“Accountability as Covenant: The Taproot of Servant-Leadership”

The Seventh chapter of Insights on Leadership, is an essay by Ann McGee-Cooper titled “Accountability as Covenant: The Taproot of Servant-Leadership”

Two ideas that struck me in this essay include: “By creating a shared vision and agreeing on core values and mission, we can design the shared map of where we want to go as a team.” And “Everyone must become both leader and follower, taking full responsibility for what they know best and the unique talents and perspective belonging only to them, while respecting that those balancing talents and perspectives of all other must be considered and integrated.”

Accountability is individuals working together toward achieving a shared goal. Each member of the group is important for, and responsible for, what they bring to the group.

A must visit site: www.donfrick.com

You will see a new link on the website and it is well-deserving of your attention: It is Don Frick's new website.

As many of you know, Don is a frequent contributor here on the blog - both with posts and comments. He spent seven years researching Robert Greenleaf's life in preparation for writing Greenleaf's biography, which is a must-read for all those interested in Greenleaf's works. There are few people on this planet who understand Servant Leadership as Greenleaf described it better than Don. And on top of all this, Don is a first-class professional.

Please take the time to check out Don's site. He even has a Servant Leadership primer that is top-rate, as well as an excerpts page from various articles and speeches.

Why Servant Leadership can be a tough sell

I had to laugh when I read this article. Not that it is surprising, but a recent study indicates that we Americans are an impatient lot. Most of us will not return to businesses that make us wait, and some of us will even speak rudely when we are not served efficiently. What is interesting is that older people tend to be more impatient than younger people.

If we are this way as consumers, I imagine that things don't change much when it comes to our places of work and even our own personal growth. WE WANT IT NOW! And as we all know, servant leadership is not a quick fix - especially when dealing with real change within organizations. No wonder many dismiss it rather than embrace it.

The Gettysburg Address

A little something as we wrap up Memorial Day weekend. While many can quote the first line of this famous speech, it is the last line that has always touched me most:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

See the entire speech here.

“Trust: The Invaluable Asset”

Jack Lowe Jr. was the CEO of TDIndustries when he wrote the essay “Trust: The Invaluable Asset” as the Sixth Chapter of Insights on Leadership.

The essay is all about the importance of trust in successful organizations and the following quote points out that it takes trust to build trust. “Trustworthiness, which requires character and competence, can only flourish with leadership that trusts, supports, and encourages.”

For servant-leadership to succeed in an organization, the members need to be involved in all decisions and agree and understand them. That is how trust is built and with it a successful organization.

A Weekend of Upgrades & Remembering Servant-Leaders

Scott over at Bernadot Studios will be transferring the site this weekend to a new web hosting service. Although I've only noticed one time that the site had been down for more than a minute or two, we've decided for various reasons that now would be a good time to make the switch.

The good news is that the switch should go undetected by all of you. I have an amazing dropoff in vistors during the weekends (loyal readers know that it is rare for me to post on the weekends - a deal that I made with my wife and family when I started this venture), so we'll use the long weekend to get this done.

Please remember this weekend all those Servant-Leaders who made the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of a greater good - the freedom of our nation. Let us all also remember those who are still with us, who continue to risk their lives for ours. We all owe our ability to pursue our dreams in this great nation to these dedicated women and men. I hope you join me in a prayer of rememberance and thanksgiving this Memorial Day Weekend. See you on Tuesday!

“On the Path to Servant-Leadership”

Lawernce Lad and David Luechauer (click here and scroll down to April for an update from Jacksonville University in Florida where David Luechauer appears to currenly work as an associate professor of leadership) were both associate professors of management at Butler University in Indianapolis when they wrote the essay titled “On the Path to Servant-Leadership”. The essay is the fifth chapter in "Insights on Leadership". Their essay discusses the various pathways, common themes, barriers, paradoxes, and downsides to servant leadership.

Two quotes that struck me as noteworthy include: “Though loaded with potential traps and pitfalls, the journey toward servant leadership can be successfully negotiated by engaging in a variety of activities.”; “In many ways, servant-leadership is the conscious practice of the Golden Rule.”

The way to become a good servant-leader is to find a path that works and start following it. Practicing servant-leadership in itself is what is important, not the ultimate goal or outcome.

