Servant Leadership Blog

Vision Questions - Home

2009-10-29T20:16:00.003-05:00

I wanted to follow-up on my recent post titled “Visions” . I plan to post a series of questions based on Donella Meadows essay “Envisioning a Sustainable World” in the coming days. I put the questions together to use as a guide for a small group of folks I meet with to help us develop a personal vision for our future. I thought they might be useful for leaders to use to help develop your own sense of what you would like the future to be.

The questions delve into how you see your future -- Home, Community, Work, Nation, and Worldview. Use them to help answer the question “What kind of sustainable world do you WANT to live in?” Don’t get hung up on how you would make it happen or constraints of our present world that get in the way of your vision of the world. Don’t worry about what others may think about your vision; it’s your vision so dream big. Skip questions/topics that aren’t relevant, add those that might be missing, and skip around – there is no order to how to build your dream.

I would appreciate any suggestions you have or insights you would be willing to share on your own vision.

YOUR HOME

What do YOU want for yourself; your children, grandchildren, parents, grandparents, neighbors?

What would your home be like in a sustainable world?

What do you need to thrive – what would your clothing needs be, hobbies, education, what “stuff” would you need?

What would it feel like to wake up in the morning?

Who else would live there; how would it feel to be with them?

Where would energy, food, water, and other goods come from?

What kinds of wastes would be generated and where would they go?

When you look out the window or step out the door, what would it look like, if it looked the way you really want?

Who else lives near you (human and non-human)? How do you all interrelate?

Principles of Spiritual Leadership

2009-10-15T16:28:00.001-05:00

Principles of Spiritual Leadership

Condensed version of an adaptation of a presentation given by Will Keepin at Schumacher College, Totnes, England, July 17, 1997

1. Motivation transformed from anger and despair to compassion and love. We seek to work for love, rather than against evil. The Dalai Lama says, "A positive future can never emerge from the mind of anger and despair."

2. Non-attachment to outcome. To the extent that we are attached to the results of our work, we rise and fall with our success and failures, which is a path to burnout. Failures are inevitable, and successes are not the deepest purpose of our work.

3. Integrity is your protection. The idea here is that if your work has integrity, that will tend to protect you from negative circumstances.

4. Unified integrity in both means and ends. Integrity in means cultivates integrity in the fruit of one's work; you cannot achieve a noble goal using ignoble means. The end does not justify the means.

5. Don't demonize your adversaries. People respond to arrogance with their own arrogance, which leads to polarization. The ideal is to constantly entertain alternative points of view so that you move from arrogance to inquiry, and you then have no need to demonize your opponents.

6. Love thy enemy. Or if you can't do that, at least have compassion for them. This means moving from an 'us-them' consciousness to a 'we' consciousness. The 'them' that we talk about is also us.

7. Your work is for the world rather than for you. We serve on behalf of others and not for our own satisfaction or benefit. We're sowing seeds for a cherished vision to become a future reality, and our fulfilment comes from the privilege of being able to do this work.

8. Selfless service is a myth. In truly serving others, we are also served. In giving we receive. This is important to recognize, so we don't fall into the trap of pretentious service to others' needs and develop a false sense of selflessness or martyrdom.

9. Do not insulate yourself from the pain of the world. We must allow our hearts to be broken-broken open-by the pain of the world. As that happens, as we let that pain in, we become the vehicles for transformation. If we block the pain, we are actually preventing our own participation in the world's attempt to heal itself.

10. What you attend to, you become. If you constantly attend to battles, you become embattled. On the other hand, if you constantly give love, you become loving. We must choose wisely what we attend to, because it shapes and defines us deeply.

11. Rely on faith. Cultivate a deep trust in the unknown, recognizing the presence of "higher" or "divine" forces at work that we can trust completely without knowing their precise agendas or workings. It means invoking something beyond the traditional scientific world view.

12. Love creates the form. The mind gives rise to the apparent fragmentation of the world, while the heart can operate at depths unknown to the mind. When we bring the fullness of our humanity to our leadership, we can be far more effective in creating the future we want.

In closing, as we enter the third millennium, we are urgently called to action in two distinct capacities: to serve as hospice workers to a dying culture, and to serve as midwives to an emerging culture. These two tasks are required simultaneously; they call upon us to move through the world with an open heart-meaning we are present for the grief and the pain-as we experiment with new visions and forms for the future. Both are needed. The key is to root our actions in both intelligence and compassion-a balance of head and heart that combines the finest human qualities in our leadership for cultural transformation.

Vision.

2009-10-07T21:06:00.002-05:00

Where there is no vision, the people perish.
Proverbs 29:18 as quoted in SEEKER AND SERVANT by Robert Greenleaf

I have been able to attend a number of conferences recently where the major topic has been the state of the world around us, particularly the natural state of the world. If you have looked at this state lately, it is not a good one. The consequences of a warming planet pose serious threats, our water is polluted and in many areas scarce, and the quality of our air makes it dangerous to breath at times, and our world if filling up with more and more people.

I have gone to these conferences hoping to find some good news, some hope for the future, but instead I only learn more about the details of how badly we our treating our planet. The only hope I heard was that our technology would solve our problems -- that we could all install low flow toilets, or use energy more efficiently via such technological advances as the compact fluorescent light bulb, or that we could all drive hybrid cars. Unfortunately, I believe it will take much more than simply buying new fangled merchandise to clean up our mess.

What I finally realized that what was missing from these talks was a hopeful vision for our future. There seemed to be little if any talk or description for what our world could look like if we decided to treat it with respect, instead of treating it like a limitless garbage dump. We need vision. When I mistakenly shared my disappointment with my wife about the lack of vision in the speakers, she reminded me that perhaps it was me who needed a vision.

The dictionary defines vision in several ways: “something seen in a dream, trance, or ecstasy; and object of imagination; a manifestation to the senses of something immaterial” to name a few of the more unflattering definitions. It might be the focus on that fantasy quality or the un-achievable of the vision that has resulted in our being a very blind society when it comes to describing a future we would like to inhabit.

At least that has been my experience lately as I view the world through my own cynical eyes. So after moping around for several weeks, I came across a presentation by Donella Meadows titled ENVISIONING A SUSTAINABLE WORLD . Her discussion on what keeps us from being a visionary and how to overcome is a worthwhile read.

