Reverence and Awe

We are a society that has forgotten about reverence. Or at least we don't pay attention to it as we should. Reverence begins with the understanding of human limitations; and from this grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control (God, truth, justice). It is the virtue that keeps human beings from trying to act like gods.

An irreverent soul is arrogant and shameless, unable to feel awe in the face of things higher than itself. When this happens, an irreverent soul is unable to feel respect for people it sees as lower than itself. Reverence, then, is actually about the ability to be in awe.

Effective servant-leaders understand their limitations. They accept that things are outside of their control. They are humble in the midst of others. They hold in awe those things that are beyond their own talents and the people who have those talents. And in so doing they display a virtue that has long been missing in today's "I-Can-Do-It-All" world: Reverence.

Preparing for take off - Any Advice?

Wow, summer is moving along at a blistering pace! One of the reason that posts have slowed a bit is not only that our Summer Institute is taking a lot of my time, but the fact that I am preparing to leave in a few weeks for a short stint at Oxford University to finish up my doctoral studies. I have spent most of my spare time reading in preparation for my coursework and have had little time to ponder the sights I may have the opportunity to take in while there.

So I figured I would ask the readers of this blog: Any suggestions on "must visit" places in either London or Oxford? I thinking outside of the standard sights (Big Ben, Buckingham, etc.) that most people always visit. I always enjoy the sites that are a bit off the beaten path....any ideas? Feel free to leave comments or e-mail me.

The concerns of Robert Greenleaf

It is a busy time as we are in the midst of our Summer Institute. But I thought I would start out the week with a quote from Greenleaf's Servant: Leader & Follower:

Behind what is said in The Servant as Leader is a twofold concern: first for the individual in society and the tendency to deal with the massive problems of our times too much in terms of systems, ideologies, and movements.......My second concern is for the individual as a serving person and the tendency to deny wholeness to oneself by failing to lead when one can lead, or by not choosing with discrimination when it is more appropriate to follow.

Swamp Issues

Ellen Schall, who is Dean of Health Policy & Management at NYU, once wrote an article titled: Learning to Love the Swamp. In the article she talks about these things known as swamp issues - tangled, complex problems that resist technical analysis and thus stand in contrast to the high, hard ground issues that are easier to address but where less is at stake for the organization or the society. Swamp issues call for changes of heart and mind - the transformation of long-standing habits and deeply held assumptions and values.

When organizations make the decision to make progress on these difficult issues, or swamp issues, the practice of leadership now begins to focus on questions of purpose - and suddenly the criteria for determining whether or not one is exercising effective leadership shifts. No longer are the traits of individual personalities as critical; instead the focus is on the capacities of individuals to intervene in complex systems. It is a focus on presence rather than personality.

What are the swamp issues within your organization? Is the organization ready to begin tackling these - or are personality and personal power still too important to allow these discussions to take place?

Five Hungers for Leadership

Last night Dr. Don Frick spoke about the Art of Leadership as Greenleaf saw it. Once again, Don gave a wonderful talk as he spoke about seeing our organizations, homes and classrooms as a studio. It reminded me of a theme that is spoken of in a book by Sharon Daloz Parks.

In her book Leadership CAN Be Taught, Parks speaks of five hungers that we have for our leaders. They are:

1. Within every person there is a hunger to exercise some sense of personal agency - to have an effect, to contribute, to make a positive difference, to influence, help, build - and in this sense lead;
2. Throughout human history, within every social group there is a hunger for authority that will provide orientation and reassurance, particularly in times of stress and fear;
3. There is now a hunger for leadership that can deal with the intensification of systemic complexity emerging from the cybernetic, economic, political, and ecological realities that have created a more connected and interdependent world;
4. There is a hunger for leadership that can respond adaptively to the depth, scope, and pace of change that combined with complexity creates unprecedented conditions;
5. Last, this new landscape creates a new moral moment in history.

Again, Don gave a wonderful presentation to our students. You can find out more about Don and his great work in servant leadership here.

Links for Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Here are a few things to check out:

• Leadership the Herman Miller Way. This blog has an excellent summary and some great quotes of Max DePree's Leadership is an Art. One of the best summaries of this great little book I've seen on the web.
• This post contains an interview with a CEO about how servant leadership affects his employees and company.

Our Summer Institute is well underway. Tonite Dr. Don Frick will be on campus to give a plenary lecture for our students about Greenleaf and Institutions. I'm sure I'll have some notes for you tomorrow!

