Servant Leadership in the Biotic Community

One of my favorite servant leaders is Aldo Leopold . In his classic book A Sand County Almanac, Leopold wrote the essay “The Land Ethic”. In the section titled “The Outlook” (which can be read at the end of the attached link), he wrote, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

This simple statement could guide many individuals (and organizations) to operate in a servant-leadership mode. It is likely that the reason more servant-leadership type organizations do not exist is that somewhere along the way human beings have forgotten that we are indeed simply a part of the “biotic community” and not somehow separated from or perched on top of it. Leopold also wrote, "We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."

It is the separation from the rest of creation that also allows us to separate ourselves from other groups of people and develop hierarchical organizations that are designed to primarily benefit those sitting on the top, and use the people below in the same manner as we have treated the land, namely as a commodity. It seems that sooner or later when you do not take care of the community that supports you, the support will eventually collapse, and down will come the leader. At least that is what happens in the biotic community.

I would be interested to see others thoughts on this.

Tom Jablonski