I was reading this post by Seth Godin, and it brought me to how Servant Leaders both keep velocity, and accelerate.
For groups (and individuals), velocity takes shape in what they are currently capable of handling, and the productivity or achievement ongoing. Servant Leaders, tending their garden with listening, empathy, stewardship, and community give freedom to those led, space to see progress, and satisfaction of well-executed planning. Such things, over time, are taken as givens, and are routinely ignored, unless reflective constructs are employed.
However, Servant Leaders provoke acceleration through healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, and growth — giving fuel to push forward, tension to push higher, strength to reach out. Being a catalyst for change, increasing to higher velocity, moving beyond the humdrum gives energy towards the group (or individual), and the Servant Leader.
In fact, sometimes it’s hard to determine which is being used at the moment with a Servant Leader, since the carry bag of the Servant Leader includes both velocity and acceleration tools — they are bright and sharp from constant, repeated use.
Often I’ve asked myself the question, “If a servant leader is focused on the group, and a difficult decision needs to be made, doesn’t this bring up a natural dichotomy?” Or, more to the point, isn’t a servant leader supposed to use gentle methods to foster healing and growth?
Wisdom from the Founder
Gentleness, in itself, is not always kindness. The act may seem hard and unreasonable to the recipient at the time, but it may be the most constructive kindness … The point is that seemingly harsh actions … produce a level of constructive tension in some cases without which it is unlikely that the individuals involved will surmount their own life problems
Robert K. Greenleaf, The Requirements of Responsibility
Robert correctly identifies the forcing of “constructive tension” into a person can honestly change the direction of their life.
While it would be easy to retreat into a simple analogy such as making children eat despised vegetables for their own health, there is a more profound element to a servant leader’s dilemma – the exercise of foresight.
Included in all of us — areas where we haven’t considered, general biases from past experiences, latent unhelpful ways, direct challenges — these all move toward spots in which we either ignorantly or willfully press on. Outside views, wisely accepted, can countervail and move us past these gaps. Finding solid servant leaders, giving them license to advise, allows us to move past or accelerate over these blocks.
Sometimes you even make enemies
However, sometimes as a servant leader, we are forced to intervene in situations where we are not invited. This corrective stance, though skillfully deployed, has the potential to hurt feelings and damage relationships.
It is deeply disappointing to the servant leader when these come about, and no amount of reflection can assuage the guilt inherent.
However, wisdom from Proverbs intervenes, putting us back on the balance:
Intentional wounding, with the counterbalance of healing, defines the activity of servant leadership; those without the fortitude will only compliment.
Summing it Up
Using all the skills of Servant Leadership (including Listening and Empathy), and focusing on the growth of the person will allow these tough decisions to be made, conceptualizing a future in which the person can move forward, unencumbered and free.
A recent conversation with a friend and colleague (Hi Steve!) got me thinking about roles as applied to servant leadership. Specifically, that some positional roles given to the leader are at best under tension, and sometimes in opposition to each other.
Multiple hats aren’t only a business problem
Of course, I have a song running through my head as I think this through – Amy Grant’s Hats, where she describes the tension of her life roles as a mother, a wife, and a worker:
It don’t stop No, it’s never gonna stop Why do I have to wear so many things on my head? Hats!
…
All because I’m driven
To be the very best for you
Roles in Conflict
The specific example that Steve and I engaged was a set of roles we have defined in Agile Project Management. At our work, we define three roles:
Product Owner
Responsible for maximizing the value of the product and who is ultimately responsible and accountable for the end product that is built.
Scrum Master
The servant-leader of the team who keeps track of user stories, plans sprints, and manages the backlog. Escalates issues to both the Project Manager and the Project Owner
Project Manager
Assigned by the Project Owner; responsible for achieving the project objectives. Manages according to time and budget.
In a graphical form, this sets up a three-way balance; a natural pushing, pulling, and reporting structure:
In a triangle, finding a balance point involves either direct experimentation, or a whole lot of math, since the point in which all are in balance is a function of relative weights. It isn’t like a scale, which balances two points. As you can see from the above diagram, achieving balance in this structure by positions can also be challenging.
