By: Dale Weckbacher
Mark 9:35-36
"If anyone
desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all."
NKJV
Jesus is an example of the greatest leader that has ever
walked the face of the earth. Of course,
as a Christian I have a biased opinion for I also believe Jesus is the Son of
God. However, anyone that studies
leadership would have to agree that anyone who could take a rag tag group of fishermen
from Galilee, considered outcasts by the elite of both Rome and Jerusalem, and
start a movement that continues to this day is a great leader.
In Mark 9:35-36 Jesus is teaching his disciples, the men
that would continue his work after he returned to heaven to be with his father,
the importance of leaders serving those they lead. Viewed in the context of the time Jesus made
this statement, this would have been considered a radical concept for the
people at that time were living under the dictatorial rule of the Roman Empire
as well as the religious laws and traditions of their religious leaders. The question we will look at in this posting
is whether servant leadership is applicable in our current business and
political climate.
In the previous three postings of this series we looked at
the importance of leaders possessing courage, vision, and integrity. Even though these qualities are important,
the quality of a servant’s heart acts as the glue holding everything
together. This is because a leader must
have followers that share in his vision, something a leader seen as someone who
cares about his or her followers will find easier to accomplish.
Edward Hess spent years studying high performing companies
to find what leadership qualities were prevalent in these companies. With the prevailing belief being that great
leaders were people with charisma, a commanding presence, and vision, he
expected to see a common thread of these qualities in the companies he studied. Interestingly, however, what he discovered is
that, “Almost all of the leaders of the high-performing companies that I
studied had none of those traits. Instead,
they are what I call servant leaders.” (1)
According to Robert Greenleaf, author of ‘Servant
Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of
Legitimate Power and Greatness’ a servant leader possesses the following 10
qualities:
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 (2)
These are all great qualities of leaders and, as Edward Hess
discovered, qualities that contribute to greater performance within
organizations. Therefore, we must ask
why these qualities are not more prevalent within these organizations. Perhaps we can find insight by looking at an event,
which occurred in the 1990,’s at a ServiceMaster board meeting.
Prior to the meeting CEO William Pollard spilled a cup of
coffee. Of course as CEO, it would have
been easy for him to summon one of his employees to come over and clean up the
mess. However, Mr. Pollard did not take
this easy approach and instead had a colleague get him some cleaning compound and
a cloth, items sold by the company, and proceeded to clean up the mess
himself. Interestingly, hardly anyone at
the meeting noticed what Mr. Pollard did because what he did was a common occurrence
within the organization. (3)
Servant leadership is not easy for it involves the leader
being willing to roll up his or her sleeves and do some dirty work, such as
cleaning up coffee he or she has spilled.
However, a leader’s willingness to take responsibility for their own
actions instills trust in the leader and makes it easier for followers to buy
into the leader’s vision for the organization.
If we were to dig deeper into ServiceMaster under the leadership of Mr.
Pollard, we would probably find the people in the organization were also
willing to follow Mr. Pollard’s vision for the organization with little
opposition.
Becoming a servant leader means being willing to join with
people in the organization as they work to make the organization
successful. It means getting out of the
boardroom, the oval office, or golf course, and seeing the challenges followers
face in their daily lives. This week
President Obama told people claiming that they cannot afford Obamacare to get
rid of their cable and cellphones. (4)
This is not an example of servant leadership but is instead
an example of a leader asking people to make sacrifices, sacrifices he is
unwilling to make, in the interest of advancing his vision for the nation. If President Obama were a true servant
leader, he would be finding ways to make health insurance more affordable and
optional so people could afford it and still have a choice on whether to buy it
or not.
Therefore, in these upcoming elections it is important that
we find leaders with courage, vision, and integrity. However, we must not forget the important
quality of a servants heart. Next
Saturday we will begin looking at some of the potential leaders in our country
and see how they stack up against our standards of courage, vision, integrity, and
a servant’s heart.
1. Hess, Edward D. Servant leadership: A path
to high performance. www.washingtonpost.com. [Online] The Washington
Post, April 28, 2013. [Cited: March 15, 2014.]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/servant-leadership-a-path-to-high-performance/2013/04/26/435e58b2-a7b8-11e2-8302-3c7e0ea97057_story.html.
2. Greenleaf,
Robert. Ten Principles of Servant Leadership. www.butler.edu. [Online]
Butler University. [Cited: March 15, 2014.] https://www.butler.edu/volunteer/resources/principles-of-servant-leadership/.
3. Heskett, James.
Why Isn't Servant Leadership More Prevalent? www.forbes.com. [Online]
Forbes, May 1, 2013. [Cited: March 15, 2014.]
http://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2013/05/01/why-isnt-servant-leadership-more-prevalent/.
4. Cain, Herman.
VIDEO: Obama tells man who can’t afford ObamaCare to get rid of cable, cell
phone. canadafreepress.com. [Online] Canada Free Press, March 13, 2014.
[Cited: March 15, 2014.] http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/61748.
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