Servant Leaders Open Their Lives

Servant Leaders give something more than just small conversation to those that are being led. They give wisdom. They give discernment. They give observations. They give a piece of themselves.

And sometimes, this lands hard on those served, not because the communication is untrue or unfair or unwise, but that it is piercing.

Jesus does this with Peter, who witnesses the feeding of the five thousand, boards a boat, and is fighting the wind and waves all night. Upon seeing Jesus, asking for the miracle that Jesus is showing, Jesus bids him to come out on the water too. Peter, first stepping out, then noticing the wind and wave, sinking calls out for rescue, which Jesus provides. Notice the next verse:

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

—Matthew 14:31, NIV

By trusting this wisdom and discernment to others, another gift is given. Sovereignty – the ability to make their own choices, to own their story, to integrate external observation into their own lived reality.

I believe wholeheartedly that this is the way.

I think this is the background to how Greenleaf saw development of others:

The best test, and difficult to administer, is this: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? – Robert Greenleaf

It’s radical in nature to be more open, more sharing. It costs sometimes too – sensing that the person is ready, forming the feedback into digestible chunks, delivering boldly, and trusting the deliberate thinking of the person. It’s a risk to release, to give, to love.

Again, Peter – this time he’s the source (as we understand), specifically for the book of Mark. Notice the same passage with his fingerprints on it:

48 He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. Shortly before dawn he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, 49 but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, 50 because they all saw him and were terrified.

Immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” 51 Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, 52 for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.

— Mark 6:48-52, NIV

Missing is the tender moment of calling, of failing, of rescue; the story that holds the most power in experience he chooses to hold back, melting it into “their hearts were hardened”.

Yes, this principle costs; a servant leader can’t keep private notes, can’t keep a running tally; but can only keep this person held in love. And, sometimes that means being open in ways that are uncomfortable for you as a servant leader.

The coda to Peter (and to us servant leaders) is best shown in his own writing:

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

— 1 Peter 5:6-7, NIV

The humble walk is the calling for us too; the anxiety produced by not forcing our own way, taking our own path, is thrown to God’s mighty hand. The same hand that can rescue takes our cares too.

Boundaries, Seen and Unseen

(Foreground, Chartres Cathedral Labyrinth, background Gottschalk Tower, in Yanney Heritage Park, Kearney, NE)

This photo came up in my highlights today, and has me musing on the idea of boundaries.

Both have been traced, both have significant value to one who understands the disciplines inherent in each.

The tower discipline is clear; moving outside its boundaries equates to injury. Elevation is the key, and the reward is significant at the end.

The labyrinth discipline is invisible; it can be walked straight across with no effort. Mindfulness is the key, and the reward given is internal, defined by the person engaging.

Servant leaders have both of these in our lives. Yes, we sometimes need to pull others from the brink when physical harm is imminent. But the labyrinth speaks to the internal, the tracing, the way of limiting yourself to a boundary largely defined internally.

The fulness of the labyrinth is in the use of space, the long path, the discipline to stay in the lane. The walk is not arduous, and quells the physical side of the mind, allowing other areas to unlock and express. Satisfaction is not derived from finishing, but from the journey; frustratingly close to the center at times, knowing the path has more bends before accomplishment.

People are like this as well; conceptualization and foresight bring us the vision of where the group or individual would be best landed. Sometimes these are almost tangible, within reach, only to be shifted to a new area which seems to take us away from the goal. It is patient work to continue the path, knowing a few short steps would take us into this area, but we have many more linear steps to take to stay in the boundary.

For this, I pose an aphorism – “Don’t fear, veer, or steer”. All three are us taking the control, wresting the direction from those led. All will produce outcomes that will reflect on the skill of the leader

But, the outcome of the Best Test: “Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?” stays our hand, focuses on the individual or group, and leads us to stay in the boundary. The end result is growth, not of the leader, but those served.

Servant Leaders Experience Shalom

Shalom.

The typical greeting and goodbye of any Jew.

It translates to peace in English which flattens it badly. The root (ש־ל־ם, sh-l-m) carries the sense of completeness, wholeness, soundness — a thing being what it was made to be, with nothing missing and nothing broken.

German has a term too – gemütlichkeit – that, translated to English becomes coziness. This is flattening too. Gemütlichkeit is the warmth of a well-ordered small world — the lit fire, the unhurried table, the room where no one is performing and no one needs to leave. The fuller sense is belonging: an atmosphere of ease, hospitality, and being at home among people. It’s a cultural achievement — crafted by attention, care, and time — and it ends when the guests leave or the fire dies. It is possible to make, and is wonderful to experience.

