Creating an Authentic Community of Work

Any organization worthy of its name must create an authentic community of work that allows it to see the whole of its organizational life. It is more than managing the competing interest of diverse parties within the organization; it means going beyond balancing the dynamic of contending interests to integrating the various parts of the organization into a community of work where those who are connected to that workplace flourish. Like our own personal fragmentation, this is never completely done, nor is it easy, but it is an important signature to the vocation of the servant-leader in organizations.

Greeleaf spoke a great deal on this very topic. As the week draws to a close, I'll leave you with one of my favorite Greenleaf quotes:

Caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built. Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions - often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt. If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them.