What is Servant Leadership?
September 1, 2014 / Michael Wayne Regier Ph.D. / MichaelRegier.com / Relational Excellence Articles
Reflecting this morning on the verse “the son of man did not come into the world to be served but to serve.” Matthew 20:28
This brought to mind the work of Robert Greenleaf who over 100 years ago defined the concept of servant leadership. In his book Essentials he wrote:
“The servant-leader is servant first… Becoming a servant-leader 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… 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 the most 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?”
Greenleaf deeply believed that leaders being servants would revolutionize business, politics, religion and the world we live in.
Food for thought and transformation.
Michael Wayne Regier, Ph.D.
