Serve First and Lead Second
KEN BLANCHARD AND RENEE BROADWELL
THE WORLD is in desperate need of a different leadership role model. We all have seen the negative impact of self-serving leaders in every sector of our society. Why is that? Because these leaders have been conditioned to think of leadership only in terms of power and control. We think there is a better choice: to lead at a higher level. When people lead at a higher level, they make the world a better place because in addition to results and relationships, their goals are focused on the greater good. This requires a special kind of leader: a servant leader.
Our desire to develop servant leaders who are world changers has driven us to produce this book—a carefully curated collection of essays. Here to share their passion about servant leadership are some of Ken’s very favorite people who are not only outstanding practitioners of servant leadership but also writers in the field. In addition to this introduction, throughout the book Ken will give short personal introductions to each of his colleagues’ essays.
Robert K. Greenleaf coined the term servant leadership in his essay titled “The Servant as Leader.”1 He published widely on the concept for the next twenty years.2 And yet it is an old concept. Two thousand years ago, servant leadership was central to the philosophy of Jesus, who exemplified the fully committed and effective servant leader. Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela are well-known modern examples of leaders who have exemplified this philosophy.
The book is organized into six parts. Part One, “Fundamentals of Servant Leadership,” includes essays that describe basic aspects of servant leadership. Part Two, “Elements of Servant Leadership,” highlights some of the different points of view of servant leaders. Part Three, “Lessons in Servant Leadership,” focuses on what people have learned on a personal level from observing servant leadership in action. Part Four, “Exemplars of Servant Leadership,” features people who have been identified as classic servant leaders. Part Five, “Putting Servant Leadership to Work,” offers firsthand accounts of people who have made servant leadership come alive in their organizations. Part Six, “Servant Leadership Turnarounds,” illustrates how servant leadership can dramatically impact both results and human satisfaction in organizations.
An important note: In the opening essay of Part Four, “Exemplars of Servant Leadership,” Ken and Phil Hodges identify Jesus as the greatest servant leadership role model of all time, an identification they first wrote about in their book Lead Like Jesus.3 A number of Ken’s colleagues in their essays also refer to Jesus’s servant leadership example and to the Bible as an important leadership reference book. Why? Because it’s hard to deny Jesus’s influence, as a servant leader, on the world. Rest assured that our intention is not to try to convert anyone. In fact, a major goal of this book is to prove that servant leadership has application in both secular and spiritual leadership in every kind of organization, including businesses, government agencies, educational institutions, and places of worship.
Although we organize this book around six parts describing various aspects of servant leadership, we don’t want you to get discouraged or overwhelmed. Rather, we encourage you, as you read this book, to find four or five essays that really speak to your heart and motivate you to say “As a leader I want to serve rather than be served.”
The audience for this book is wide. It’s for anyone in a leadership position—from a frontline supervisor to the CEO of a company. In fact, every person who serves as a leader in a secular or nonsecular capacity could benefit from reading and practicing the leadership concepts from the essays in this book.
Our dream is that someday, everywhere, everyone will be impacted by someone who is a servant leader. Self-serving leaders will be a thing of the past. Leaders throughout the world will be people who, in Robert K. Greenleaf’s terms, “serve first and lead second.” We have created this book to help make that dream a reality. It’s our hope and desire that reading Servant Leadership in Action will either confirm what you already are doing or be the beginning of a new and exciting chapter in your personal leadership journey. We want this to be the book you refer to when you are interested in how to actually practice servant leadership in your life and work—how to get beyond the theory and philosophy to daily action. We believe you, too, can be a servant leader who makes a positive difference in the world.
Join us in our quest. We are counting on you.
Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The New One Minute Manager, Leading at a Higher Level, and Lead Like Jesus Revisited and cofounder of The Ken Blanchard Companies and Lead Like Jesus
Renee Broadwell, senior editor, The Ken Blanchard Companies
1. Robert K. Greenleaf, “The Servant as Leader” (Atlanta: The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, 1970).
2. A collection of Greenleaf’s most mature writings on the subject can be found in The Power of Servant Leadership (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1998). The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership (www.greenleaf.org) is a resource for all of Greenleaf’s work.
3. Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges, Lead Like Jesus: Lessons from the Greatest Leadership Role Model of All Time (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2005).