Greenleaf asks in his essay “Towards a Gentle Revolution”, “Far too many of our institutions – and of course, far too many people – are failing to serve at a level that is reasonable and possible for them. If the main reason for this deficiency in both people and institutions is, as I believe, that they are not inspired by a sufficient vision of greatness, then what is the remedy?”

It seems our task for the short-term future is to begin work on coming up with our own vision for the future.

Do The Right Thing Anyway.

2009-09-29T21:23:00.002-05:00

Working for a government agency, it gives me hope when I find something inspiring in one of the many emails that pass through my computer, when many are not worth the time it takes to delete them. Fortunately I didn’t delete the one that included a link to a recent article by Ken Miller in Governing. If you get a minute, the article “Frustrated by an Unchangeable Agency? Change Anyway.” is worth taking a look at.

Miller references another link that is worth taking a look at, Dr. Kent M. Keith’s Paradoxical Commandments. The commandments are a series of inspirational guidelines he drafted for inclusion in a booklet for student leaders. His Paradoxical Commandments follow:

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Blessings of Receipt

2009-09-09T22:13:00.003-05:00

In the contemporary world it is at least as blessed, especially for the powerful, to receive as to give — and much harder to do.

Robert Greenleaf, from his essay “Is It More Blessed To Give Than To Receive?” from SEEKER AND SERVANT.

I wonder if the political campaign fundraiser who I just got off the phone with is trying to tap into the blessings Greenleaf was referring to when she asked me to donate to her candidate’s campaign coffers. I’m not sure though that the gifts that Greenleaf was referring to revolve around money being given to the up and coming powerful.

Instead he was referring to a comment by someone from Africa labeling Americans as arrogant in they way that they pour aid into poor countries and along the way lose their humility to be able to accept the gifts that the people of these country have to offer us. I wrote about some experiences I had with this situation in my recent blog called “The Immortality of Giving”.

This is a topic that seems to keep showing up, so I thought I would delve into it some more. Krista Tippet looked into the issue in a recent Speaking of Faith public radio program “The Ethics of Aid: One Kenyan's Perspective." She led off the broadcast with the statement that “there is little uncontested overarching evidence that hundreds of billions of dollars of aid over the past 50 years have made a significant long-term difference to the health and wealth of people on the African continent.”

Her guest Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina has some good answers to why that seemed to be the case.

[A]lot of people arrive in Africa to assume that it's a blank empty space and their goodwill and desire and guilt will fix it. And that to me is not any different from the first people who arrived and colonized us. And I just want to reemphasize that this power is just about as dangerous as hard power. […] Because very often it arrives with a kind of zeal that is assuming 'I will. I will do it. I will solve it for you. I will fix it for you,' you know, and it rides roughshod over your own best efforts. To me the good efforts that have been done have been the ones that have been sensible and worked.

Any countries that have done well for themselves and have managed to do positive things and that have changed the lives of large parts of their countries have done so on their own effort. On the effort of their own citizenry with ideas that come from that citizenry and therefore get all manner of support from government or from all kinds of other places. That's the way it works.

And so as Greenleaf reminds us, we will not “have a chance to achieve the possible wholeness of existence, as individuals and as a nation, simply by being aware — unless that awareness (the awareness of the potential immorality of giving) opens the way to a new basis of relationship between aid giver and aid receiver”.

We need to be willing to receive before we can truly give, whether it is dealing with the neighbors in our backyard, or on the other side of the world.

Letting Go.

2009-09-03T19:56:00.003-05:00

If you want to be a leader . . .
Stop trying to control.
Let go of fixed plans and concepts,
and the world will govern itself.
The more prohibitions you have,
the less virtuous people will be.
The more weapons you have,
the less secure people will be.
The more subsidies you have,
the less self-reliant people will be.
Therefore the Master says:
I let go of the law,
and people become honest.
I let go of economics,
and people become prosperous.
I let go of religion,
and people become serene.
I let go of all desire for the common good,
and the good becomes common as grass.

Tao Te Ching, 600 B.C. China, Steven Miller translator. From TURNING TO ONE ANOTHER, Margaret J. Wheatley.

Bearing Witness

2009-08-26T22:01:00.004-05:00

Summer is passing by fast, vacations have been taken, my daughters are getting ready to go back to school, and I noticed it has been a while since I have posted here. To get back in the blogging routine, I thought I would share some excerpts from Margaret J. Wheatley’s book TURNING TO ONE ANOTHER – SIMPLE CONVERSATIONS TO RESTORE HOPE TO THE FUTURE. In particular, her essay “What Am I Willing to Notice in My World” struck me.

“Many times I have fled from others’ grief and pain. I’ve seen this behavior in many others . We don’t know how to fix the situation or make the pain go away. There is nothing we can do to help, so we flee in the opposite direction, turn off the television, avert our eyes from the pictures, stop talking to our grieving friends. […]. As hard as we try to close people out, we never really lose awareness of their suffering. The world still gets in and gnaws at our insides.”

“If you’ve ever experienced grief, you know how healing it is to just have friends sit with you, not saying a word, not expecting anything from you. You don’t need them to do anything except be there, bearing witness to your loss and sorrow.”

“How we respond to so much suffering is our choice. We can feel hopeless and overwhelmed by this world; we can turn away and just live the best life we can. Or we can learn to bear witness.”

“I’ve tried other ways to bear witness. Standing and patiently listening to someone I’d rather avoid. Or consciously reading stories of tragedy, torture, massacres—instead of changing channels or turning past the page in the magazine. I used to feel that these horrors were just too much for me to bear. But now I’m learning to read through to the end by reminding myself that I have a role here. If people have survived such atrocities, I honor them by reading about their experiences. They lived it; the least I can do is read about it.”

“We can turn away, or we can turn toward. Those are the only two choices we have.”

I had an opportunity to practice bearing witness during a recent biking vacation that took me through Lincoln County in Wyoming. I came across the Cumberland Cemetery, a small plot of land tucked in to the sagebrush covered hills near the abandoned mining towns apparently known as Cumberland 1 and Cumberland 2.

The graves that still had markers of some sort or another indicated that the cemetery was filled with children – most them had died in infancy during the early 1900’s. As I walked around looking at the various graves, I wondered about the suffering that must have gone on in the families with the loss of such young children.

It was an opportunity for me to choose to turn toward the suffering. Granted, it is much easier to bear witness to those who have died long ago then it is to those who still live, but it was a time to simply stop for a moment and spend some time, something I need to do more of with those who suffer today.

The Immorality of Giving.

