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Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness 25th Anniversary Edition Hardcover – Deluxe Edition, November 1, 2002
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length370 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPaulist Press
- Publication dateNovember 1, 2002
- Dimensions5.75 x 1.25 x 8.75 inches
- ISBN-100809105543
- ISBN-13978-0809105540
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Editorial Reviews
Review
This book will create leadership that contains such virtues as growth, responsibility and love. --Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor, Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California; author of Organizing Genius
This is both symbol and substance on the shelf of anyone blessed with the opportunity to lead. --John Carver, author of Boards That Make a Difference
This most welcomed new edition will influence a new generation to serve better. --Godric Ernest Scott Bader, Life President, Scott Bader Commonwealth Ltd.
About the Author
Larry C. Spears is CEO of the Greenleaf Center in Indianapolis, IN.
Product details
- Publisher : Paulist Press; Anniversary edition (November 1, 2002)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 370 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0809105543
- ISBN-13 : 978-0809105540
- Item Weight : 1.04 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.75 x 1.25 x 8.75 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #118,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #73 in General Elections & Political Process
- #122 in Christian Business & Professional Growth
- #1,744 in Leadership & Motivation
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Larry C. Spears was born in Virginia. He has lived much of his life in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Indianapolis. Larry is a graduate of DePauw University (Greencastle, Indiana). He began his writing and editing career at the age of fourteen. Larry has edited or co-edited seventeen books on servant-leadership since 1995; and, he is a contributing author to a total of 34 books. He is the President of The Larry C. Spears Center for Servant-Leadership (Indianapolis, IN). From 1990-2007 Larry served as President & CEO, and as President Emeritus & Senior Scholar of The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership (Westfield, IN). Spears is also Servant-Leader Scholar at Gonzaga University School for Leadership Studies (Spokane, Washington). He teaches graduate courses in servant-leadership, and in listening, for Gonzaga. Larry also serves as Senior Advisory Editor for the International Journal of Servant-Leadership, a joint project of Gonzaga University and The Spears Center. Hobbies include genealogy, reading, writing, travel, and time spent in Cape May, New Jersey.
Robert K. Greenleaf (1904-1990) founded the Center in 1964 as the Center for Applied Ethics. Greenleaf was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and spent most of his organizational life in the field of management, research, development, and education at AT&T.
When Greenleaf retired from AT&T in 1964, he launched a new career as speaker, writer, and consultant. Greenleaf coined the term "Servant Leadership," and wrote and spoke extensively on the subject. In 1970 he published "The Servant as Leader," an essay which launched the servant leadership movement in the United States.
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George Patrick Murphy, Founder, proposed Center for Ethical Leadership and Well-Being, Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii.
This book should be mandatory for our "public servants!"
Top reviews from other countries
‘The Servant as Leader’ is a fundamental essay about leadership without authority in a world with changes and uncertainty. The most important characteristics and activities of Servant Leaders are described. Examples are given which show that individual efforts, leaded by a strong vision and a servant approach and ethical principles, will yield substantial enhancements in work relationships and in the quality of society in general. Greenleaf outlines and discusses the skills necessary to be a Servant Leader. The wisdom and experiences, he is sharing with us, fit to our leader role as Project Managers and to the leader in all kind of organizations. The high productive and creative working environment with high motivated people are possible if we have the right leaders. The most crucial characteristics are self-awareness, foresight and active listening. The leader as Servant Leader gains and exerts persuasive power instead of applying coercive and manipulative behaviour.
Who is a Servant Leader?
The Servant Leader is a kind of leader who serves first. This is a central aspect. Serving means to set the highest priority to the needs of other people who are being served. How to prove the achievement of such kind of leadership? The people, while being served, grow, “become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous and more likely themselves to become servants” and even Servant Leader in future. A virtuous circle is being evolved, in which team members and leaders reinforce each other. “Servant leadership produces virtuous cycles of service.”
The Servant Leader is convinced of something that is good for the mankind and is keen to engage and inspire others to achieve the common goal. She/He has the dream that something should become better and he firmly believes in the change.
The Servant Leader is not looking for power and authority or money and fame. The drive lies in aspiration. She/He is inspired and wants to change something meaningful. She/He has a clear vision that one can achieve something important, a healthy thing. She/He is the true leader if she/he is seen as a servant. The team members receive advice and support and freely respond to her/him to achieve the common goal.