Change

Trevors post on "One Person Leadership" and change reminded me of a joke that I heard on the movie "Life on Liberty Street" the other night. The joke was:

"How many psycologists does it take to change a light bulb?"

"None of course, for real change to occur the light bulb has to want to change itself."

It seems that too often this is a punch line I would rather laugh at then apply to myself.

Thanks for the reminder Trevor.

And then there was the one about

"How many Doctors does it take to change a light bulb?"

And the answer was

"It depends on what kind of health coverage the light bulb has!"

And that is another story.

One-Person Leadership

In a few short weeks we will have a new president here at Viterbo University. There seems to be the typical excitement (and nervousness) that comes with transition in leadership. In a few conversations the discussion turned to something like this: "I hope the new president changes/does ___".

I always find these sorts of comments interesting. Surely, new leadership should help set the vision of what the organization should look like. The problem is that if real change, that is, lasting and effective change, is to ever take place within an organization then a simple policy announcement or organizational shifting determined by a president or CEO will never be sufficient.

Greenleaf, in his essay Trustees as Servants, mentions some obstacles that get in the way of trustees serving institutions and society better. One of these is the belief in what he called 'one-person leadership':
"....we are so wedded to the belief in one-person leadership, even in very large institutions, that many constituencies, including trustees, believe that only with luck in finding a "chief" with miraculous powers will the institution perform better."

Viterbo, just like every other institution in America, has room for improvement in how we serve our students. But we, just like every other institution in America, should not expect one change in our leadership to make these improvements. Such expectations will only lead to disappointment.

An amazing servant-leader

Please take the time to read this story about Juana Bordas, founder and president of Mestiza Leadership International. Her company focuses on developing Latino leaders and their leadership skills. And her company is having tremendous tangible results not only in the Denver, CO area but around the country.

Ms. Bordas has been involved with many leadership development programs across the country and currently sits on numerous boards, including the board of the Greenleaf Center. The world could use a few more people with her energy, determination and vision.

Links for Tuesday, June 13, 2006

A few stories that may be of interest:

• David Gergen (served in the Nixon, Ford, Reagan & Clinton administrations - and is often seen on TV talking politics) has written an article recently for US News & World Report about a new form of leadership - any guesses? Yep, servant leadership!!! It seems he's done his homework as well.
  
• Can anyone translate this? Servant-Leadership showing up on what I presume is a Chinese blog!
  
• One of our recent graduates has been named Director of Catholic Charities.
• A podcast on the place of vision in the marketplace.

Is it just me, or is it not exciting to see how servant leadership is moving throughout the world?!?!?

Unwritten rules in organizations

Have you ever worked for an organization that had expectations of you that were unspoken? That is, you got the impression that if you didn't do what they were asking of you that you would be fired.

Here is an example from an organization that required "obligatory overtime." The folks at Slow Leadership lay out the story fairly well and correctly call it 'Management Double-Speak.' It is well worth the time to read.

Can you think of other examples, besides the 'obligatory overtime,' that management has required of you or others? What are other legal and ethical issues relating to the employer/employee relationship that you've had to deal with in the past?

What constitutes a Servant-Leader?

Tom Jablonski has been doing such a great job over the past week or so laying out the main points of the Insights on Leadership book (thanks Tom) that I have been able to just sit back and work on many things related to our program.

As you know, I make sure that this blog is much larger than just our program; and so I try to keep postings about it to a minimum. But I thought I would share what we've been working on lately. As an educational institution, we are always concerned (for better or worse) with measurable outcomes. What will our students be able to do when they graduate? It has made for great discussion because I am frequently asked: What exactly is a servant-leader? With that in mind, here are the outcomes we have for our graduates:

Upon completion of the MA in Servant Leadership, graduates will be:

1) knowledgeable Servant-Leaders. They will be able to:

• Articulate a vision of servant leadership as a vocation;
• Apply the theories and practices of leadership and service in relationship to a life of virtue;
• Demonstrate leadership toward understanding & action on behalf of the common good.

2) knowledgeable organizational scholars. They will be able to:

• Demonstrate understanding of organizational and institutional mission, culture and dynamics;
• Plan, implement and assess a servant leadership project that demonstrates a commitment to the common good.