2009-06-29T22:14:00.006-05:00

Giving is a potentially immoral act. Its danger lies in the assumption of virtue by the agent, of the virtue of agentry, with an accompanying train of other unvirtuous assumptions. The relatively innocent desire to help is so thinly distinguished from wanting to be the helper. But the latter is capable of all sorts of distortions; wanting to be widely known as the helper, wanting to make some decisions for the helpee, wanting to dictate, to paternalize, to manipulate. It is not likely that a foundation, any more than a person, will escape these faults by thoughtlessness or accident. Only by being conscious of the danger is there a chance to escape. In other words, a foundation must believe in the potential immorality of giving.

Merrimon Cuninggim while President of the Danforth Foundation. Quotation is from Robert Greenleaf’s parable “Teacher As Servant” from the book THE SERVANT-LEADER WITHIN.

Robert Greenleaf wrote the parable “Teacher as Servant” based on his observations from an actual university dormitory that was designed to bring out the natural servant leadership tendencies of the students who lived there. The quote above comes from the retelling of the character Melissa’s experiences while on a summer internship to Africa. Melissa spent two months working with a foundation that conducted aid projects in developing countries. The projects included: agriculture, family planning, education, national planning, and health service.

After her return from Africa, she comes across Merrimon Cunninggim’s warning above on the office wall of the foundation’s president. The president had placed the quote on his wall as a reminder of the challenge he faced in his role as president of the foundation in managing the moral dilemma of basically giving away money. She went on to describe the problems she had observed with the foundations work. One problem she noted was related to the aid that was being provided by nations and foundations “as a lever to build influence for the aid giver” and not because of an interest in really helping the people of the country. Other problems included the lack of skills in the people that came over to do the work, and importing “solutions” that worked in America, but failed in Africa.

As I noted in my recent posts, I spent about three weeks in Africa this past May, working with some university students from a non-profit group that was involved with aid related projects similar to those described in the parable. I had started reading THE SERVANT-LEADER WITHIN while I was on the trip, but did not come across the parable’s discussion of Africa until I returned from the trip. Based on my own experiences, it was evident to me that many of the same fictional problems are still occurring with the real aid process. It is too bad that Merrimon Cuninggim’s advice that “a foundation must believe in the potential immorality of giving”, is not being heeded.

This section of the parable closed with the president lamenting the challenge he faced to Melissa, “The choice I face in this job every day, and it is a painful one, is: shall I stay here and do the best I can with these trustees and this staff, and maybe make a little progress, but not nearly enough? Or shall I quit this post and join those on the outside who denounce the institution in the hope that someone else will emerge inside who will do better than I do?”

Mellisa hoped he would stay where he was and keep trying.

Masks

2009-06-16T20:24:00.006-05:00

Living as we do in an unreal world, to some extent we all wear masks. Convenient as it is to let the mask do what only serenity can really do, I submit that all masks chafe; I never saw a well fitting mask. It is a great relief to take them off.
Dr. Broderick, A fictional psychologist from Robert Greenleaf’s parable “Teacher As Servant” from the book THE SERVANT LEADER WITHIN.

Photo: Wooden Masks On Shop Wall, Kigali, Rwanda

Servant Leadership in Rwanda

2009-06-10T12:11:00.003-05:00

"Some coercive power is overt and brutal. Some is covert and manipulative. The former is open and acknowledged; the latter is insidious and hard to detect."

"One must be close to both the bitterness and goodness of life to be fully human. The servant must be fully human. "

Quotes from "The Servant as Leader", 1970 Edition, Robert Greenleaf.

I have some time on my return from a trip to Rwandan at the Addis Ababa Ethopia Airport, so decided to write a quick blog about some of my experiences on a trip to Rwanda. One of the dominating events during the visit was the impact that the 1994 Genocide has had on the people of the Country. I suppose that since over 1,000,000 people out of a country of 8,000,000 was killed during the roughly 100 day period, it would dominate the lifes of most people.

When I had some free time during the trip, I have been working my way through Greenleaf's essay. What I have experienced during the visit was the raw, vibrant form of servant leadership that exists in the people of the country. This natural form of leadership likely blossoms here because of the experiences of bitterness and goodness that the people their have experienced.

The people who exemplify servant leadership -- whether it be the two brothers Patrice and John Leduex who are active in teaching farming, running a handcraft cooperative for handicapped children, or working as interpretors for our group; the Nyange Parish Priests Father Safari and John Baptist and their assitant Noel who work with the parish where over 2000 of the the former parishoners were bulldozed to death under the orders of the church's former parish to help their parishioners continue with life; the Headmaster of a baptist secondary school Raymond, who came up to me during a candlelight vigil to remember the victoms of the Nyange area and began to explain to me in english what the memries of the survivors were; or from John Paul our guide who watched his own parents and family members killed during the Genocide, and took in two orphan children as his own at the age of 15 -- get it not from books or theory, but from living it.

I believe that is what Robert Greenleaf meant when he wrote, "Moral priciples do not emerge from theory, but from testing and experience. Theories are later built to encase and explain the working principles."

I hope to write more on the priciples I have learned during the trip in some future posts. In the mean time find some time to experience both the goodness and the bitterness of life.

p.s. Please forgive my spelling and grammer errors. The internet connection is slow here and my time is limited, so just a quick and dirty unedited post.

Mentoring.

2009-05-19T10:56:00.002-05:00

The mentors granting of freedom is fairly clear. He must not judge what his understudy will become. But how about the freedom that the understudy will achieve? What is it, and how does the climate set by the mentor encourage its growth?

[...] the important qualities they will need cannot be dictated or directed by me or by anyone but will emerge as a natural consequence of the total environment in which the person lives. [...] I don't have access to that total environment.

Robert Greenleaf, “Growing Greatness in Managers”, ON BECOMING A SERVANT LEADER

I have an opportunity to fill a mentoring role for a group of students from the University of Wisconsin Madison chapter of Engineers Without Borders. We leave for a trip to Rwanda today where the students will be following up on some projects they have been working on related to improving farming practices and drinking water systems. Therefore, I will not likely be posting here again until we return in the middle of June.

I hope to learn much about the role of a mentor, servant leadership, and living simply from the students I work with and the people of Rwanda. I will try to post some thoughts when I return. I hope to allow myself to grow from both the duel role of the mentor/mentee.

Servant Leadership is...tossed in the leadership salad like crotons

2009-05-05T08:29:00.000-05:00

Leadership Expert Says Crisis Gives Opportunities
John Maxwell focuses on relationships, influence, making connections.

