Servant Leadership… some thoughts
A new blog has made it into my “sites to visit more often” list and this article on servant leadership really got me thinking about my own personal experiences with that topic. While the article itself is written with a focus on business, the author is a Christian and that’s something that shines through in his writing. Anyway, I want to focus some more on the christian aspects of servant leadership today.
My experience with servant leadership as a concept is a bit of a mess. On the one hand, I have seen some great examples of servant leaders, but on the other hand I’ve had servant leadership preached to me a few times too often by people who did not serve as good examples at all. But let’s start with the positive examples.
To me, it’s always fun to watch the faces of participants during some of the conferences I go to, when they suddenly realize that the guy who helped them with their luggage earlier in the day is actually the evening’s main speaker and one of the highest-ranking leaders (if there is such a thing as rank among Christians) of the organisation they are about to join. Watching those leaders during the day, as they help people get settled into the new surroundings by taking a bit of their load upon themselves is always a great inspiration and example. They don’t do it because they want to be more popular or because somebody told them to or because it’s some kind of conceptual thing that they feel they have to do to be viewed as the right kind of person – you can actually tell that they enjoy being a blessing to those they serve. Yes, it’s an attitude and personality thing. You can’t fake that – you can try, but chances are that the person you’re serving will notice.
That brings me to the more negative examples – I just can’t stand it when servant leadership as a principle is preached to me by people who seem to be unable to practise what they are preaching. It’s often in the little things… if it happens once that the person teaching about it goes home while the others are cleaning the place, that’s ok – if it happens all the time, it makes me wonder. And if then confronted after the tenth time, the person actually asks whether it can really be expected of him to do cleaning, that kind of invalidates all his previous teaching. That’s just one example of many, I’m afraid.
I guess servant leadership is a lot about not asking others to do things you wouldn’t gladly be willing to do yourself. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t mean you should be doing things that others can do much better and that it’s wrong to ask those who have the skill – but asking the question “how would I react if someone asked *me* to do this” is probably a good first step. And of course there are things that just have to be done – would you be willing to do them, even if it means you do something that you feel overqualified to do? And would you be willing to do it with a smile on your face and a joyful heart, knowing that what you do is helping someone else, the team you’re in, the ministry you’re involved with?
1 comment February 2nd, 2006