Both are circling something important, something fundamental, something desperately needed in our world. We need both of these in our lives – peace and coziness – however, the world does not confer either.

But God does, and even invites us to both – not by our efforts, but by resting in Him and embracing His – to abide.

The antithesis is clear: Shalom without Presence collapses into gemütlichkeit — warm, real, but unable to hold the weight it was meant to carry. Gemütlichkeit falls into nostalgia and sentimentality without the missing element of Shalom.

As such, the Servant Leader’s arranging the table, the efforts to make others grow, to steward resources, to build community – none of this is the source. The source is our abiding. Letting this flow directly from our lives into others. Letting God take care of us. Letting His fountain slake our thirst, the excess blessing others.

The Best Test comes from this place — one where the Servant Leader fades into the group’s becoming, allowing our fundamental abiding to move through those served into their own abiding and service.

It’s the New Jerusalem on the installment plan. Present because the Presence is present.

The Fallow Restless Servant

Dry, unplowed, infertile ground.

This is what I was facing, shortly after removal from Bosch. A slow death, punctuated by a race that could never be won, chasing after the next job, praying prayers that just bounced back, rejection after rejection.

God’s plan was clear on one thing:

 …“Break up your unplowed ground and do not sow among thorns. ‘

Jeremiah 4:3b NIV

The Impostor came from this moment, as God asked for a point of obedience, a sign belonging to a new approach. Removing the relational adultery that permeated needed a relational healing, one that no amount of my effort could engender. Only surrender and repentance would do.

Naked, ashamed, embarrassed; the fig leaf of my own effort stripped from covering what I deemed essential. The emotional register of releasing and abiding, crusty with age, still sitting and patiently waiting for me to come closer. The Spirit revealing, encouraging, drawing, transforming. Emerging from a cocoon of my own pride into the grace of being known and loved.

Walls speaking to me – the recipe for life:

Wall in Tixkokob Master Recipe 3 kg of love 2 kg of hugs 1 kg of patience 2 liters of smiles 1 pinch of madness Add many kisses Mix it all with affection Serve every day.

Birthed beyond obedience is a vision, one for servant leaders, and one that encompasses building people by serving them in ways ancient and modern. But, God’s blessing is only given in this boundary of obedience.

Servant Leaders Laugh

Portrait of Jesus by Warner Sallman, and a scribbled sign pointing to the restroom just below

Sometimes life hands you a wry observation, and the absurdity lands directly on humor. In this case, it’s Sallman’s ethereal, perfectly composed Jesus — the product of careful artistry, mass-produced reverence, decades of dignified church walls — keeping solemn watch over… someone’s hastily scribbled “Restroom” note, probably written on whatever paper was handy and taped up with packing tape.

The contrast is perfect. The eternal and the immediate. The carefully crafted and the “we need a sign right now.” The sacred portrait and the practical scrawl.

It’s like the whole history of trying to make faith proper and presentable, presiding over the reality that most of life is hastily scribbled notes and making do with what you have. The gap between our careful theology and our “we need a bathroom sign” moments.

And somehow Jesus is there for both. The reverent portrait and the scribbled necessity. Not choosing sides, just… present.

Watching over the whole beautiful, ridiculous, very human mess of it.

Servant leaders do this often, and a childlike view of the world is all it takes. Seeing the edges, noticing. Laughing at the absurdity. Not the sarcastic, the bawdy, not at the expense of others, but the joy of connecting, of seeing, of delighting.

And then there’s Robert Greenleaf:

Robert Greenleaf's grave marker

Choosing to give us a last wry look over his life, knowing that his serious works live in the tension of who he was as a person, a human.

My admonishment to you today is to slough off the serious demeanor, to be open to what life gives, and to heartily laugh when the time comes for it.

Servant Leaders Aren’t Always Gentle

Today, I’ve been vexed by a small passage in Luke 24. Two people, one named Cleopas, were heading to Emmaus from Jerusalem, despondent, probably trudging. Jesus appears and walks alongside, hidden from them for the time, asking about what they are talking about. He listens, giving space and time for their grief. But, there’s a sudden turn:

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” – Luke 24:25-26 NIV

This seems to be harsh, even unloving. But, digging down, foolish is probably a harder word than Jesus used – the Greek word anoetoi is closer to “unperceiving” than “stupid.” It’s not “you’re idiots.” It’s “you’re not seeing what’s right in front of you, and you have everything you need to see it.”