In reality, the balance resolves itself in the project manager lending weight to the lighter side by supporting (or assuming) one of the two other roles because of missing elements in the project; either the product owner is not available for frequent consultation, or the scrum master need additional support. As such, a good project manager can bolster whichever axis requires attention.
Servant Leader as Multiple-Hats
This brings up the fundamental tension – why can a good project manager shift and slide roles for ultimate project capability?
My simple postulation is that a good project manager is a servant leader. They are not defined by the role given, but are defined by the higher elements of listening, empathy, healing, and awareness, using persuasion, conceptualization, and foresight to bring about growth and community through stewardship. In this way, they are not calling attention to themselves (hierarchical authority), but are instead working behind the scenes for the fundamental progress of the project.
I think this has broader implications for all servant leaders. Because of this ability to focus on the group as the highest goal, they can keep more than one role, more than one idea in their head, navigating the cognitive dissonance as a liminal hotspot without resolving it further.
Lesson from Paul
Paul, as a sent-one (or apostle) of Jesus had one goal – transformation of people into a relationship with Jesus. In this, he took on the role of a servant as well, even defining what this means:
Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!
I love how he expresses the fact that, although he didn’t take on the lifestyle of those he was serving, he engaged them in their own world on their terms – just as Jesus did. Separating himself and requiring others to meet his high standard, he would have not had the impact that this servant-leader life enables.
Summing it up
Multiple hats are a fact of life, and navigating them is best done with a higher goal in mind. Since servant leaders already have the higher goal of group development baked in, they can easily move between the roles.
As I continue on my journey toward servant leadership, I have often wondered about how to feel about my impact. In the dark of night, I sometimes struggle with these questions:
What is the value I bring to those I am leading?
Are their lives changing for the better?
Is there lasting value in my effort?
Does my leadership matter?
The founder’s tension
I know that Robert Greenleaf struggled with this question as well – his epitaph speaks volumes:
(in case the bottom is hard to read: “Potentially a good plumber, ruined by a sophisticated education”)
At the end of the day, plumbers can look back on a job well done, even point to the work accomplished. There is a satisfying finality, a recognized completeness to the labor.
Those of us tasked with leadership our impact is people, organizations, even communities. Sometimes there is an end task of our responsibility (i.e. a project, a key-performance indicator, a product, a vision) – but we are to help others achieve the task (otherwise we are not leading). The work is ongoing, and the results are intangible – sometimes even frustratingly elusive.
The founder’s proposal
So, how did Greenleaf resolve this tension, this internal anxiety? He proposed a framework of group assessment – acknowledging its problematic analysis:
The best test [of a servant leader], 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 not be further deprived?
Robert K Greenleaf, The Servant as Leader
Greenleaf, in his economy of words, speaks volumes. In this short quote, he defines a number of elements that bear expansion:
Growth – Do those served grow as individuals, personally as well as professionally? The growth of followers is a distinctive feature of servant leadership.
Health – Are those served healthier, transformed into whole people. The active pursuit of healing forms the basis of the changes a leader brings to those being served
Wisdom – Do those served gain greater experience, knowledge, and good judgment while being served? Do they exhibit conceptualization and foresight in their own decisions?
Freedom – Are those served freer, both from their own blocks and inhibitions, and the external barriers placed on them?
Autonomy – Do those served have more control over their own decisions and lives? Are they empowered (and feel it)?
Leader continuation – Are followers being transformed into servant leaders? Replicating servant leadership in others is a profoundly satisfying result for a servant leader.
Common good – As a result of servant leadership, is society better off? Is community being built? Greenleaf suggests that servant leaders should seek out stakeholders that come from many different perspectives and lead with an eye on developing our impacted areas.
Using it it real life
I try to look at my impact using these hallmarks as a baseline to determine my impact, and assuage my questions. While Robert found it “difficult to administer”, I find that a patient, introspective assessment at how the group is doing according to these elements is important for my awareness; to find satisfaction in accomplishment or areas to improve (most often simultaneously).
