Servant Leadership: A leadership and lifestyle choice

Robert Greenleaf, the father of Servant Leadership, intones that Servant Leadership is about seeing how a leader meets the needs of his/her followers and how the leader’s leadership impacts the least among the organization. When I walk with leaders of organizations, I find that too often they are unaware of how their actions and decisions impact “the least powerful” of their organization.

This doesn’t mean they don’t think about them or care, but it does mean that they often don’t take the time to see the world through their eyes. Dave Skogen, in Boomerang, frequently talks about being on the floor of the many Festival Foods stores to see what the world looks like through the eyes of a floor associate. To stand in the bakery and to talk to the bakers. To go to the meat counter and then go behind it to talk to the butchers. That’s how one finds out what the world looks like through those with the least power.

So why does a servant leader care about this? A servant leader is focused on meeting the unmet needs of their followers. Meet the followers’ needs and then get out of their way and let them do their job. A servant leader also cares about this because, regardless of where someone falls in an organization’s org chart, they are still people with inherent worth, value, and are thus due respect.

So… have you been in your bakery or behind your meat counter lately? Every business, profit or non-profit, has one, and leaders need to go find theirs and start asking real questions.