By Cary McMullen
THE LEDGER
Published: Monday, May 4, 2009 at 11:35 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, May 4, 2009 at 11:35 p.m.
Someone remarked to John Maxwell just after the November election that with all the problems facing the country, he wouldn't want to be in Barack Obama's shoes. Maxwell had a different take.
John Maxwell, author and nationally recognized expert on leadership, at a leadership conference held near Alturas, Florida, on April 30, 2009PIERRE DUCHARME | THE LEDGER

"I said, 'I'd love to be president right now.' What an opportunity! If you look at the American presidents we've so highly esteemed, they took America through difficult times," he said. "In a difficult time, leaders emerge."
Maxwell is a student of leadership. A pastor, author, consultant and speaker, he has made an international name for himself as an authority on leadership. His book, "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership," published in 1998, has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide, he said.
Maxwell, 62, who lives in Jupiter, is an occasional visitor to Polk County. His brother is Polk County developer Larry Maxwell, and his father, the Rev. Melvin Maxwell, lives here also.
On Thursday, at his brother's ranch near Alturas, Maxwell led a private roundtable session on leadership for about 65 local community and business leaders. It was the second year Maxwell has led the roundtable, a fundraising event for Discovery, a program at Lakeland Christian School for families with autistic and special needs students.
Maxwell began his career in 1970 as a pastor, following in his father's footsteps. By 1995, he was senior pastor of a megachurch in San Diego. Over the years, he wrote books to help pastors understand principles of leadership. Then he learned that two-thirds of the people buying his books were in the secular market, in corporate, government and nonprofit sectors. Maxwell decided to leave the ministry and take up speaking and writing on leadership full time.
"I've been teaching the subject since 1974," Maxwell said. "There's such a need for (leadership). When times get difficult, it's even more in demand. I've never gone to a company and they say, 'You know, we have too many good leaders.' I've never been to an educational institution and they say, 'We've got an excess of good leaders and we need to weed some out.'"
Instead of offering techniques, Maxwell specializes in what he calls "the soft side" of leadership, focusing on relationships, influence and making connections. He said before people will follow a leader, they ask three questions: Can you help me? Do you care about me? Can I trust you?
Not surprisingly, he said his principles of leadership are taken from the Bible. Maxwell pushes "servant leadership," a philosophy with a heavy dose of humility that he said works even in the competitive corporate climate.
"A big thing in the corporate market is how you can serve your clients. Another is valuing people. I learned that watching the life of Christ," he said.
Kevin Knowlton, a lawyer with Peterson Myers in Lakeland and chairman of the board of Lakeland Christian School, attended Thursday's roundtable and said Maxwell talked about the necessity for leaders to reassess their values in difficult times.
"He said leaders and individuals tend to grow more in times of adversity. In America now, we're focusing more on what's important in life. Maybe we weren't as good as we thought we were," he said. "It's common sense, but sometimes we forget the simple things."
With regard to Obama, Maxwell said he has shown "some very good leadership qualities."
"He's very clear. He's not afraid to put his name on the line. He understands the value of constant communication. He seems to be able to have good people around him. And he has the ability and the desire to listen," he said.

A Good Society Revisited.

2009-04-30T21:13:00.002-05:00

As you may have noticed, my latest posts have been inspired by Robert Greenleaf’s writings collected in the book THE POWER OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP . While working my way through the essay “The Servant as Religious Leader” on the bus the other day, I came across another reference to Greenleaf’s great description on what “good society” consists of. (See my January 17, 2008 post for the prior reference to Greenleaf’s “good society”.) Greenleaf expands on what constitutes a good society in this essay.

"Among many facets of a “good” society that might be achieved with finite resources are: the opportunity for as many people as possible to engage in useful and remunerative work — with the feeling of belonging and being a part of a constructive effort where they are; children get good preparation for a life of service; strong young people are encouraged and prepared for religious leadership; health is encouraged and the environment is protected; the needy, the aged, and the disabled are cared for."

Earlier in the essay, Greenleaf points out his ideas on what constitutes religious leadership: “(in its root meaning of religio — to bind or rebind) is the quality of the consequences of her or his leadership. Does it have a healing or civilizing influence? Does it nurture the servant motive in people, favor their growth as persons, and help them distinguish those who serve from those who destroy?”

Now that is a society I would hope we all would like to belong to. In last weeks Earth Day post, I wrote about merging Greenleaf’s “best test” with Leopold’s “land ethic”. What is interesting is that Greenleaf’s “good society” as created by religious leadership may have the power to do just that.

So are we following the nurturers or the destroyers?

The Day of the Earth

2009-04-22T21:35:00.003-05:00

For an Earth Day post, I thought it would be good to revisit my first post on the Servant-Leadership BLOG. In it I referred to Aldo Leopold’s essay “The Land Ethic” and his reminder that “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

I have often thought that Leopold’s test should be melded with Robert Greenleaf’s servant-leader best test: “Do those being 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 she or he benefit, or, at least, not be further deprived?”

Don Frick, Robert Greenleaf’s biographer, touched on this idea in a comment he wrote in regard to his post on this Blog titled “Global Warming, Servant Leadership, and Foresight” where he wrote:

I find Greenleaf's "best test for a servant-leader" the omega of all thinking about aspects of his servant writings. I sometimes wonder, however, if he left something out of the equation.

Greenleaf began penning the first draft of "The Servant As Leader" in December, 1968, the end of a terrible year. (I know; I graduated from college that year.) Vietnam was raging, assassinations were fresh in our minds and the environmental movement was just reaching wider consciousness. I sometimes wish Bob would have included in his test a question like "Is the planet protected?" On the other hand, the test focuses on the effects on people, so with what we now know, we can certainly conclude that issues like global warming and toxic waste that have the potential to inflict massive damage on people still fall within the purview of the best test.

I have never seen evidence that Greenleaf considered such a statement, but find it fun to speculate whether he might if he were rewriting the test today.

What is intriguing to me is that Robert Greenleaf did propose a rewrite to the best test in his essay “Servant: Retrospect And Prospect” from the book THE POWER OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP that he wrote ten years or so after his original. In the essay he proposed a rewrite with the following addition “No one will knowing be hurt by the action, directly or indirectly” (page 43).

Merging of Greenleaf’s servant-leadership with Leopold’s land ethic is what we will need to have the foresight to deal with the problems we face in the coming years.