Because we have isolated ourselves into larger, more anonymous living settings, our sense of independence hampers us from experiencing community – one that we are responsible to, and gain benefit from, and feel a place within.
As individuals are encouraged in growth, and some become servant leaders themselves, the servant leader turns toward building cohesiveness for mutual benefit to all group members. This is like a flywheel, in that the group starts feeding itself, and even turns to spread out in the community.
This mutual serving each other is a powerful hedge against the isolation we drift towards. And, as we bond together for a common cause, we add to the serving posture, and make impacts both external, and internal to ourselves and the group.
Creating community in Institutions
The servant leader senses that much has been lost in recent human history as a result of the shift from local communities to large institutions as the primary shaper of human lives. This awareness causes the servant leader to seek to identify some means for building community among those who work within a given institution. Servant leadership suggests that true community can be created among those who work in businesses and other institutions.
It is possible to create community within an organization, even a business; much like servant leaders can build groups in any context, servant leaders can leverage groups into community.
I’ve had the privilege of building one community in my business setting, formed to handle breakdowns in satisfaction among people in our organization. From the forming stages of complaining, they now have turned into an problem-solving group. The satisfaction of seeing individual growth and healing has more than outweighed the effort required. This deserves a post later.
Servant Leaders as Focusers
Greenleaf (1977/2002) said: All that is needed to rebuild community as a viable life form for large numbers of people is for enough servant-leaders to show the way, not by mass movements, but by each servant-leader demonstrating his or her unlimited liability for a quite specific community-related group.
Servant leaders who focus on one specific problem, disturbed by their awareness of a broken area, become a powerful lever as they gather those around that also feel the brokenness. For instance, think about these servant leaders, and the brokenness they coalesced others around – making lasting change for community healing:
Martin Luther King, Jr. – Leader of the Civil Rights movement
Nelson Mandela – Equality in apartheid (segregated) South Africa
Mahatma Gandhi – Opposing colonial rule in India
Mother Teresa – Served people who were dying of HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis in Calcutta, India
Laying Down Your Life
Jesus spoke of this way of servanthood – specifically to love one another. This love required sacrifice; the intentional setting-aside of yourself for those that you are serving:
“I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.
Servant leaders believe that people have a value beyond being just workers. Servant leaders are deeply committed to the growth of each and every individual.
Servant leaders are people focused, desiring the best for them as individuals. Never settling for status quo, the servant leader uses listening, empathy, healing, and awareness to understand where the person currently is, conceptualizing a new vision for the served person, and persuading them to own this vision – helping them to make plans and set goals toward those plans (the essence of foresight). It truly represents a capstone of the principles, taking the skills of the servant leader and applying them directly.
The ultimate test, represents the best test from Greenleaf: does the individual grow as a person. As such, it is hardest to measure, since the served person also influences the result, taking all the praises.
Of course, the servant leader must identify motivation in the individual, even if it buried or latent. Without this small ember, which the leader can fan, no amount of principle application can burst flames. Selection of a served individual therefore takes wisdom, as we all contend with limited resources.
Growth in the business context
Servant leaders believe that people have an intrinsic value beyond their tangible contributions as workers. As such, the servant leader is deeply committed to the growth of each and every individual within his or her organization. The servant leader recognizes the tremendous responsibility to do everything in his or her power to nurture the personal and professional growth of employees and colleagues. In practice, this can include (but is not limited to) concrete actions such as making funds available for personal and professional development, taking a personal interest in the ideas and suggestions from everyone, encouraging worker involvement in decision-making, and actively assisting laid-off employees to find other positions
In this context, we all know areas where it is bad to mix personal with business. A small list of areas that are commonly cited as cautions:
Leads to poor business decisions
Business decisions are complicated with“emotional baggage”
The motive of personal gain overrides the achievement of business objectives
However, dividing up our lives into separate contexts is difficult, and sometimes impossible. Different spheres of our lives intersect; bringing a whole person into workplace is a long-term strategy. We need personal attributes of individuals to propel business forward:
Solid listening skills
Good speaking ability
Empathetic handling of problems
Significant ethical motivation
Maturity and temperate handling
We therefore, as business servant leaders, need to focus on the whole person. Aligning with our business objectives, giving opportunity to grow as described above, and developing all spheres of the individual, we can built the platform needed for these individuals to take their place as whole-person workers who feel significant, challenged, and motivated.