Response to Conceptualizers and Operationalizers

Last week I talked about Greenleaf's idea of operating talent and conceptual talent in this post. Don Frick had a great comment, which I wanted to make sure our subscribers (who don't always make it to the site) had a chance to read. Here is what Don had to say about this idea:

Greenleaf's description of "conceptualizers" and "operationalizers" have resonance in research about left brain-right brain dominance, Meyers-Briggs personality traits and other data that didn't exist when he first wrote this. In researching Greenleaf's biography, it became clear to me that Bob saw himself as a conceptualizer, which made him quite different from most of the AT&T presidents he worked under during his last years at that behemouth institution. He also observed that most, but not all, of the best leaders at the various Ma Bells (there were over 200 of them) were conceptualizers.

If a leader wasn't gifted as a conceptualizer, Bob believed that he or she should at least promote people with conceptual talents to the inner circle and listen to them. But that didn't happen often enough; he observed that conceptualizers KNEW they needed operationalizers, but the opposite was not always true.

No one of us can be gifted in all areas, but Greenleaf proved that it was not an either-or choice. In left brain-right brain terms, he was whole brained. He was a gifted conceptualizer who could still buckle down and perform operational tasks with distinction, even if it wasn't as much fun for him. Because I'm a diehard conceptualizer, his whole-brained model - one that he didn't just write about but lived - gives me real hope.

“Servant-Leadership: A Passion to Serve”

Joe Batten, who coined the phrase “be all that you can be”, is the author of the essay in Chapter 4 of Insights on Leadership titled “Servant-Leadership: A Passion to Serve.”

Although it is difficult to summarize all the concepts that Batten discusses in his essay, one statement that might come close is, “we look for strengths, for that central spark of God that reposes (although sometimes difficult to find or see) in all people.”

To find that spark in others is really what loving or leading them is all about. Batten’s article brings out many great ways to find that Great Mystery in ourselves and in others, and as a result become the servant-leaders we are meant to be.

"Work as a Calling"

Elizabeth Jeffries is the author of essay number 3 titled “Work as a Calling” in "Insights on Leadership." (Click here for a pdf copy of the essay.)

In her essay she writes, “We are all called to uncover our gifts, develop them, and use them to serve others. The answer to how and where we serve is clear, if we but ask, listen, and take action in faith. That is what servant-leaders do.” She also writes about four characteristics of a calling that include: each calling is unique to each individual; calling requires preconditions, including talent; calling reveals its presence by the enjoyment and renewed energy its practice yield; and callings are not easy to discover.

To become an effective leader, one needs to search for calling in life and then be willing to follow the call. There are many distractions in doing this, but to wade through distractions is what life is all about. It is finding and embracing the calling that brings true enjoyment to life, but it takes a lot of work to do effectively.

Numbers are Just the Beginning

It happens every time I read Greenleaf’s essay "The Servant as Leader." A passage I never much attended to leaps out, grabs my head and holds it steady on the words to make me reflect anew. Today it was this one: “Criticism has its place; but as a total preoccupation, it is sterile. . . The danger, perhaps, is to hear the analyst too much and the artist too little.”

Research. Critical analysis. Benchmarks. Measurable outcomes. Aristotelian and Boolean logic. ROI. These numbers-based activities have never been more important than they are today. Yet they are only the beginning, not the end, of juicy human authenticity. Where numbers leave off, the artist, the seeker and the servant in your psyche can take over.

One of my best friends designs circuit boards to control remote cameras in race cars and other difficult sites. He also writes fluent code in a dozen computer languages. Keith, who never earned a college degree, is a numbers genius, but he’s also one of the funniest, most creative people I’ve ever known, a graphic artist with a brilliant eye, a loyal friend, and a servant at heart. He’s most proud of being elected president of his condominium association board where he has turned around an aging development, saved tens of thousands of dollars, and made life better for several hundred neighbors. He could not have done it without (1) understanding the financials, but also (2) choosing to go beyond criticism of existing leadership by serving. He ran for office, built consensus, earned trust and acted congruently as a servant of the greater good.

If you’re a professional in a modern organization, you’d better understand how to gather and interpret numbers and analyze them wisely to evolve strategy and measurements. But if that is your only focus, consider that you may be sterile, and some nagging part of you knows that even if you get promoted. What we can offer the world as servants and servant-leaders is something that includes but goes beyond numbers—an artistry that uses intuition, takes risks, and paints fresh possibilities in our corners of the world.

Naïve? Maybe, but just thinking about the possibility makes me feel more alive. Greenleaf was fond of quoting Dean Inge on this point: “Faith is the choice of the nobler hypothesis.”

