Arthur Ashe said that "True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost." Serving others takes the ego out of you. For me, serving others means to see and hear the highest version of you, until you see and hear it for your Self.
One does not arrive at “zero” without a significant amount of inner work: It requires letting go of the need for external validation and approval (quite a task in today’s social media-obsessed world), and abandoning the need for self-aggrandisement. Instead, we should encourage individual Self-realisation. This is especially difficult – and now even more important – in our celebrity-centric culture that would have us believe that contribution follows significance, instead of Gandhi’s paradigm: Significance is the unsought-for-by-product of contribution.
Servant leadership is a leadership philosophy in which the goal of the leader is to serve. This is different from traditional leadership where the leader's main focus is the thriving of their company or organisation. A servant leader shares power, puts the needs of the employees first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible. Instead of the people working to serve the leader, the leader exists to serve the people. As stated by its founder, Robert K. Greenleaf, a servant leader should be focused on "Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?
Dr Martin Luther King Jr. "Everybody can be great... Because anybody can serve."
The parable of the puzzle of the world
A businessman sat and worked from home, when suddenly he was approached by his 9-year-old son, determined to help him in his work. The businessman, who did not want to be interrupted, tried to ask his son to go somewhere else for a while, but when he saw that he would not, he started looking for something that could keep his child busy. He grabbed and tore a page from an old book with a world map, cut it into small pieces, and gave it to the child. "Do you like puzzles?" he said, "Take this dismantled, torn, broken world map and see if you can fix it by yourself." He was confident the child would take many days to assemble the map, but a few short hours later, he heard the voice of his son calling him "Dad, I'm done, I put everything back together." At first, the father did not believe it: "It isn't possible at the age of nine to reconstruct a map of the world that you have never seen before!" But he put down his notes, and went to his son, when he was sure he was going to see a mess. To his surprise, the map was perfect and all the pieces were in place! "How did you DO that??" The scientist asked his son "How did you put the world back together?". "Well, dad," the boy answered, "I don't know the world, but when you tore the page from the magazine, I saw on the other side a picture of a man. When you gave me the world to fix, I tried but I couldn't. Then I flipped all the pieces and started to fix the person. And when I fixed the man, I turned it over and saw the world had been fixed as well..."
You only need to work on your Self or empower the people in your organisation, and you will fix the world.
What is servant leadership?
When leaders shift their mindset and serve first, they benefit as well as their employees in that their employees acquire personal growth and transformation, while the organisation grows as well due to the employees' growing commitment and engagement. Since this leadership style came about, a number of different organisations including Starbucks and Marriott International have adopted this style as their way of leadership.
According to a 2002 study by Sen Sendjaya and James C. Sarros, servant leadership is being practiced in some of the top-ranking companies, and these companies are highly ranked because of their leadership style and following. Further research also confirms that servant leaders lead others to go beyond the call of duty. This is in stark contrast to Enron's egocentric, limited, 'dog-eat-dog' mentality that led to the company's collapse and demise.
The most important characteristic in being a servant leader, according to Greenleaf, is making one's main priority to serve rather than to lead. According to Ginny Boyum, Greenleaf proposed that servant leaders should serve first, make the needs of others their main priority, and find success and 'power' in the growth of others; summarily, "A servant can only become a leader if a leader remains a servant". In simpler terms, servant leaders should seek to be servants first, to care for the needs of all others around them, to ensure growth of future leaders. These traits indicate one is a servant leader because, overall, they are causing the ones they serve to become healthier and wiser, guiding others toward self-improvement. Eventually, the served are driven to possess the traits of a servant leader as well, continuing the spread of the leadership style.
Robert K. Greenleaf first popularised the phrase servant leadership in "The Servant as Leader", an essay published in 1970. In this essay, Greenleaf explains how and why he came up with the idea of servant leadership, as well as defining a servant leader. Greenleaf gave this idea an extensive amount of thought before bringing it to life. Larry Spears, CEO of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, stated in an interview: "Greenleaf credited his reading of Hesse's 1932 book, 'Journey to the East', as the personal source of inspiration in his coining the term, 'servant-leader' in his 1970 essay, The Servant as Leader.
In Journey to the East, the main character, named Leo, is a servant just like all the others. All the servants work well together, until one day when Leo disappears. When the servants realise that things are not the same without Leo, they came to the realisation that Leo was far more than a servant – he was actually their leader.
In his 1970 essay (and published book) titled 'The Servant as Leader,' Greenleaf asserted the need for a new kind of leadership model - one that puts serving others, including employees, customers, and community, as the number-one priority. His central definition of servant leadership involves a 'calling,' as follows “It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.”
