A Refusal to Teach Values

The third and final fault that Greenleaf sees with the entire educational enterprise (Here are the first and second ones) is the state of confusion around the teaching of values. He asks the following questions:

• Is it only appropriate to teach about values and make no judgments about what they ought to be?
• Is this really an adequate role for schools and colleges?
• Should not schools be importantly concerned with value clarification so that students are given as firm a basis as possible for making the choices they have always made - even when the schools presumed to know what their values ought to be?

What is the role of colleges (public & private) to teach values? Can servant leadership be taught, can a commitment to the common good be taught, can a desire to 'do the right thing' be taught without making judgments about what these things are?

Where are the Opportunities for Social Mobilization?

Greenleaf spoke of another fault with educational systems within the scope of servant leadership:

the lack of opportunities for the poor to be prepared to return to their roots and become leaders among the disadvantaged. He says: this rests upon the belief that the situation of the poor, particularly the neglect of their children, is a national disgrace in our affluent country.......the best service that a school can render to these people may not be to homogenize them into the upper classes but to help those who have a value orientation that favors it to develop their ability to lead their people to secure a better life for many."

Two questions come to mind as I read this: 1) How would Greenleaf respond to how much more affluency there is today than when he first published this essay 30 years ago?; and 2) How much more of a national disgrace is it today compared to 30 years ago?

Much of the problem, it seems, is not as much that there are not opportunities for the poor to be prepared as leaders (although this certainly is a problem); the problem is that college students today are burdened with so much debt that they do not have the option to return to their roots and become leaders - they must go out into the world to service their debt rather than service society. Our current system of loans and debts in order to graduate from college has, in essence, made students slaves to money.

A Refusal to Prepare for Leadership

As mentioned yesterday, I would like to spend some time this week talking about Greenleaf's views on Servant Leadership in Education, from his essay by the same title in Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power & Greatness. Bear in mind that this was first published in 1972!

There are three major faults within education from the viewpoint of servant leadership, according to Greenleaf. The first fault is "for the refusal to offer explicit preparation for leadership to those who have the potential for it." Greenleaf goes so far as to say that he suspects some influential educators not only denigrate leadership but administer what has been called an anti-leadership vaccine.

Do you agree with Greenleaf's assessment? What was your experience when you were in the classroom? I realize for some of you this was awhile ago, but think back as best you can! Can you recall any educators, especially at the university level, that inspired you and encouraged you to grow as a leader? Isn't this something that every educator should be doing?

My experience tells me that too many educators are overly concerned about the abstract concepts within their discipline. Too many educators either: 1) don't see the value of integrating leadership principles into their daily lectures and exercises; or 2) don't want to spend the time to learn how to do this.

Two Questions:
1) What does your experience tell you?
2) If we do need to change the culture among educators, what actions can we take to do so?

'Servant Leadership in Education' Week

This past weekend students moved back on campus for another school year here at Viterbo. Classes start today. With that in mind, I thought this week might be a good time to look at the way in which Servant Leadership can, and should, be part of university life. Robert Greenleaf actually has a lot to say about this issue and I'll be sharing some of his thoughts on the topic, as well as my own.

More to come as the week moves on.

Paying attention

Sorry for the couple of days away folks.....in-service week has kept me rather busy!

There are always a handful of people who notice the blog and link to it each week. I'm always grateful for this, but I don't make a big deal of it (perhaps I should) because the purpose here is to keep focused on being faithful to servant leadership as Greenleaf defined it. And from this my hope is that more of us, myself included, will work harder to live that model in today's world. However, a couple of folks who linked here recently caught my eye for various reasons and I thought I would point them out:

• Kent Blumberg lays out what he thinks servant leadership is all about here. Very well done and he links to this outstanding article which I had not seen before from the University of Nebraska Extension Office which lays out their views on the characteristics of being a servant-leader.
• Someone who I met when I first started blogging, Bill Kinnon, pays us a nice compliment on a couple of recent posts. Bill calls me Terry rather than Trevor in the post, but that's OK as I've been called much worse! :-)
• Tom over at HR for the Leader in You also speaks of how much he enjoys our blog here. Tom is correct, we do work hard to make sense of the power of serving people as their leader. We certainly aren't the only ones, we aren't the biggest, and we probably aren't the best either....but much like trying to become a servant-leader, we continue to work at it.