"Servant Leadership Revisited"

Chapter 2 of "Insights on Leadership" is an essay by Ken Blanchard titled “Servant Leadership Revisited.”

One key idea of this essay is that for servant leadership to work, organizations need to change focus. Blanchard makes this clear when he says, “When you turn the pyramid upside down those roles get reversed. Your people become responsible and the job of management is to be responsive to their people.”

Being a good servant-leader is about helping define goals and then helping those you serve to achieve those goals. The idea of turning the pyramid upside down is something that originally attracted me to servant leadership. The hierarchical organizations I had worked for in the past were not organizations that encouraged creativity, but rather tried to dictate productivity. Management that is responsive to the people is management that has the potential to do real work. Finding ways to transform the pyramid is the key to successful servant leadership.

"Servant-Leadership"

Chapter 1 of “Insights On Leadership” is from that servant-leader guru, Robert Greenleaf and is appropriately titled “Servant-Leadership.”

One of the key points of Greenleaf’s article is summarized when he talks about the book "Journey to the East", where he writes, “this story clearly says that the great leader is seen as servant first, and that simple fact is the key to his greatness.”

The other key point of the article is that often quoted phrase where he discusses the way to determine if the servant is meeting people’s most important needs. The test is defined as “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?”

The essay makes it clear that a good leader serves first and that the true test of good leadership is whether those being served are empowered to meet their needs and lead others themselves. Note that good leadership is about meeting needs, not wants. It also seems to me that more often then not Greenleaf's test is often neglected when it comes to evaluating the effectivness of our leadership and organizations.

Growing Impact of Servant-Leadership

In the introduction to Insights on Leadership, titled “Tracing the Growing Impact of Servant-Leadership” Larry Spears writes, “Both this book and this introduction are intended to provide a broad overview of the growing influence this unique concept of servant-leadership is having on people and their workplaces.”, and that “Servant-leadership truly offers hope and guidance for a new era in human development, and for creation of better, more caring institutions.”

Spear’s article introduces ten characteristics of Servant-leadership, those being listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people and building community.

He also outlines six area’s where Servant-leadership concepts have been utilized successfully including institutional philosophy, trustee education, community leadership organizations, experiential education or service learning, education and training programs and personal growth.

Annotations from "Insights on Leadership."

It seems like I have been shirking my guest blogger role lately and as a way to get back in the swing of blogging, I thought I would share some excerpts from one of my first assignments while participating in Viterbo’s Servant Leadership Master’s program. Back in March of 2002, one of the assignments in the Servant Leadership class was to write up some annotations of the chapters from the book Insights on Leadership: Service, Stewardship, Spirit and Servant Leadership, which was edited by Larry Spears.

In the introductory chapter titled “Servant-Leadership from the Inside Out,” Steven Covey makes it clear that Servant-Leadership is a natural process when he writes, “The servant-leadership concept is a principle, a natural law, and getting our social value systems and personal habits aligned with this ennobling principle is one of the great challenges of our lives.” He points out that servant-leadership has great potential to change the world when he writes, “I believe that the overwhelming majority of the people of this country, with the right kind of servant-leadership at all levels, most importantly at the family level, could heal our country.” Covey’s article makes it clear that servant leadership can succeed because it is human nature to undertake it. He gives hope that implementation of servant-leadership principles can make the world a much better place.

If things go well, I will share some more excerpts from the book in the days to come.

Delays, Maintenance & Web Design

When I went to publish yesterday morning, everything went great - until I realized that the post was not showing up on the blog! A quick e-mail to Scott at Bernadot Studios and within the hour he had found the problem - the hosting company had migrated the site to another server without telling me! Yet another reason why I'll be moving the blog over to another web hosting service soon (Don't worry - it should be very close to unnoticeable to subscribers and readers).

It took me awhile longer to figure out how to get the feed working correctly, which is why all the subscribers did not receive yesterday's post until late into the evening. My apologies.

Scott over at Bernadot has been a great help since I started this blog. He helped with the design and set-up of the blog and has never taken more than an hour to answer my e-mail and either have something fixed or a promise to work on it that same day. If you are ever looking for someone to help with web and/or blog design, give Scott a call - I promise you won't regret it. You can see a portfolio of his work here.

Where does your talent reside?