Dr Martin Luther King Jr. "Life's most persistent and urgent question is 'What are you doing for others?"
Greenleaf came to the realisation that a newfound leader should be someone that servants or workers can relate to. Leo was seen as a servant, but when the other servants realised that things fell apart without him, he became far more than just a servant to them. This is Greenleaf's idea of what a servant leader should be. Greenleaf first put his idea of servant leadership to use in an organisational sense while he was working as an executive at AT&T.
Servant leadership entered the arena of research in 1998 with the publication of the first peer-reviewed servant leadership scale, and since then, over 270 peer-reviewed articles have been published across 122 academic journals.
Jon Gordon "You don't have to be great to serve, but you have to serve to be great."
Leadership is a 'Hero's Journey'
In the Bible in Mark (10:42–45) it states that Jesus, the world's greatest leader, said "And Jesus called them to him and said to them, 'You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles Lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.'"
There is a long shadow cast by hierarchical leadership. The ego is a ‘King Baby’ trying to act big. Why act so big, when you are not so small? Like the tiny, powerless wizard in the Wizard of Oz, whose power seemed to be contained in criticising what was missing in the various heroes who accompanied Dorothy rather than empowering them.
Leaders, institutions, and individuals all need to take a 'Hero’s Journey'. It isn’t Kansas any more and it’s not just Dorothy who needs to take the path. As Dorothy said “Toto, I have a feeling we are not in Kansas any more. We must be over the rainbow.”
Dorothy said in the 'Wizard of Oz' “Toto, I have a feeling we are not in Kansas any more. We must be over the rainbow.”
In the iconic film ‘The Matrix’ just before the red pill taken by Neo kicks in, Cypher, the ‘Judas’ figure in the film who doesn’t want to awaken, instead preferring the reassuring taste of steak to reality and wants to take the blue bill, warns Neo "Buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, 'cause Kansas is going bye-bye!"
Cypher says to Neo in 'The Matrix': "Buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, 'cause Kansas is going bye-bye!"
In ‘Avatar’ Colonel Quaritch warns the newly arrived soldiers "You are not in Kansas anymore!"
For your personal or organisational transformation, you need to be ready to say goodbye to Kansas and take the road less travelled (in reference to the classic transformative text by M. Scott Peck ‘The Road Less Travelled’): in other words - the ‘Hero’s Journey,’ described by Joseph Campbell.
M. Scott Speck said that “Life is difficult. This is a great Truth, one of the greatest Truths. It is a great Truth because once we truly see this Truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult - once we truly understand and accept it - then life is no longer difficult.” There are no such things as obstacles, difficulties or challenges – there are simply lessons, sent to us by the part of us that loves us the most (our soul) in order to gently (and sometimes abruptly) redirect our course and to Enlighten us. That is how we find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It is not by numbing ourselves with blue pills, worhaholism, external validation, or numbing addictions that we find success, peace, and joy. It is by fearlessly facing the world ‘full-on’ and taking the leap into the void in service of others.
The author of 'Alice in Wonderland', a sublime allegory for personal transformation, Lewis Caroll wrote "Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast... It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." Morpheus (who serves as the Cheshire Cat) says to the hero Neo (who serves as Alice) in the iconic film 'The Matrix', which is full of references to philosophy, spirituality, and the literature, in reference to Alice in Wonderland "You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." Both Neo and Alice are insatiably curious, preferring a better world where there are no rules, where they are free, and where anything is possible. Both Neo and Alice come to reject the fantasy world, favouring reality, though through different means and thoughts. Both narratives also follows the stages of the Hero's Journey, described by Joseph Campbell. The first reference to Alice in Wonderland from 'The Matrix' comes from Trinity telling Neo to “Follow the white rabbit”, to begin his transformative journey of self-discovery. Are you ready for yours?
The blue and red pills in 'The Matrix' reference the drink and food Alice consumes in Wonderland, changing her size from small (ego) to large (Higher Self) to small again. She is instructed to choose between two sides of the Caterpillar’s mushroom, which will make her either smaller (ego) or larger (Higher Self). In the case of 'The Matrix', the choice of pill refer to the same two options of either being asleep (ego, or blue pill) or of waking up (Higher Self, or red pill). Cypher expresses his regret to Neo, preferring to have taken the blue pill and remain asleep. That is what most of us do; believing that oblivion is preferable to the initial pain of awakening. It comes from a place of self-hatred and fear, and from experiencing all the rewards of Self-realisation and Self-actualisation if we trust the process. This references how Alice regrets going down the rabbit hole, wishing to return to the comforts of her home. Cypher wants to return to the fantasy of 'The Matrix', rather than stay in the misery of reality. Emotional pain is part of the journey, and without facing it, and realising that its part of being truly alive, there is no awakening. Alice was a child of Victorian England, bound to expectations and adult making decisions for her. Neo is trapped in a simulated reality, living a dull life he does not feel comfortable in. Though the context is different, by committing to the path, the greatest journey of your life, both find freedom, peace, wisdom, Truth and joy.