3) reflective individuals. They will be able to:

• integrate faith and work through individual and communal ritual, contemplative and reflective exercises;
• Articulate an understanding of the relationship among leadership, power and authority;
• Practice hospitality that demonstrates a reverence for diverse people and cultures.

So, this is what we believe makes up a servant-leader. I'd love to hear from you - What did we miss? What should be changed? Is this how you would define a servant-leader?

“Friendly Disentangling” Method.”

Richard P. Nielsen, is a professor in the Department of Organization Studies at Boston College and the author of the eleventh chapter of Insights on Leadership titled “Quaker Foundations for Greenleaf’s Servant-Leadership and “Friendly Disentangling” Method.”

The essay gives examples of Robert Greenleaf’s “friendly disentangling” method of servant leadership that involves practicing the following four principles: (1)”that of Go(o)d in everyone,” in our “prior we” relationship, (2) tradition system entanglements as causes of problems rather than solely individual responsibility, (3) friendly and cheerful affect, and (4) continuing experimental action-learning.”

“Friendly disentangling” is about finding common ground with others, seeing the good in others, understanding them and their history, being friendly and respectful to them, asking for their help to solve problems and to be willing to try out new methods suggested by the people we are working with.

“Quiet Presence: The Holy Ground of Leadership”

John J. Gardiner is a professor of educational leadership at Seattle University and the author of the Tenth Chapter of Insights on Leadership titled, “Quiet Presence: The Holy Ground of Leadership”.

Professor Gardiner writes about many interesting topics, but one the stood out was the following: “We are each part of the other, each one part of the whole, to the degree that we will to be…and as we strive to Be, whether invoked or not, God is present.”

Being aware of myself, humanity, God and the universe, is what life is all about.

“Dharamshala Dreaming: A Traveler’s Search for the Meaning of Work”

Susana Barciela is the author of the ninth chapter of Insights on Leadership titled “Dharamshala Dreaming: A Traveler’s Search for the Meaning of Work”. She is an editorial writer for the Miami Herald. Her essay is about a trip to the Himalaya Mountains that she took as part of transformational leadership workshop. Her goal in traveling to the mountains was to find the meaning of work.

I believe that a key point regarding her trip to Dharamshala is summarized in the last sentence where she simply writes, “Learn to climb.”

I believe that what she is talking about is that we need to face our challenges in life if we wish to grow. The only way to do that is to learn how to deal with these challenges by facing them. We need to learn to face our fears, we need to enjoy the process of facing them, and we need to find meaning and spiritual growth in the process. That is in essence what climbing a mountain is about.

“From Leadership to Citizenship”

Peter Block wrote the eighth essay in Insights on Leadership titled “From Leadership to Citizenship”.

One section of his essay that spoke to me was his statement on citizenship responsibility and costs where he wrote “Without getting lost on the definition, citizenship is our agreement to receive rights and privileges from the community and, in so doing, to pay for them through our willingness to live within certain boundaries and act in the interest of the whole. At the core of citizenship is the desire to care for the well being of the larger institution, be it an organization, a neighborhood, or a country. This requires accountability. This is the purchase price of our freedom.”

In these days were I have read many signs and bumper stickers reminding me that “freedom is not free”, it is refreshing to read another reminder about what the true cost of citizenship really is. Citizenship is about accepting our responsibility to the communities we belong to and acting accordingly. It is also about accepting our fellow citizen’s place and role in these communities. I also do not believe that citizenship means simply sitting back and allowing our communities to not thrive, whether the community be our family or our world.

Servant Leadership in South Africa

Since the International Conference on Servant Leadership is in full swing at this moment and I cannot attend for the first time since 1988, I will assuage my grief by sharing something about the servant leadership I saw in action in Cape Town, South Africa last week. First, thank you Trevor for mentioning my website. Second, thank you Tom for sharing themes from "Insights on Leadership." The people you quote are some of my living heroes.

I was in Cape Town to produce a modest video documentary about a remarkable community of servants who operate a ministry there. My senses and time zones are still scrambled, but following are a few lasting impressions regarding servant leadership principles I saw in action.

