12 Things Successful Women Do Differently

Twelve Things Successful Women Do Differently is a great piece that should be required reading for every woman trying to make it all fit.  (Men, I think a lot of the advice applies to you, too.)  I hope you'll take a moment to read it.

Make it Better: An Introduction to Servant Leadership

All of us have encountered leaders of varying types in our lives.  Think back to those people who have had the most positive influence on you.  Did you have a teacher who told you were smart or a good writer?  Was it a Scout or clergy leader who encouraged you?  Maybe a supervisor showed you what working with integrity meant?  Chances are that the person who had the most positive impact on you was a servant leader, a person who believed in you and placed your development as a higher priority than their own need for power. 

While some of the basic concepts of servant leadership have existed for millennia, Robert K. Greenleaf is the person credited with consolidating and developing the idea in the modern era.  Greenleaf worked for AT&T and he was charged with creating training and development opportunities for their staff.  In doing so, he began to question the traditional authoritarian power model of leadership and he set out to create an alternative.  Through years of voraciously exploring ideas, cultures, and beliefs, he formulated servant leadership.

When we hear the word “leader,” most of us think of positional leaders – those who lead by virtue of their title and role within an organization – but leaders exist in many places beyond those in positions of power.  Greenleaf, in The Servant as Leader (page 15), define this style of leadership in this way:

“[Servant leadership] begins with the natural feeling that one wants 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….the best test, and difficult to administer, is: 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?”

This desire to have a positive impact, to help make people and situations better because you were there, is the heart of servant leadership and it is what we will be exploring over the coming weeks. Future topics include the use of the word “servant,” a primer on the power model that contrasts with servant leadership, and critical practices of servant leaders. I hope you will read each post and ask any questions or make observations along the way.