In 'The Matrix', The Oracle is influenced by the Caterpillar, being a wise, resourceful, if cryptic character. She serves as a guide to Neo, though tells him that he must make his own choices, just as we will do in our coaching sessions. In a lot of contemporary adaptations of Alice, the Caterpillar is depicted as an oracular figure. Both characters undergo a transformation; the Caterpillar becomes a butterfly (a classic metaphor for metamorphosis and transformation), whilst the Oracle has to change her physical appearance in 'The Matrix Revolutions'. When a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, the former has to literally dissolve to reveal the beautiful butterfly, with brightly mosaically coloured wings.
Dale Carnegie, who wrote the classic transformative book 'How to Win Friends and Influence People, wrote "We all have possibilities we don't know about. We can do things we don't even dream we can do." Thomas Edison, who invented the light bulb, amongst many other things that revolutionalised the industrialised world, said that "If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."
Ten key precepts of Servant-Leadership
After carefully considering Greenleaf’s original writings, Larry Spears, former CEO of the Greenleaf Center, expanded the original ten precepts:
Listening. Traditionally, leaders have been valued for their communication and decision-making skills. Servant-leaders develop a deep commitment to listening intently and openly to others. They seek to identify and clarify the will or commitment of a group. Listening also encompasses getting in touch with one’s inner voice by tuning into one’s body/senses, mental states, and intuition/will.
Empathy. Servant-leaders strive to understand, empathise, and have compassion with others. One must assume the good intentions of co-workers and not reject them as people, even when forced to reject their behaviour or performance.
Healing: Learning to heal is a powerful force for transformation and integration. One of the great strengths of servant leadership is the potential for healing oneself - becoming comfortable and whole with oneself. From compassion and humility, these leaders cultivate an environment that promotes the wellbeing of others.
Awareness. General awareness, and especially self-awareness, strengthen the servant-leader. Making a commitment to foster awareness can be scary - you never know what you may discover! As Greenleaf observed, “Awareness is not a giver of solace - it’s just the opposite. It disturbs. Servant-leaders are not seekers of solace. They have their own inner security.” These leaders embrace the very blind spots that become the source of new learning to lead and serve.
Persuasion/Encouragement. Servant-leaders rely on persuading others, rather than positional authority when making decisions. They seek to enroll or encourage others in a commitment, rather than coerce compliance. This difference between commitment and compliance offers a clear distinction between traditional leadership models and that of a servant-leader.
Conceptualisation/Imagination. Servant-leaders seek to nurture their ability to “Dream great dreams.” They have the ability to look at a problem (or an organisation) from a conceptualising perspective, requiring them to think beyond day-to-day realities and problems to view possibilities. This requires a delicate balance between a future to conceptualise and the urgency of the day-to-day focus.
Foresight/Perspective. Foresight enables servant-leaders to understand lessons from the past, the realities of the present, and the likely consequences of a decision in the future. These leaders place current items in the proper perspective to gauge priorities.
Stewardship/Commitment. Robert Greenleaf’s view of all institutions was one in which CEOs, staff, managers, and directors serve as trustees, taking custody of their institutions for the greater good of society. Servant-leaders are committed to something bigger than themselves. They enroll others into that commitment, as highlighted in Peter Block’s (1993) book, Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self Interest.
Commitment to Personal Mastery. Servant-leaders believe that people have an intrinsic value beyond their tangible contributions as workers. As such, they are deeply committed to the personal, professional, and spiritual growth of each and every individual within the organisation.
Developing Community. Servant-leaders are aware that the shift from local communities to large organisations as the primary shaper of human lives has changed our perceptions and caused a sense of loss. They seek to identify a means for developing community - as teachers, stewards, and designers - among those who work within a given organisation.
Higher purpose and learning now drive leadership concerns
For my article on Real Personal Power that goes well beyond ego, click on the link:
For my article on the 'Hero's Journey' that we must all follow, simply click on the link:
Namaste.
Olly
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