In On Becoming a Servant-Leader, Greenleaf talks about the exercise of two major talents:

1) Operating Talent: This is "the ability to carry the enterprise toward its objectives in the situation, from day to day, and resolve the issues that arise as this movement takes place. This calls for interpersonal skills, sensitivity to the immediate environment, tenacity, experience, judgement, ethical soundness, and related attributes and abilities that the day-to-day movement requires."

2) Conceptual Talent: This is "the ability to see the whole in the perspective of history - past and future - to state and adjust goals, to evaluate, to analyze, and to foresee contingencies a long way ahead. Long-range strategic planning is embraced here, as is setting standards and judging performance. Leadership, in the sense of going out ahead to show the way, is more conceptual than operating."

Are you stronger in one of these areas more than another? Are you skilled in both areas? Is there one of these that you need to work on?

Friends on the Radio

I have mentioned several times the great work that the folks at Magellan Executive Resources have been doing with Servant Leadership. Now you can hear Dr. James Sipe, President of Magellan, in a radio interview on Saturday morning at 10:15 a.m. Central Time. I encourage you to listen in!

You can find out more on Saturday's interview, along with a link to listen via the web, here. It even provides you an e-mail and phone link if you want to contact the show!

Politicians now campaigning on Servant Leadership

Down in South Carolina, Dr. Oscar Lovelace has decided to challenge the current govenor in an upcoming Republican primary. See here and here. Lovelace recently began a television advertising campaign in which he talks, although rather vaguely, about servant leadership. It is towards the end of the commercial where he says: "I believe that our state needs government that works, servant leadership, that's why I'm running for governor."

I really like the idea of servant leadership in government. Although I must admit that is seems like the term was just thrown in. You can watch the entire commercial on his website, which is here. Are you as confused as I am as to why he used 'servant leadership?' Or am I missing something?

A Job Opportunity

I received an e-mail today from a Senior member of the leadership team at U.S. Cellular. I know someone who is on the U.S. Cellular Leadership Development team and this is an organization that has made a strong commitment to implementing Servant Leadership principles; in fact, they will be presenting the work they are doing at U.S. Cellular at this year's Greenleaf Conference!

The reason for the e-mail was to ask if I would get the word out about an opening within their organization. They are looking for a Senior Manager, Leadership & Organizational Development. This person will design and deliver organization and leadership development effectiveness programs, work on curriculum development and implementation, etc. It sounds like a great opportunity!

If you, or someone you know, are looking to join a team that is committed to being a first-rate Servant-Leader organization, you can find more information about the position here. Search for 'Leadership and Organization Development.'

Radically Altering the Future

As I give my last final exam today (Am I excited? YES! But kept in check by the two classes I start teaching next Monday.) I want to share a quote with you from Greenleaf's essay titled 'The Future is Now' from On Becoming a Servant-Leader. It not only grounds me in my role as teacher, but all of our roles in preparing today's youth for the future:

But the greatest foresight, the most difficult and most exciting, is the influence one wields on the future by helping the growth of people who will be in commanding positions in the next generation. One cannot bind the future to one's own wisdom. By the time any one of us has crystallized his or her wisdom so that something could be bound to it, it is out of date. Crystallized wisdom is not the essence anyhow. The character of our society and the institutions in it cannot with safety be bound to any currently held ideas, nor can they be altered radically to conform to any fixed idea of what they ought to be in the future. But the future can be radically altered by the kinds of people being prepared for the future.

Some Notes on Parker Palmer

On Friday I mentioned that Parker Palmer would be here at Viterbo to receive the Pope John XXIII award. I attended one of his talks and, as promised, want to share with you some of the things he mentioned.

Disclaimer: I am a terrible note-taker. It may surprise you to hear that from a teacher (or perhaps not), but the reality is my notes make a lot more sense when I write them. Then when I go back to them later, I wonder 'Now what was the context in which this note was written?' So if I can help explain some of these quotes better, please don't hesitate to ask.

Palmer's talk, focused on the idea of 'Work as Vocation,' contained a lot of ideas from his book The Hidden Wholeness. If you haven't read it, I encourage you to do so.

• Palmer spoke a lot about rejoining 'Soul' & 'Role' - Finding a way to have our inner life be the same as our outer life.
• For example, we often ask when we meet someone: Is this person the same on the inside as they are on the outside? In fact, we are all asking this of one another. In other words, Is what I see, what I get?
• He related this idea to politicians and living in a democracy. For example:
  
• When people in a democratic society feel their leaders have integrity, then they are willing to vote and participate. Conversely,
• Citizens don't vote when they don't perceive integrity in their leaders.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the talk. I'll just throw them out there and let you sit with them for awhile:

• "The 1 thing that would reform our institutions is if we all spend 1 day each week telling the truth"
• "We should all become a learning organization around the place that we struggle with - screwing up"

And perhaps one of his best lines, which, while a little funny, does carry a lot of truth to it:

• "If you choose to live an unexamined life, please don't get a job working with other people"

For others that were there.....what were your thoughts?