In his essay “An Opportunity for a Powerful New Religious Influence” from the book SEEKER AND SERVANT (page 106) Greenleaf did write:

It is the choice to act upon those assumptions about the nature of people and the world that will release an optimal contemporary force to lead people to be religious in the root sense of the word, that is “bound to the cosmos,” at one with the great creative force.

It is our relationship with the cosmos, one in which we are simply a part of it, and not the pinnacle of it, that I believe is the key to not knowingly hurting any of earth’s inhabitants and as a result working towards healing the harms we have inflicted.

Shadows

2009-04-19T16:06:00.002-05:00

"I am coming from both darkness and light”, says the face, “both out of problems and possibilities. I may even be a little off-center myself in my understanding of these things. But tell me: are you going to do anything about them?” Am I – are we – indeed?”

Photograph of Robert K Greenleaf by Marilyn S. Futterman and quote from Forward written by Peter B. Vaill to the book THE POWER OF SERVANT-LEADERSHIP.

Peter Vaill includes an interesting description of a photograph of Robert Greenleaf in his Forward to the book THE POWER OF SERVANT-LEADERSHIP. Most of Greenleaf’s essays from the book were originally published as pamphlets by the Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership and according to Vaill, the photograph of Greenleaf was included in the pamphlets along with a short biography. Some interesting quotes from his description of the photo follow.

Yet I consider it so extraordinary an image – one that stimulates thoughts and feelings in me that are pertinent to the spirit of these essays.

He is turned very slightly to his left from the camera and the effect is to place the left half of his face almost completely in shadow while the right side remains fully illuminated.

It is a striking picture, and made the more so by one final feature: it is dramatically off-center. Greenleaf’s head and shoulders occupy the right half of the picture, but the left half is blank space. This left half is strongly illuminated at the bottom and shades to black at the top, but is completely empty.

The longer I look at this picture the more I am stimulated to think about Greenleaf as a person. There is a darkness running through his writings. He is writing about terribly complex problems which contain the potential for some very bad outcomes – and he knows it. Yet he is not wringing his hands, not paralyzed with alarm.

If you are looking to delve deeper into the shadows of Greenleaf’s servant leadership ideas, pickup a copy of THE POWER OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP and find some illumination.

The Lean Servant Leader

2009-04-10T18:40:00.003-05:00

Dear Thomas,

One of my favorite questions when meeting with senior leaders of enterprises is, "What is your organization's purpose?" The typical and immediate response is, "To make money and grow." "But," I respond, "this answer has nothing to do with your customers, who provide the money your organization needs to profit and grow." I then repeat my question, but elaborate, 'What does your organization do to solve customer problems better than competitors so that customers old and new will pay good money for your services and goods and buy more over time?'"

In recent years a fashionable alternative to "make money and grow sales" was that organizational purpose was to steadily grow shareholder value. But now the king of shareholder value, General Electric's retired chairman Jack Welch, has acknowledged – thank goodness – that this is a result, not a strategy for achieving this result. Now that investors as well as customers are on strike during the great financial crisis, the whole management world is being forced to rethink purpose from the standpoint of the customer.

Confusion about purpose is particularly painful to watch in the collapse of General Motors because this organization was so brilliant for so long in clearly defining its purpose. On June 9, 1921, GM's great leader Alfred Sloan produced a simple memorandum on the topic of "Product Policy" that defined General Motors’ purpose for generations to come.

Sloan stated that General Motors would provide a carefully configured range of products for "every purse and purpose", from used Chevrolets at the lower end of the market (with dealer financing on these traded-in vehicles) to a "fully loaded" Cadillac at the top end. This simple memo rationalized GM's chaotic product line-up so its vehicles would not overlap in the market. Instead, they would each have a clearly defined place in a status hierarchy and would always be more refined, a bit "classier" with a higher price, than competitor products in each market segment.

This memo about market policy was much more than the now familiar market segmentation and value proposition for each segment. Sloan did something much more important by defining GM's central purpose as creating an aspirational escalator for every customer through the life cycle, from the used Chevrolet as their first purchase to the fancy Cadillac as their last (often concluding with a Cadillac hearse on the way to the cemetery!) And it worked brilliantly. General Motors was probably never as efficient in production as Ford and it was rarely a technology leader. But it provided a clear product pathway on the customer's life journey. Customers embraced this purpose and opened their wallets to pay higher prices for more refined products within each market segment. Within a few years of Sloan’s memo GM had became the largest and most successful corporation in the world and in the history of the world.

Moving forward to the present moment, it is saddening to read the viability plan GM recently proposed to the US Automotive Task Force. With the exception of the plug hybrid Volt (an unproven technology for an unproven market to be produced at tiny volume in the early years), the plan is entirely about "restructuring" and shrinking, about what General Motors isn't. It isn't Saab or Hummer or Saturn. It won’t have nearly as large a dealer network. It isn't a manufacturer with a significant North American footprint outside of Michigan and Ohio. Etc.

The natural instinct of senior managers in any crisis is to restructure and downsize. But the question is always, "Restructure and downsize toward what?" No customer cares about a company's structure. No customer cares about downsizing. Customers only care about a company solving their problems along life's path.

So here's my advice to new GM CEO Fritz Henderson or whoever may follow after him. Before you restructure, restate GM's purpose. Today no one knows. Do it in a simple memo. Indeed, do it in a single-page A3 format. Sloan needed three pages in 1921, so practice continuous improvement to get down to one! And remember that no amount of restructuring without a clear and compelling purpose will save this stricken giant (or any other failing enterprise.)

Best regards,
Jim

P.S. Toyota has gotten off lighter than GM in the current crisis, but it faces the same confusion about purpose. Until the mid-1990s the clear purpose of Toyota was to be the best organization in the world at providing refined, durable "value" products in all market segments with few delivered defects to customers. The assumption was that growth would naturally follow, and it did. But then the purpose seems to have shifted to becoming the biggest auto company as rapidly as possible by adding capacity everywhere, a purpose that no customer cares about. At the same time competitors, led by Hyundai, have closed the gap on Toyota's original purpose and everyone is doing hybrids where Toyota initially took the lead. An A3 on re-purposing Toyota is surely what new president Akio Toyoda needs as well. My fear is that he will only focus on cost reduction and restructuring.