Today is move-in day on campus and we start classes on Monday. I'm looking forward to it, as well as looking forward to continue trying to provide quality posts that can help each of you become a better servant-leader. Enjoy the weekend!

So unbelievable.....I can't even think of a headline!

All I can say is WOW. Recently Northwest Airlines gave pink-slips to some of its employees. Included in their layoff packet was a booklet titled '101 Ways to Save Money.' Included in the list were the following:

• Use old newspapers for cat litter
• Get hand-me-down clothes and toys for your kids from friends and relatives
• Take shorter showers
• Ask your doctor for samples of prescriptions
  

And the best one of all: Don't be afraid to take something you like out of the trash! To see the whole list, go here.

Northwest pulled the booklet from their layoff packets. Of course, they only did so after people complained! Maybe I'm being naive, and of course I don't have a list of everything else in the packets, but here's an idea: Include a list of 101 resources in the community to find quality employment!

PS: Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines has never had to layoff anyone. For more on the secrets of their success, go here. In addition, Ann McGee-Cooper has a great article here titled 'Lessons on Layoffs,' which looks at layoffs through the eyes of a servant-leader.

Leaders as described by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Jordan Ballor over at the Acton Institute PowerBlog (which I highly recommend be on your Blog reading list) recently e-mailed me and pointed out a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It comes from a radio address that Bonhoeffer gave in 1933 only two days after Hitler came to power. While the address was interrupted, Bonhoeffer went on to use the text publicly in the days and weeks that followed. Despite using only the masculine language that was common in those times, it is an amazing servant-leader quote that quite obviously raised his anti-Nazi profile:

The Leader must lead his followers towards a responsibility to the orders of life, a responsibility to father, teacher, judge, state. He must radically refuse to become the appeal, the idol, i.e. the ultimate authority of those whom he leads......

the Leader must know that he is most deeply committed to his followers, most heavily laden with responsibility towards the orders of life, in fact quite simply a servant.......

Leaders or offices which set themselves up as gods mock God and the individual who stands alone before him, and must perish. Only the Leader who himself serves the penultimate and the ultimate authority can find faithfulness...

For those interested in learning more about Bonhoeffer, please go here.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention Jordan...and keep up the great work over at the Acton PowerBlog!

Put me in Coach!

Michael Docherty has a wonderful post over at the Fast Company Blog about the ever-expanding role of coaches in today's business climate. I must say that I share many of Michael's concerns about the coaching industry and the perceived need that organizations have in bringing a coach into the organization.

Why is it that we take criticism from people outside our organizations more seriously than criticsm from those who are working inside our walls? Why do we think that our own people are unable to offer an objective analysis of what individuals and organizations need to do in order to improve?

I think Greenleaf would say that organizations don't need to bring in a coach if they would do a better job in structuring people's roles, identifying strengths and weaknesses of team members, and making sure there is someone on every committee who is willing to challenge the prevailing thought process. In other words, most organizations have the resources to move both the institution and individuals forward; they just need to be willing to take the risk and allow criticism from within.

The roles and pressures of committees

One of the classes I took while studying at Christ Church was Money & Soul of the Global Market. The class was taught by Bishop Peter Selby, Bishop of Worcester. There was a lot of great material from the class that I'll be coming back to as I think it relates to the work we are trying to do as Servant-Leaders.

However, I want to point out a lecture that Bishop Selby gave in May at Westminster Abbey. The title of the lecture was Structures of Disdain - and how they might be redeemed. It deals with two rather complex issues he was part of in his role within the Anglican church.

In particular, Bishop Selby is concerned about the role that a specific committee plays in making decisions that affect a large group of people, especially when that large group is not represented within the committee. Let me share just a brief quote from the lecture:

Pressures to circumvent, abbreviate or even eliminate processes that lengthen the time it takes to reach decisions are everywhere to be seen. Government dislikes delay - unless it is itself in charge of the delay.......From urgency come structures of disdain.

It is an oustanding lecture that I highly encourage you to take the time to read. I'm anxious to hear some of your thoughts.