“Faith is the choice of the nobler hypothesis.” The Servant Leader is inside humble. She/He doesn’t say that she/he knows the way. On contrary, she/he as a leader is always searching, listening and expecting that there is always a better way to achieve the goal.
The Servant Leader has a high self-awareness. She/He recognizes her/himself as an individual with her/his individual traits, feelings, and behaviors. She/He is a critical thinker. She/He is aware that nothing can be known for sure. She/He works with hypothesis and tries to find the best fit and follows this way. If the result is not satisfying she/he re-examines the hypothesis. This attitude shows her/his belief in continuous learning and she/he refines the approach and is open for fresh new choices and ready for changes.
The Servant Leader has a goal, an overarching purpose, a big dream, a vision. By clearly stating the goal the leader gives certainty and purpose to others and inspires them to participate in the journey. To have success it is more needed to have a dream first. Then it needs assertive behaviour and discipline. Undoubtedly, no great achievement is coming true without the dream first.
What counts most to get a successful leader?
Listening and understanding
Greenleaf makes an example of how true listening makes the difference. A leader was asked to sort out a complex problem in an institution. She/He was convinced to get the solution when she/he will ask all who are involved, and she/he conducted interviews and spent many hours with the people individually to elicit the knowledge about the issues. After six weeks the problem was solved, and the process was healed. She/He was able to learn and received the insights needed to set the right course. She/Here the answer is listening first. It is a long arduous discipline of learning listening. The good thing is one can learn it. Once you have learned listening you will be a better communicator as well.
Communication matters.
The goal is to convey the real meaning. The means are words, imaginations, examples. You should not be trapped in your own verbal world and be flexible to convey your message. If the leader has no authority, then he has to lead by persuasion. Convincing is obviously the better way than coercion to achieve changing a person's attitude or behaviour.
Fighting and withdraw
Find the right balance in fighting and withdrawal! The ability to withdraw and reorient oneself, to apply the art of systematic neglect, to sort out the more important from the less important – and the important from the urgent – and attend to the more important, are the key elements to be successful.
Acceptance and Empathy
These are connected traits for a successful leader. The attitude to receive what is offered and the set one’s own consciousness into another being have a real impact. For example, a teacher should always accept each pupil and never reject a student. The great leader has deep down inside empathy and an unqualified acceptance of the person she/he wants to lead. This behaviour implies a tolerance of imperfection. The secret is to be able to form a team of such people by lifting them up to grow taller than they would otherwise be. Leader who accept and respect others can even criticize performance in terms of their capability of doing and they can establish trustful relationships. Trust is an invaluable asset for teamwork.
Know the unknowable
A successful leader needs to have a sense for uncertainty. The ability to foresee the unforeseeable, to expect the unexpected is needed to lead. This is a kind of intuitive insight. If the leader would wait until she/he has all information to make the right decision it would often be too late and sometime also too costly. Better to make the right decision on time with some degree of uncertainty. The art of leadership rests, in part, on the ability to bridge the information gap by intuition. Leaders must be more creative and ready to push into the unknown. “Every once in a while a leader finds himself needing to think like a scientist, an artist, or a poet.”
Foresight – The Central Ethic of Leadership
“The ‘now’ is the moving concept in which past, present moment, and future are one organic unity.”. A practicing leader incorporates the roles of historian, the contemporary analyst and the prophet, the future scientist. This is a concept of life. In the turbulent business world and under the stress of the modern life the Servant Leader enters these situations with the necessary experience and knowledge and intuitive insights to reach an optimal performance. This is the only way to maintain serenity in the face of uncertainty. “…bearing in mind that there are always emergencies and the optimum includes carrying an unused reserve of energy in all periods of normal demand so that one has the resilience to cope with the emergency.”
“Foresight is the ‘lead’ the leader has.”. Greenleaf cites abundant current examples of loss of leadership which stems from failure to foresee what reasonably could have been foreseen. Today, in a disruptive world where changes are so rapid and new concepts disrupt common economic models, it is so important.
The concept of Greenleaf is getting more important in a complex world where leaders are needed who can build trust and serve others to reach the strategic goals without having the organizational power and authority.