Legacy
In the quiet hours of the mind, even heading off into the twilight of life, influence is gathered from those individuals we have poured our energy into, especially ones that have succeeded beyond our conceptualized vision. “Good work!” is a satisfying statement from not only the ones we have served, but to our Master who called us into this humble way of seeing our world:
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
We are all given a sphere to manage, an area of responsibility, a place for impact. Some of it is chosen, some of it comes by position, and some by necessity. All of these, however are entrusted to us to look after.
Entrusted is a special word – I think of it as transferring an object of value from the owner, who never relinquishes ownership, to one that has to protect and care for this value. I also think this is a time-based concept, in that there is a beginning (the delegation), and an ending (the eventual return).
Two real-life examples of entrust
Children are a family’s form of entrust; they are never completely owned by parents, yet they are protected, cared for, guided, and yes, even managed by parents. While under our care, we hold a high responsibility to develop them into adults of character and competence. Once adulthood is reached, we hand off their development as a return of their independence.
Money is another area entrusted to us, as it seems we never own it, as much as we would like. While under our care, we are to manage it, to use it, and allow some to grow. Eventually, we all must return money to others, even at our life’s demise.
Entrusted to Stewardship
Stewardship is the way we carry out this entrust; it focuses on the fact that we aren’t the owner – merely the one responsible. Servant leaders are conspicuously aware that they don’t exercise control, rather they exercise influence:
Servant leadership, like stewardship, assumes first and foremost a commitment to serving the needs of others. It also emphasizes the use of openness and persuasion, rather than control.
Jesus taught many truths in parable format (using pictures and then-known examples, like agriculture).
In this way, Jesus told a parable (in Matthew 25:14-30) about a rich person giving money to his servants, and leaving on an extended trip – with the implied expectation to do something with it. Even the assignment was customized to the ability of the servant – some received more than others.
One servant was given $5,000 to work with, and the parable said he went to work and doubled the investment.
Eventually, a reckoning happens:
““After a long absence, the master of those three servants came back and settled up with them. The one given five thousand dollars showed him how he had doubled his investment. His master commended him: ‘Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.’”
As you can see, being faithful to multiply the investment (as in taking risks, watching over, and developing) led into an even greater role with the master.
However, those who want to keep to themselves, to hoard their energy and effort, also have an example in this parable. One of the servants just buried the smallest sum, and returned it to the penny to the master. To say the master was furious, well…:
“‘Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this “play-it-safe” who won’t go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness.’
We are called to take this gift we are given to serve, and do something with it. This is the entrust given to us, and it is up to us to steward it.
Summing it up
Servant leader uses stewardship entrusted to us, to persuade others through awareness and empathy to go well beyond, and build on the investment given to us. It is a high calling, one that will require us to take risks (conceptualization mitigated through foresight), knowing that we answer to one higher than us.
Foresight enables servant leaders to understand lessons from the past and the present. These lessons help them understand the consequences of decisions in the future.
Like a good farmer, a servant leader has a good sense of impact. Actions or decisions that are seemingly inconsequential may have significant value over time, and identification of these inflection points are crucial for any leadership. As this is not always apparent at the immediate time, it takes awareness combined with wisdom to see past and future.
This becomes almost esoteric in application, and indeed, sometimes it’s a mystery to know, even personally, whether a decision is right:
Closely related to conceptualization, the ability to foresee the likely outcome of a situation is hard to define, but easier to identify. One knows foresight when one experiences it. Foresight is a characteristic that enables the servant leader to understand the lessons from the past, the realities of the present, and the likely consequence of a decision for the future. It is also deeply rooted within the intuitive mind.
Without a moral standard, intuition can be led astray. It forms the bedrock of the decision, the guardrails around the correct road, the limits necessary.
