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Servant Leadership

November 29th, 2005 Leave a comment Go to comments

This is an attempt for me to understand about servant leadership. This is first mentioned to me by my mentor Dr. Xiangen Hu. The phrase servant leadership was coined by Robert Greenleaf, described servant-leadership in this way.

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. He or she is sharply different from the person who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. For such it will be a later choice to serve – after leadership is established. The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.

The difference manifest itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer , is: 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, will they not be further deprived?”

Taken from the Servant As Leader published by Robert Greenleaf in 1970.

This blog is created to hear opinions from my friends, well wishers and who ever that bumped into this page. Feel free to comment…

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  1. Mattie
    June 7th, 2006 at 20:54 | #1

    Exactly! You are a wise man.

  2. Renee
    June 7th, 2006 at 21:24 | #2

    I believe a servant-leader might be more grateful (if he does not get the big head) once he has acquired a leadership position. I believe he would be more polite and understanding toward the ones that are now his servants. On the other hand, I wonder if the leader could ever become a grateful servant; unless he is truly humble.

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