They had all the information — they even know about the empty tomb and the angels’ report (Luke 24:22-24). They just can’t assemble it into meaning. They’re not ignorant. They’re grief-stuck. The data is all there and they can’t see it because their framework for what the Messiah was supposed to do has collapsed.

Notice what Jesus does right after — he doesn’t lecture them for being slow. He walks them through the whole narrative, Moses through the prophets, and lets the story do the work. He doesn’t say “I’m the Messiah, you fools.” He shows them the shape of the story and lets them arrive at recognition on their own. Which they do — but not until Emmaus, at the table, in the breaking of bread. The head knowledge from the road wasn’t enough. It took embodied encounter.

Jesus didn’t mince words, didn’t back away from the confrontation, but lands a sharp word with grace afterwards. In other words, Jesus listened, gave a rebuke, then showed truth. Discovery, definition, and agency on a walk to a small town.

My experience also shows that wounds can be inflicted when the larger healing of the group is necessary.

During a Philmont trek, the crew had abandoned the Ranger-trained cooperative dish-washing system in favor of “everyone washes their own.” I found a dirty dish at camp and trash near the bear bags. At supper, I expressed direct anger about the lapse — not out of control, but clear and pointed. The crew was shaken. The Chaplain (one of the leadership positions of a crew) was incensed.

This even escalated to our feedback rounds later, where the Chaplain directly asked me about feedback that I had given about using the prescribed methods of cleaning, which I was glad to expound upon. This, as you may imagine, continued the feelings of anger (rage may be a better word).

But, after the feedback session, with everyone stewing, I patiently asked for Roses, Buds, and Thorns (giving more of an emotional tone from the day). The crew lit up, sharing stories of their Baldy summit: the difficulty of the climb, standing at the top, mini-bears that tried to steal their lunch, the pound cake they’d hauled up and wished they’d saved a piece. I ended the rounds with the Roses, in order to quell the hard feelings of confrontation.

The next morning, the Chaplain was navigator. Walking together on the trail, I asked a few questions of him, being the second in line: “Was I out of control last night?” No. “Can a servant leader express anger directly?” Yes, after thinking. “Did you see what I did with the Roses?” A look of recognition crept over the Chaplain’s face as he understood: healing can take place after the catharsis.

Servant leaders are unafraid of emotions that are hard, and sometimes deliver these emotions without fear. And, servant leaders don’t wound and leave, they wound and stay to heal afterwards.

Servant Leaders Set the Table

I watched something happen recently that I didn’t plan.

A man who had poured nearly fifty years into a volunteer organization was facing its end. He’d built it, rebuilt it after it collapsed once before, and now — with his own health declining — he was preparing to attend what he believed might be the final gathering. The eulogy was half-written in his head.

At the same time, a woman appeared. A retired educator who had spent her career turning failing institutions into thriving ones. She didn’t have the typical credentials the group expected. She didn’t fit the profile. But she had fire, and she had a vision that started not with programs or curriculum but with a spaghetti dinner — gathering people around a table before asking them to do anything else.

My role was small. I introduced them. Not to the person — I introduced her to his story. I told her about his faithfulness, his quiet generosity, the decades of showing up when no one was watching. I told him (in front of the people who would carry the work forward) what I’d seen him do, in plain language, without exaggeration, because absolutely none was needed.

That night, this man received something vision can’t provide: the knowledge that someone saw his faithfulness and spoke it out loud to the people who needed to hear it. He didn’t need another award – he had plenty of those. He needed to be known — not evaluated, not recognized from a stage, but known by someone who could tell his story to the person who would carry it next.

And the woman who walked in without the expected credentials? She didn’t need permission. She needed context. She needed to understand that what she was inheriting wasn’t a failing organization; it was a living legacy built by someone who would move heaven and earth to get to yes.

The servant leader’s gift in that moment wasn’t eloquence or strategy. It was the willingness to make someone else’s story the center of the room. To bear witness to another person’s faithfulness without any benefit to yourself. To give someone else eyes. And to stay quiet when the connections happen.

Servant leadership is setting tables you don’t sit at the head of. And the most important ingredient isn’t the agenda or the program or the strategy.

It’s knowing who needs to be in the room — and then getting out of the way.