------------------------------
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The Lean Servant Leader

2009-04-10T18:40:00.000-05:00

A Moral Crisis

2009-04-05T18:55:00.003-05:00

The state of our economy is a topic that I have been trying to avoid lately, as dwelling on it has a tendency to bring me down. Watching Bill Moyer's Journal on PBS the other night, I was forced to revisit the topic and was reminded about a major cause for our current economic slump – a general lack of morality in those who lead our organizations, and perhaps in ourselves. See the transcript of Moyer’s interview with William Black here.

Black is a former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. At one point near the end of the interview Moyers asked Black why he believed the current financial crisis was a moral crisis. Black responded: “Because it is a fundamental lack of integrity.” He goes on to discuss an insight by economist Larry White mentioned in White’s book about the Savings and Loan crisis.

“(…), one of the most interesting questions is why so few people engaged in fraud? Because objectively, you could have gotten away with it. But only about ten percent of the CEOs, engaged in fraud. So, 90 percent of them were restrained by ethics and integrity. So, far more than law or by F.B.I. agents, it's our integrity that often prevents the greatest abuses. And what we had in this crisis, instead of the Savings and Loan, is the most elite institutions in America engaging or facilitating fraud.”

Could it be that the majority of leaders of the savings and loan industry during the 1980’s had a sense of strength that is missing in the majority of the leaders in our current banking industry? Robert Greenleaf talks about this strength in his essay “Building The Ethic of Strength in Business” from the book ON BECOMING A SERVANT LEADER. Greenleaf believed that there is a need for those in business “to learn to grow in strength”. Greenleaf viewed a person with strength as follows:

"This is not a person who lives by codes and rules but rather one who knows the resources of inspiration and wisdom on which to draw and sees his or her own experience as an extension of that tradition. Somewhere an influence has shaped the attitudes and motives of this person so that he or she feels responsible for doing well in any chosen undertaking – and for doing it in such a way as to become a plus value in both the immediate environment and the wider society."

So how to we go about changing the influences to shape our up and coming leaders to become a value to both our environment and our wider society?

Servant Leadership Forum, April 21, Minneapolis

2009-04-02T19:49:00.002-05:00

Here is a plug for what looks like an interesting forum on servant leadership to be held Tuesday, April 21, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship in downtown Minneapolis, MN. Refer to this link for more information. I hope to make it and will try to post some follow-up thoughts.

Speakers will include Ron James, president and chief executive officer of the Center for Ethical Business Cultures, sharing his thoughts on "Ethical Culture: The Connection to Servant Leadership" and Kent Keith, chief executive officer of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, will speak on "The Case for Servant Leadership."

A panel, moderated by James, will discuss from "principle and theory" to "practice and application" and encourage interaction between the panel and members of the audience. The panel will include: Ken Melrose – former chairman and chief executive officer of The Toro Company and author of Making the Grass Greener on Your Side (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1995); Kent Keith – the speaker noted above of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership and author of The Case for Servant Leadership (Greenleaf Center Press, 2008); James Sipe – senior consultant at PDI Ninth House and co-author of Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership: Practicing the Wisdom of Leading by Serving (Paulist Press, 2009); and Don Frick – Robert Greenleaf's biographer and co-author of Seven Pillars for Servant Leadership: Practicing the Wisdom of Leading by Serving (Paulist Press, 2009).

The forum is sponsored by the Center for Ethical Business Cultures, Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership and the Thomas Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions at the University of St. Thomas.

There is no charge for the event. Participants are asked to register by Thursday, April 16 by sending an e-mail to mail@cebcglobal.org.

Daily SL

2009-03-24T09:04:00.000-05:00

http://www.fdlreporter.com/article/

Two FdL women to be honored at annual awards event

Fond du Lac's Virginia Gilmore and Mary Fran Merwin will be honored by the Women's Fund of the Fond du Lac Area Foundation during its annual luncheon on April 7.

The two women are being recognized for their visionary thinking, entrepreneurial spirit, leadership, philanthropy and tireless efforts "which have made a significant difference or greatly enhanced the quality of life in our community," according to a press release.

Gilmore and Merwin will receive "Women of Achievement" awards.

Past recipients include Ruth Michels, Dr. Joan Regan, the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Agnes and Shelley Stayer.

According to the press release:

Virginia Gilmore

Born and raised in Chilton, Gilmore received a bachelor's degree from Marian University in spirituality and leadership. In addition, she has advanced training in dialogue and compassionate listening. She married Jim Gilmore in 2005 and continues to be an active volunteer in the Fond du Lac area.

Gilmore spent 17 years of her professional life in her fourth-generation business, Kaytee Products Inc., where — working together with her father and two brothers — the family grew the Chilton company into the No. 1 brand of bird food in the country.During her tenure at Kaytee, she served as vice president of sales and later as vice president of customer relations.

After the sale of the company and her ensuing retirement, Gilmore began promoting the leadership principles associated with Robert Greenleaf and Servant Leadership. She co-founded the Center for Spirituality and Leadership at Marian University.

In 2002, Gilmore founded the Sophia Foundation Inc. at the Fond du Lac Area Foundation. The Sophia Foundation has already awarded more than $500,000 in grants to support issues relating to the healing of the vulnerable issues of women and children. Gilmore has been involved in establishing and supporting Opening of the Heart and Compassionate Listening, Teen Talking Circles, the Collaborative Community Response Against Violence, the founding of the Women's Fund of the Fond du Lac Area Foundation, the April 17 Servant Leadership Breakfast, and a national pilot program for Servant Leadership Learning Circles.

Gilmore has received numerous community awards for her volunteer work. Among them are the 2002 Leader of the Year Award from the Wisconsin Leadership Institute, 2005 Cheers for Volunteers Spirit of Compassion Award, 2005 Fond du Lac Area Foundation Legacy Award, the 2006 George Becker Business Spirit Award, 2007 Those Who Care About Domestic Violence Award and was named a Paul Harris Rotary Fellow in 2008.

Mary Fran Merwin

Merwin was born and raised with her eight siblings in Chicago. She is married to Gary Merwin, owner of Merwin Oil Co.

She received her bachelor's degree in French from Edgewood College in Madison and her master's degree in educational leadership from Marian University. She is working toward a doctorate in educational leadership through Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee.

Merwin began her educational career in the late 1980s as a substitute teacher, which led her to a French teaching position at Theisen Junior High. She later became the assistant principal of Goodrich High School and most recently, the head principal at Fond du Lac High School, retiring in 2008.