How do we obtain information?

I recently read this post by Karol Sheinin over at Michelle Malkin's blog. It mentions this article in The Guardian newspaper out of London that says that much of the information obtained relating to the recent raids in the UK was via torture. I don't know that this has been proven, but there are some claiming that this is the case.

Karol makes the statement that she has no problem with this as it saves the lives of innocent people. I don't bring this to your attention in order to discuss the ethical use of torture, but rather to ask how the issue of obtaining information might pertain to organizational life.

For example if a company illegally receives information from a competitor (perhaps from paying off someone who works for the competitor) that ultimately ends up saving the jobs of hundreds of employees, would this be acceptable? Is there any situation in which an organization should break the law in order to ensure the stability of the company?

I realize that using torture to save innocent lives (whether you agree with that or not) is quite different on many levels than the example that I provided. (Saving a life is quite different than saving someone's job) Yet I bring this up because I wonder if those who think that using torture in this case is warranted would also agree that it is OK for organizations to break the law in order to save jobs. Thoughts?

SERVANT LEADERSHIP IN THE NEWS.

NEW ETHICS/SERVANT LEADERSHIP CENTER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS.
From the University of St. Thomas Bulletin Today.
“The University of St. Thomas School of Law in St. Paul, MN announced the establishment of the Thomas E. Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership. The Holloran Center will provide interdisciplinary research, curriculum development and programs for students and professionals on “servant leadership” in their communities. The concept of servant leadership emphasizes the leader's role as a steward of resources within an organization or community. It encourages leaders to serve others, nurturing community values and integrity.”

SERVANT LEADER AS SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT.
From the August 5 Concord Monitor.
"I look at myself as a servant leader," Blake said. "Someone who looks at a leader as being in the service of others, ensuring others have what they need to be successful, and helping them reach their potential."


JAMES C. HUNTER’S “THE SERVANT” THE NUMBER ONE BEST SELLER IN BRAZIL. l From WFAA.COM Channel 8 in Dallas/Fort Worth.

“His novel tells the story of a business executive who attends a leadership retreat at a Benedictine monastery, where he undergoes a spiritual transformation, ultimately realizing that service and sacrifice are the keys to success.” “In Brazil, the book has sold more than a million copies in the past two years.”

I'm back home

Well, I made it back from my stay at Oxford - came back just before the arrests and security crackdown! (Although, as I pointed out to my wife, the planes are probably safer now than when I flew in!!)

I'm glad to be back, although it is quite an undertaking getting all caught up. I will be back to blogging regularly very shortly and look forward to sharing with you the content of my coursework and how it relates to servant leadership in the world today.

A very heartfelt THANK YOU goes out to Tom for doing such a great job sharing some of the work from the Insights on Servant Leadership book while I was away. It is so nice having others share their experience of servant leadership and as we enter our 2nd year of blogging I hope to put some time into finding others that will share their expertise with you.

As I mentioned, I'll be back blogging in full force soon. In the meantime, for those of you who may be interested, you can find some pictures from my trip here. The Oxford pictures are grouped here, the Botanical Garden in Oxford photos are here, and some London pictures are here. (And yes, the Hall in which we ate is the same one used in the Harry Potter movies!) I'll be posting more pictures sometime in the next week, so keep checking back if you are interested.

"New Models of Work and Organization.”

Thomas Bausch is the author of the Nineteenth chapter in Insights on Leadership titled “Servant-Leaders Making Human New Models of Work and Organization.”

I enjoyed his connection between the ultimate purpose of work and how it relates to community. He writes, “The primary purpose of work is the development of the full potential of the individual doing the work. Each of us as servant-leaders can only develop our fullness as a person as part of a community, both through serving others and working with others in communities as diverse as the family; a church; our local, state, national, and international communities; our voluntary affiliations; and, possibly more important then anything but family, our community of work. There is no such thing as effective community without leadership”.

Community and leadership go hand and hand.

"Servant-Leaders in a Workaholic Society.”

Diane Fassel’s essay is the eighteenth from the book Insights on Leadership and addresses the ever-prevalent disorder of Workaholism. Webster’s defines a workaholic as a compulsive worker. Whenever we become compulsive about a task; our believe that the task is a means towards an end and then acting accordingly, results in our lives becoming unbalanced.