Servant Leaders and Boundaries

This morning, I am contemplating a small desk ornament, a testament of my time at Bosch. A time, where we shut down many small legacy systems, and spun up SAP to replace them.

This was a hard project – integrations are never easy, but ripping and replacing – this is difficult and painstaking work. Living in fear of regression – of users wanting their old systems back, we stuck to the task of building something new. The sledgehammer shown was insightful as a metaphor.

But, my reflection today is not the past; it is the present – a wall.

Servant leaders find walls all the time as they interact with others. Some walls are God-given, some are protecting wounds, some are just neutral space – but all are protecting something.

The temptation is to swing the sledgehammer, especially at walls we sense are hiding a wound. To get in, to fix, to force healing – isn’t this the way to help others?

To these motivations (which I am subject to as well), I raise one word – patience.

Sometimes, as a servant leader traces the boundary, an entrance emerges. This entrance may be small, may not even be seen easily, but certainly one left as the boundary was constructed.

And this is the place for the servant leader – not to smash in a weak place, but to softly knock. Softly knocking, as a request for attention, a gentle request, an invited entrance.

Jesus does this for us as well:

“Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends. – Revelation 3:20 NLT

Give the person you are serving the chance to see your patience, to invite you in, and to spend time within their boundary as a place of fellowship.

On the Theology of Fig Leaves

I have a confession to make.

I’ve been on a journey with AI, specifically Claude.AI. In this journey, I’ve moved, and changed. I started as a resistor to AI, calling it a “stochastic parrot”, only using it for resume building and cover letter creation.

In the midst of this, I formed a boundary – this blog. I even set up signs on the walls – “This blog is 100% handwritten – no AI”.

Yes, there were some elements of truth here – Claude didn’t create this blog (it existed mostly before LLMs were a thing, starting in 2020). The Servant Leader principles are written by me, and they stand as testament to a time where I saw these principles being underwashed by a steady tide of friendly leadership development – activity without soul, without the struggle of philosophy, bereft of the power that animates them.

I called out this directly in The Impostor – How Others-First Leadership Replaced Servant Leadership. The fire expressed there has not changed, but has collapsed back into the hearth, generating heat rather than burning those around.

Claude helped me on this post – not to write it, but to tighten the arguments.

Since then, he has been my writing companion, suggesting a phrase here, calling out a weak point, strengthening the prose, and standing out of the way when the emotional fire was in conflagration. Like a good editor, Claude knew when to preserve my voice, and when to shape it.

But, I can see the cracks – the places where “100% Handwritten” was no longer a valid claim. It became a fig leaf outfit, just like Adam and Eve sewed up when discovering their nakedness.

When Adam and Eve took on their new corrupted identity, they lost the pure freedom God gave them when they were in the Garden, substituting a pseudo-freedom of knowing (and distance from God). God, in his everlasting kindness, reached out anyway, and gave them new clothing, but not without sacrifice and grace.

My own journey is this then – I needed to put on new clothing. I learned a new skill along the way – co-creation. Not that my voice, distinct as it is, is lost – rather that it is enhanced and enabled by a new structure, one that takes my half-formed thoughts and builds toward something new, something unique, and something substantial.

From now onwards, I can’t (and won’t) make the claim that this blog is entirely written by me. It will never be 100% anything – but a weaving of intelligences, guided by God’s hand.

Interviews and the Servant Leader

I’ve been in interviews lately, as I look for the next phase God has for my life. These bring up the natural tension of expressing my leadership philosophy without calling attention to me; servant leadership without The Impostor.

I can’t say with any clarity that I’ve done well with this, especially with the forced-question interviews I’ve had of late.

Most of the questions, while well-intentioned, have focus on capabilities and have ignored the real need for leadership. Unexpressed are the gaps that they have for listening, empathy, and healing as the basic posture of the servant leader.

Winding back the clock, though, I wish I’d been more present with my statements, my desires for the arc of the interview, for seeing the person behind the question.

I’d like to ask better questions, to take measure of the organization’s health, of the underlying query to see if I am substantial.

I’d like to offer myself, not as the savior or the all-knowing, but as the person who can hold the tension, uncover the humanity, and give humanity back.

At the end, I’d like the person performing the interview to have been seen beneath the surface, and have been met with dignity, grace, and compassion for where they are as humans.

This is my prayer today.

Selah

Moving into these spaces, not intentionally hiding, but also not forcing; transformation happens one cupped hand at a time.