Her love of children led her naturally to her field. Merwin has always felt that children need more adults who appreciate them, respect them and treat them well. She always saw herself as a true public servant and responded to needs of the students, families, staff and community she served, according to the news release.

Merwin always opened her heart and office to her students and gave them the gift of her time and listening ear. She is committed to creating a Fond du Lac community of strong and successful young women today, and supporting strong and successful women of tomorrow, according to the news release.

Dog Fights and Endurance

2009-03-19T22:16:00.002-05:00

The setting was a cold January morning in a little town in Wisconsin, where I then was, on the southern shore of Lake Superior. It happened to be a Saturday when they had their annual dog-sled derby on the ice. A one-mile course had been staked out by sticking little fir trees in the ice. The whole course was easily visible because of the steep slope of the shore. It was the youngsters’ meet and the contenders ranged all the way from large boys with several dogs and big sleds to one little fellow who didn’t seem over five with a little sled and one small dog.

From Notes on a talk given by Robert Greenleaf to a Seminar for Trustees – Friends Council on Education, January 1973 in the book SERVANT LEADERSHIP (page 187).

This story from Greenleaf caught my eye because of the setting – Northern Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior, probably my favorite place to spend time. Having grown up in Northern Wisconsin, I have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time on the shores of that great lake, but have never had the opportunity to watch a dog sled race there. Greenleaf’s description does a great job of filling in what I missed.

They took off at the signal and the little fellow with his one dog was quickly outdistanced – he was hardly in the race. All went well with the rest until, about halfway around, the team that was second started to pass the team in the lead. They came too close and the dogs got in a fight. And as each team came up the dogs joined in the fight. None seemed to be able to steer clear of it. Soon, […], there was just one big black seething mass of kids and sleds and dogs – all but the little fellow with his one little dog who gave this imbroglio a wide berth, the only one that managed it, and the only one to finish the race.

As I reflect on the many vexing problems and the stresses of our time that complicate their solutions, this simple scene from long ago comes vividly to mind. And I draw the obvious moral: No matter how difficult the challenge or how impossible or hopeless the task may seem, if you are reasonably sure of your course, just keep on going!

Greenleaf’s moral is one that I need, probably more so then another escape to the shores of my favorite lake, as I struggle with trying to incorporate servant leadership into the places I spend most of my time lately. Maybe I need to find a small dog to guide my sleigh or at least to be reasonably sure enough to just keep on going.

Daily SL

2009-03-19T08:21:00.000-05:00

Citrus Commission chairman aims for state House

By Kara Phelps
News Chief staff

Published: Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 4:01 a.m.

LAKELAND - Ben Albritton, a Hardee County resident and current chairman of the Florida Citrus Commission, announced Wednesday that he will file paperwork the first week in April to become a Republican candidate for the District 66 seat in the Florida House of Representatives.

The seat is currently held by state Rep. Baxter Troutman, R-Winter Haven. State term limits prevent Troutman from running for re-election in 2010.

Another candidate, Leviticus Reed of Winter Haven, filed paperwork to run for the seat last month. He also is a Republican.

Albritton plans to go to Tallahassee to complete the filing paperwork on April 2, said his spokeswoman, Twyla G. Ely.

A statement released Wednesday said Albritton wants to reduce the "excessive paperwork and regulations Florida's small businesses face just trying to provide jobs in our communities."

"It is the government's place to create a business-friendly environment and allow small businesses the freedom to keep creating jobs," according to the statement.

Albritton is a sixth-generation Floridian and a fourth-generation citrus grower. He is a managing partner for Albritton Companies, a group of family-owned businesses involved in citrus grove ownership, citrus grove care and management, horticultural consulting, risk management and insurance.

Albritton touts "a family history firmly rooted in public service and leadership" and his "effective, servant leadership in a wide array of industry, civic organizations and ... home church."

Albritton earned a bachelor of science degree in citrus/business from Florida Southern College in Lakeland in 1990 and has completed graduate studies at the University of Florida. He also has gone through executive training at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business.

Albritton and his wife, Missy, have three children: Rebecca, 10; Joshua, 7; and Ryan, 4. They live in Wauchula.

kara.phelps@newschief.com

Daily SL

2009-03-18T08:41:00.001-05:00

Published on Eden Prairie News (http://www.edenprairienews.com)

Spiritually Speaking: Are you a leader worth following?

By Karla

Created 03/13/2009 - 2:34pm

By Bernard E. Johnson

I have been thinking about what makes a leader worth following. Chris Lowney, special assistant to the president of the Catholic Medical Mission Board in New York, posed that question in a published column. He spoke of how we are quick to identify lapses and failures in leadership. At the same there is little agreement on a vision of the competent and virtuous leader.

The late Robert W. Terry, former director of The Reflective Leadership Center at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, reaches a similar conclusion in his book, Authentic Leadership. We seem to know when leadership has failed but we are hard pressed for agreement on what leadership really is. Terry goes on to unpack six critical concerns for leaders who desire to be “authentic” leaders. In the end, leadership is a spiritual reality, a matter of “being” more than doing.

Lowney appeals to a spiritual tradition for his thoughts on leadership. St. Ignatius of Loyola had a profound respect for the leadership potential in every person. It was born out of an understanding of spiritual giftedness that is everyone’s legacy from our creator. Ignatius would have us focus on the rich giftedness of every person rather than the failures of those in charge. In his thinking we all lead in some way.

Ignatius of Loyola was the Basque priest who founded the Jesuits in 1540. Consider his company’s credentials. As educators and confidants to Europe’s monarchs, China’s Ming emperor and the Japanese shogun, early Jesuits’ influence was unmatched. Today the Jesuits have marched past their 500th anniversary. In contrast, a mere 16 of the 100 largest companies of the year 1900 survived to celebrate a centennial.

More important than what Jesuits accomplished is how they did it. Every recruit was developed as a leader. Each catalogued his strengths and weaknesses and then articulated values he would be able with integrity to role-model. Each understood that every day brings opportunities to influence others and that is the essence of leadership. The world’s most extensive higher education network was forged one student, one year, and one Jesuit and lay teacher at a time.

All of this requires a spiritual understanding of life and relationships. Life is not about bosses and the bossed, leaders and the led, lords and servants. Life is about understanding your God given gifts and letting them be used to positively influence others. Jesus taught that a person’s greatness is measured by his willingness to serve others. Servant leadership is authentic leadership because it places the emphasis on those being served rather than the leader.