Fassel’s essay is appropriately titled “Lives in the Balance: The Challenge of Servant-Leaders in a Workaholic Society.” In her essay she reminds us about the words of Robert Greenleaf regarding the true test of servant leadership, namely do “those served grow as persons… become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants.” Greenleaf’s test should guide us in determining if the tasks we practice are indeed worthwhile, or rather a way to avoid our true calling.

She goes on to give her working definition of Workaholism as “an addiction to incessant internal and/or external activity with the belief that if I were not active, I would have no right to be or exist”; it is the obsession with activity that too often keeps us from getting in touch with the deeper meaning of our lives. It is the failure to maintain balance in our lives, the balance between activity and quiet that keeps us from the true practice of servant leadership. A key reminder of this comes when Fassel writes, “When Robert Greenleaf advised servant-leaders to withdraw, it was not just to recoup strength, but to realign with the core principle. When we put our work before ourselves, we lose ourselves to work. Ultimately we lose the meaning of work itself.”

To be effective at work one needs to be a whole person; seeking wholeness by focusing mainly on work is not wholeness, but unbalance.

"The Killing Fields"

Diane Cory is the author of the seventeenth chapter of Insights on Leadership titled “The Killing Fields: Institutions and the Death of Our Spirits.”

Cory writes, “We are afraid of power, of our bosses, of people who are above us in the hierarchy. We are afraid of what they might do to us in these rapidly changing and uncertain times.”

Fear keeps individuals and institutions from reaching their potentials. We need to face these fears if we want growth and to do that we need to speak about the realities we are in.

"Leading from Within"

Parker Palmer is the author of the 16th Chapter from Insights on Leadership titled "Leading from Within". His essay is full of noteworthy quotations. One insight that struck a cord with me is about the need for leaders to help us through the shadows.

“Great leadership comes from people who have made that downward journey through violence and terror, who have touched the deep place where we are in community with each other, and who can help take the rest of us to that place. That is what great leadership is all about.”

To be an effective leader, one needs to face our shadows. According to Palmer, these shadows include insecurity, hostile universe, functional atheism, fear and denial of death. Until we shed some light on the shadows, we cannot know our true selves.

"Spirit"

Part Three of Insights on Leadership is Titled “Spirit.” The essays in this section of the book share the authors insights on the nature of spirit and servant-leadership. Robert Greenleaf’s thoughts on spirit from “On Becoming a Servant-Leader” leads off this section of the book.

“I do not want to define or explain spirit. There is, in my theology, a mystery before which I simply stand in awe. At the threshold of the mystery, I ask no questions and seek no explanations. I simply bow before the mystery, and what it wants to say to me comes as gently as doves as I achieve the quiet. Spirit is behind the threshold of the mystery. I don’t know what it is, even though occasionally I get intimations about it, but I do have a belief about what it does. When a leader has spirit, it builds trust not only between leader and follower but also between followers”.

And that is a good theology indeed.

More on Healing.

Robert Greenleaf’s essay The Servant As Leader contains a section titled “Healing and Serving”. In this section Greenleaf wrote about two meetings of people that came together to better understand how best to heal people.

The first meeting was of a group of ministers and psychiatrists that came together for a seminar on the theme of healing. The seminar began with a question regarding what was the motivation for the ministers and doctors to be in the business of healing. The response that they all agreed to was “For our own healing.”

He also wrote about a legend regarding the founding meeting to incorporate the organization Alcoholics Anonymous. According to the legend, a philanthropist pointed out that “What you in AA want to do cannot be done with money. You must be poor. You must not use money to do your work.” Greenleaf pointed out that “the essential work of AA, one recovered (or partly recovered) alcoholic helping another toward recovery, will not be done for money.”

What Greenleaf concluded from these two examples was “whether professional or amateur, the motive for the healing is the same: for one’s own healing.”

It seems that too often we forget about the real reason for helping others to heal. It is not about us as healers being in a higher place and able to bestow health on others, (or about the profits that can be made), but rather the power that the act of trying to help others to heal has in helping us to grow and heal ourselves.