Compliance

I have been reading the book Servanthood- Leadership for the Third Millennium which was written by Bennett J. Sims. Reverend Sims was a Bishop in the Episcopal Church and founded the Institute for Servant Leadership. He passed away in 2006. His book does a great job of presenting the concepts of servant leadership. In the first chapter of the book he wrote:

Most of all, a servant style of leadership reduces the leader’s need to dominate. Responsibility for the performance of others in any system or organization acts as an impatient inner urge to use our power to compel compliance, whether we are a frustrated mother who is tempted to force oatmeal on a stubborn child at breakfast or an overworked bishop who would like nothing better than to expel an incompetent parish priest whose congregation is suffocating.

The idea of using power to compel compliance is tactic that is used frequently in my workplace, a government regulatory agency. This past week I attended a conference and listened to a number of presentations from folks from the agency to the regulated community. What frustrated me about many of the talks was the common theme of compelling compliance with environmental regulations through the threat of fining or punishing the audience if they did not comply with the appropriate rules.

It is unfortunate that focus was not placed on the reason why the rules exist, which is to protect and preserve the environment that sustains all of us. It has been my experience that when people understand the reason for rules, they naturally act in a way that is in harmony with the world, not to avoid harm in the form of fines or punishment, but rather because it is the right thing to do.

That is the goal of servant leadership - to foster understanding in order to empower others to do the right thing. So what examples of the use of power to force compliance or its opposite, fostering understanding, have you experienced lately?