Advertisement. Article continues below.

While there may be positional leaders in necessary hierarchies, the best of the best are those persons whose description by others includes a servant character. The “everyone leads” model emphasizes that all of us have opportunities to influence others by example in relationships. Think of the countless daily interactions between parents and children, children and siblings, teachers and students, workers and co-workers, friends and neighbors. In the economy of leadership, these are opportunities for an exchange of spiritual gifts in which one person blesses another.

When I think of the most influential leaders in my life, I go quickly to those persons I would like to be like. Some such people in my experience have been positional leaders. My father was a wonderful example of integrity and hard work. There is a pastor who influenced me greatly, as did a college professor. More numerous, however, are friends and colleagues along the way with whom I rubbed shoulders and from whom I received special graces of leadership. One friend of mine is the epitome of what it means to be kind. Another is my model of integrity in the workplace. Yet another is my model of how to handle adversity. These people did not set out to be my leaders. They succeeded in being my leaders by the example of their lives. They are in touch with their spiritual gifts. That in turn allows them to influence my behavior without even thinking about it.

I have observed this kind leadership played out in the most desperate of circumstances. I have had the honor of several visits to nations in East Africa. There, among poor people in rural villages, I have seen one person influence others through simple acts of kindness that transcend their circumstances. A young man carrying rocks to help build a home for the elderly and infirm was the example other young people needed to join him in the task. He did not set out to be their leader. He became their leader by being authentic in his own spirit and doing the right thing.

So who are the leaders worth following? You are, whether corporate executive, schoolteacher, neighbor or unemployed, if your example inspires me to live the great virtues of faith, hope and charity. I’m thinking a good question to ask oneself is, “To what does my life and example inspire others to be?”

Dr. Bernard E. Johnson shares this space with the Revs. Timothy A. Johnson, Michael Miller and Rod Anderson as well as spiritual writer Lauren Carlson-Vohs. “Spiritually Speaking” appears weekly.

Source URL:
http://www.edenprairienews.com/news/religion-news/spiritually-speaking-are-you-leader-worth-following-103

Links:
[1] http://www.rwpads.net/www/delivery/ck.php?n=eden12214ad

Accountability Revisited

2009-03-12T08:19:00.000-05:00

Accountability seems to be a reoccurring theme. The topic came up in my last post in the quote from Peter Block in his book Stewardship.

Block continues the topic in his latest book COMMUNITY: THE STRUCTURE OF BELONGING. What follows are some of his quotes related to accountability.

Choosing our freedom is also the source of our willingness to choose to be accountable. The insight is that freedom is what creates accountability. Freedom is not an escape from accountability as the popular culture so often misunderstands. (Page 21)

The essential insight is that people will be accountable and committed to what they have a hand in creating. This insight extends to the belief that whatever the world demands of us, the people most involved have the collective wisdom to meet the requirements of the demand. (Page 24)

Community exists for the sake of belonging and takes its identity from the gifts, generosity, and accountability of its citizens. It is not defined by its fears, its isolation, or its penchant for retribution. (Page 30)

Accountability without possibility creates despair, for even if we know we are creating the world we exist in, we cannot imagine its being any different from the past that got us here. (Page 48)

[…] a citizen is one who is willing to be accountable for and committed to the well-being of the whole. That whole can be a city block, a community, a nation, the earth. A citizen is one who produces the future, someone who does not wait, beg, or dream for the future. (Page 63)

The weakness in the dominant view of accountability is that it thinks people can be held accountable. That we can force people to be accountable. Despite the fact that it sells easily, it is an illusion to believe that retribution, incentives, legislation, new standards, and tough consequences will cause accountability. (Page 71)

Accountability is the willingness to care for the wellbeing of the whole […]. (Page 71)

And for more on the topic see my previous thoughts generated by the writing of Ann McGee-Cooper here.

So are we like the chicken who avoids accountability by blaming others through attempts at holding them accountable — or do we take ownership for what we create?

From the Daily SL: The "Sport" of Servant Leadership

2009-03-10T00:14:00.003-05:00

From The Jamestown Sun Online Edition
93/07/09

Lemm completes special course
The Jamestown Sun - 03/07/2009
Kathryn Lemm, assistant professor of computer science and technology and assistant track and field coach at Jamestown College, re-cently completed a professional development course in Sport Servant Leadership from the Center for Ethics at the University of Idaho.
Lemm is Jamestown College’s Campus character representative for the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Champions of Character program. James-town College is a Champions of Character program center.
“As a professor and coach, I believe sports should help student-athletes mature and develop leadership and interpersonal skills which will benefit them for a lifetime,” Lemm said. “A strong and effective servant leader listens to athletes’ ideas, views and goals, and helps them to strive to meet their goals.”
The course was developed by the Winning with Character Foundation and the Center for Ethics to assist coaches and teams in developing a sense of unity built upon a foundation of character.
Servant Sport Leadership: A continuing education course
presented through the University of Idaho Center for ETHICS*
Endorsed by Winning With Character and the American Football Coaches Association
March-May 2009 Registration Form

Cost: $175 per participant Payment: Please make checks out to University of Idaho.
Format/Timeline: Sport Servant Leadership is a 9-week, distance-learning course that will be completed entirely online.
Continuing Education Credits--Inclusive Package Upon completion of the course:
3.0 CEUs from the University of Idaho (equivalent to 30 contact hours) will be awarded at the completion of the course.
Certificate of completion from the Center for ETHICS* will be signed by Dr. Sharon K. Stoll.
A personalized letter from Dr. Sharon K. Stoll will be sent to your principal or administrator.
A press release will be sent to your local newspaper.
The purpose of this course:
Is to create an environment to aid you in your quest to become a servant leader. What are the traits, the gifts, and the mission of individuals who are servant leaders? What makes an individual worthy of being called a servant leader? The answer lies in you!
The objectives of this course are:
1. To provide a rationale for the development of a servant leadership philosophy as a coach in football.
2. To inspire and challenge thinking that is directed toward servant leadership coaching.
3. To become knowledgeable in literature and language of servant
leadership.
4. To assess one’s personal qualities in the quest for servant leaders.

Lesson Topics
Unit 1:
• Leadership
• Styles of leadership and the servant-leader coach
• Mission

Unit 2:
• Love your job, love your team
• Commitment
• Responsibility
• Respect

Unit 3:
• Humility
• Empathy and Compassion
• Patience
• Your Mission Revisited