Pastor Jerome Pineaar grew up in Clarksville Estates which, it was explained to me, is a "Coloured" neighborhood. During apartheid, Whites ruled the roost. Second in the pecking order were Blacks, then the Coloureds—those of mixed blood. Today, Blacks have replaced Whites at the top but "the Coloured" are still dead last. Back in his crazy days, Jerome was one of the founders of "The Young Americans" gang, which remains as a feared force. His wife Charlene was born in nearby Malawi Camp, a tract of improvised, leaky, windowless shacks built on undrainable land, strewn with and surrounded by garbage. Pictures do not do justice to the impoverishment there, and nothing but a personal visit can help you understand the smell. Jerome and Charlene are servant-leaders who stayed in the blighted communities of their birth to make a difference.

And how do they do that? First they feed people. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Several times a week, every week, without fail. They did not seek money and then design a feeding program. They just gave up their jobs and started cooking, along with a cast of unforgettable characters like Sister Anne who, at age sixty, is such a powerful spirit that Muslims, Hindus and outright atheists seek out this modest Christian to pray for them. To use Greenleaf's language, these people are seekers who put servanthood before ideology, even religious ideology. They figure that to a hungry person, God first comes in the form of food.

Second, Pastor Jerome believes it's his job to train others to be servants rather than to become a charismatic leader himself, ala some of American's TV ministers. Those he trains include Marlon, who was shot in the spine by a rival gang member and now inspires others from a wheelchair, and a strikingly beautiful teenager who lost her mother and sister to AIDS (1 out of 3 pregnant women in this neighborhood are HIV positive). At last Sunday's worship service—a nondenominational affair—I started counting the number of people who led the service at various times and quit counting after seven. Paster Jerome didn't even need to preach a sermon. They were all ministers...and leaders...and servants.

Finally—and I could go on and on—each of these remarkable people takes seriously the power of dreams, intuitions, leadings of spirit and foresight. Every now and then Charlene asks Jerome to drive down a street where sex workers ply their trade. When a girl stands out to her, she asks Jerome to stop the van so she can get out and speak with her. Has the girl eaten today? Does she have a place to sleep? Is there anything she needs? Any message to take to her family? Nothing abstract about this theology. Action equals ministry. Greenleaf's "best test" for a servant-leader writ large.

One day in the Malawi camp a woman followed me around and eventually told me that she recognized me from a dream she had the night before I arrived in Cape Town. In it, Pastor Jerome and I both had wings. No big deal, just part of life lived on the boundary between immanence and transcendence.

I do not mean to romanticize the heartbreaking poverty and dismal lives these people face daily. There is no romance to this lifestyle, but there is community—bone-deep, by-God, for-real community. They inspire me and teach me that servant-leaders are everywhere, tenaciously holding on to a life as servants, like flowers that grow in the tiny, arid cracks of a granite mountain and proudly proclaim the rich colors of life in spite of adversity.

“Stewardship”

Part Two of Insights on Leadership is titled “Stewardship”.

In the introduction to this part of the book Peter Block’s definition of stewardship is quoted as “the willingness to be accountable for the well being of the larger organization by operating in service, rather than in control, of those around us. Stated simply, it is accountability without control or compliance.”

To truly serve means that we need to go beyond trying to force others to go along with what we believe is best and find the patience and respect to understand other people’s views. It is only through this understanding that we can learn to work together to find a solution that works for everyone.

Prophetic voices of today

With the International Conference on Servant Leadership starting today, and so many talented speakers and practitioners there, it seems appropriate to share some of Greenleaf's thoughts on prophetic voices:

There is a theory of prophecy which holds that prophetic voices of great clarity, and with a quality of insight equal to that of any age, are speaking cogently all of the time. Women and men of a stature equal to the greatest of the past are with us now, addressing the problems of the day and pointing to a better way and to a personeity better able to live fully and serenely in these times.

The variable that marks some periods as barren and some as rich in prophetic vision is in the interest, the level of seeking, the responsiveness of the hearers. The variable is not in the presence or absence or the relative quality and force of the prophetic voices. The prophet grows in stature as people respond to his or her message. If one's early attempts are ignored or spurned, his or her talent may wither away.

Reflection: How well do you respond to the prophetic voices of today? Do you recognize them in your own midst? Is there someone you know whose talent is withering away because they are being ignored or spurned?

The Greenleaf Conference Begins!

We have several of our faculty, along with six students, down at this year's International Conference on Servant Leadership. It is the 16th year the event is held, and is hosted by the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. This year's theme is Love, Honor and Courage.

I was unable to attend this year as my priority this summer is heading over to Oxford in mid-July for doctoral classes. But I'm sure I'll get some great reports back from students and colleagues; I'll be sure and comment about it here.