As I’ve previously posted, my moral grounding starts with my relationship with Jesus, I look to Him for examples during His life on earth:
A religion scholar tried to trip Jesus up by prioritizing the commandments God gave to the Jewish nation. In response, He gives the bedrock of these commandments:
Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”
The second parallel commandment, loving others as yourself, is inherent in servant leadership. As a good first pass of a decision, caring for others is a great start.
Embracing Intuion
Often after this first pass of caring for others as a high goal, there are many paths to take, and not all of them are clear. Here is my list of habits I use to build on my foundation:
Take a deep breath – Many times a decision needs a bit of consideration, and using your breathing to clear the decks and slow the emotional roll.
Allow yourself some time – While many decisions need immediate attention, some may need more consideration; don’t be afraid to ask for more time.
Test the decision – Throwing the alternatives at your target to see if it will stand up to the test – even ones that initially seem better. Take a look at the goals and outcomes of each branch
Being able to describe the decision in pictures or analogies – I find that if I can describe the decision in visual or other ways, it clarifies the decision and allows me to describe it to others.
Feeling settled in the decision – it’s hard to describe, but when I find a decision is right, there’s a deep-seated satisfaction with the future outcome that is peaceful, even if not easy.
Putting it together
Foresight is a somewhat mysterious concept. Having a bedrock set of morals, along with using wisdom and intuition, you are able to synthesize good decisions that will stand the tests that will come as you lead.
Most people get caught up into the present, the urgent, the fire waiting as you engage the group. Yet, the value of many leaders is to build on a larger base, to bring the best to reality.
Servant leaders seek to nurture their abilities to dream great dreams. The ability to look at a problem or an organization from a conceptualizing perspective means that one must think beyond day-to-day realities. For many leaders, this is a characteristic that requires discipline and practice. The traditional leader is consumed by the need to achieve short-term operational goals. The leader who wishes to also be a servant leader must stretch his or her thinking to encompass broader-based conceptual thinking. Servant leaders are called to seek a delicate balance between conceptual thinking and a day-to-day operational approach.
Conceptualization takes the external awareness principle and the listening principle, synthesizes the best from each, and places this vision in front of the group using persuasion.
I have found it best to take the time to reflect, to pause, or as Larry states, to engage discipline and practice to see past the immediate problems toward a good future solution. However, I have also presented a concept far beyond what the group is ready to engage, and found that patience is necessary to realize the goal – it becomes an indicator to me to step more into the operational aspects so I don’t get too “pie in the sky”. Balancing this tension is an important discipline of the servant leader.
Persuasion, defined as a drawing toward, or pushing toward a goal, is the first element in our principles that highlights the leader functions of the servant leader. All others (listening, empathy, healing, awareness) fall more over to the servant side of the balance.
Traditional leadership methods generally work from a top-down power flow, allowing this type of leader to issue commands. This seems like an effective way to coordinate results, and it is a leadership style widely used.
Servant leaders, however, rarely reach for this style, choosing the harder work of bringing others along in a convincing way. Like a flywheel, it starts slowly, and builds momentum – momentum that continues long after force is applied.
The Primary Leading
Spears points out that this persuasion default is the primary difference between servant leaders and other authority models:
Another characteristic of servant leaders is reliance on persuasion, rather than on one’s positional authority, in making decisions within an organization. The servant leader seeks to convince others, rather than coerce compliance. This particular element offers one of the clearest distinctions between the traditional authoritarian model and that of servant leadership. The servant leader is effective at building consensus within groups.
Getting everyone aligned is a patient, sometimes grueling task. Very rarely does a group automatically line up , but I have been part of groups that do line up quickly, pointing at a servant leader who has been consistently and masterfully pursing this alignment. These servant leaders I see as giving a rudder pressure to the group; like an oil tanker turning, it takes turning the wheel and waiting to achieve results.
Leading from the Back
Like all disciplines in servant leadership, this is part of the humble shaping of the group. It never calls attention to the servant leader, and allows the group to own their destiny. There lies its power – when success is proven, all praise goes to the group.
At the end of the day, the servant leader has the grounding to know his influence is helping, healing, and building, allowing others to shine. It is a substantial leader that can support this without calling attention back – but worthy of pursuit!