Parker Palmer on Campus

Parker Palmer, well known author and lecturer, is on campus to receive the Pope John XXIII award this year. This is the highest non-academic award bestowed by Viterbo University.

Palmer is well known for books such as The Courage to Teach, Let Your Life Speak, and his most recent book A Hidden Wholeness. You can find a list of his books here. There is nothing that he has written that I would not recommend, and there are few author that I would say that about.

Palmer is leading a book discussion on A Hidden Wholeness this morning, and then will be giving a talk at noon on 'Work as Vocation'. I will write about his talk next week.

Love in the TDI Workplace

Ten years ago today I was in Dallas shooting a video documentary to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of TDIndustries. TDI is a heating and air conditioning company whose founder, Jack Lowe, got his hands on one of the first 200 copies of "The Servant as Leader" and began integrating the principles into his business. Of course, Jack was already a natural servant-leader who had operated that way before he ever read Greenleaf. Jack and his wife Harriet became close friends with Bob and Esther Greenleaf and TDI is now the longest-running corporate experiment in servant leadership.

It's a remarkable place.

I interviewed one man who described a life-changing encounter with Jack Lowe in the 1970s. Tom was a raw Texan, a big, ugly guy (his words) who was suspicious of all this servant leadership jabbering. One day in a business meeting with Jack and 5 or 6 others he challenged his boss on most every point. Tom was a straight-shooting guy so he wasn't being mean, just honest.

At the end of the meeting everyone had left the room except Jack and Tom. As Jack was gathering up his papers Tom said, "I know I was hard on you today, Jack, but I just didn't agree with you much."

"That's OK," said Jack. "You helped me. If you had those concerns so did others and I needed to hear them."

Tom was still seated when Jack walked behind him, gave a friendly bear hug to his head, and said, "I love ya, Tom."

Tom sat still for a few moments, stunned. Then he went outside, sat in his pickup truck, and cried like a baby. It was the first time any man told Tom he was loved, the first time he ever felt loved in the workplace.

I heard a dozen stories like that at TDIndustries. The woman whose doctor ordered her to go back to work after a heart attack because tests showed that every time she visited her friends there she got healthier. The man who took a job with a competitor but came back because he missed the TDI community so much. I could have heard dozens more if I'd stayed longer.

We titled that documentary "A Celebration of Spirit," which was no hype, just a simple description of what's real at TDI and what's possible everywhere.

Servant leadership in the workplace -- love in the workplace -- is not a pipe dream. I've seen it.

You can read about TDI's commitment to servant leadership here.

The Best Corporate Citizens

I apologize for being on a little bit of a 'Corporate' theme this week. But I wanted to point out a very interesting article in the most recent Business Ethics Magazine. (H.T.: Sue S.) They just came out with their list of the Top 100 Best Corporate Citizens of 2006. You can find the article here.

I'm never a big fan of these lists (which may surprise you considering lists such as these make up my last two posts), primarily because there are so many great companies and ideas out there that to compile a list such as this invariably results in some bias.

Corporate Social Responsibility is a big buzz-word in today's businesses. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, as long as it is leading companies to spend time talking about the common good and their contribution to the larger issues outside themselves. But like servant leadership, it needs to be done for the right reasons.

Innovative Ideas

Ever wonder what companies do to keep on the top of their game? To see a list of what companies are doing everywhere from the boardroom to R & D, go here. Go to the bottom of the article and click on the link that says 'Click here for a photo gallery of the full list.' (Sorry, I can't provide a direct link since it shows up only as a pop-up window)

There are even a few servant leadership companies on the list. For example:

• Southwest Airlines and their creative way of auditioning applicants;
• Toro and their use of a "contra team" to make sure a dissenting view is always heard; and
  
• Medtronic, who makes sure their engineers and designers are in the operating room at least once a year to see how their product is being used. (A member of their design team was in the operating room when my wife had a Medtronic pump replaced recently)

There are some other great ideas (and a few I'm not sure I would use) on the list. Again, you can find it here.