A Look Back At A Life Lesson In Servant Leadership

"My dad was teaching me synergy before I ever even heard of that word. Servant leadership is all about synergy."

Servant leadership is what our website is all about. It's overall concept is what inspires our pages and is what we've focused on for years. Those two words, servant and leadership, bring in so many different character traits on their own, and when combined, they become one of the most powerful forces in our nation.

In this page we'll go over this concept of servant leadership. We'll touch on how it is developed and we'll also challenge the theories about any disadvantages of such a system. It is our firm belief that the only time it doesn't work is when the concept is either not understood or not willingly embraced. Servant leadership is that powerful.

We write from personal experience. This page will follow that trend. Regular readers know that John Maxwell was a major influence for us in terms of leadership development. But we also have the benefit of life to share.

Growing Up Immersed In Servant Leadership

I grew up in a family of self-employed parents. They started a small business right after getting married. My dad was advised after serving in the U.S. Air Force that his idea had no chance of success. 33 years later he and my mom retired from that same business having built it up and providing a good life for four children.

One of the reasons self-employed people have trouble understanding or embracing servant leadership is that in most cases they are very good at their jobs. They have specific skills and those skills are not always duplicatable. We'll write about being duplicatable several times in this page because that is a fundamental part of developing servant leaders.

My dad was an exception. He was very good at what he did.  But he had another skill. He was great at seeing what his employees had to offer and encouraging them to use those skills to improve the overall business. My dad was teaching me synergy before I ever even heard of that word. Servant leadership is all about synergy.

My dad also encouraged all of us who worked for him to never stop learning. He wanted us to never be afraid to try new things, to gain fresh skills and to trust our instincts. So many people who started working in our small business went on to very successful careers and they remembered the start they got and the leadership lessons they learned from my dad. Servant leadership is all about a desire to create new leaders.

As we had new employees join us, we were part of the training process. My dad stressed to all of us that we should remember how it was when we were the new person. He wanted us to do all we could to get that new employee off to a good start and to make them feel welcome.

Since we were in the service industry, we saw the best and worst in people. We were at times the target of someone's wrath and anger. It's all part of dealing with people. My dad told us that we don't know what happened in someone's day before they crossed our path, so we had to try to lift their spirits, even if they were spewing angry or frustrated venom.

We were taught a work environment that made everyone feel like they were part of the success of the business. And we were taught to treat every customer as if they were the most important person we would see that day. Servant leadership is all about empathy and about setting aside ego to lift other people up.

Another important lesson we all received was using our unique skills and talents to help people in need. There were so many times when a customer was having a tough time in their lives. We did the work and let them pay when they could. We don't always know what is going on in someone's life.

When other businesses failed during tough economic times, we were able to hang on until it got better because we had that customer loyalty that started with us helping other people when they were going through the tough stuff. Servant leadership is all about helping people in need.

When It Works and When It Doesn't

If you do an internet search you'll find suggestions of reasons why servant leadership doesn't work. You'll read that quick decisions aren't possible within the framework of servant leadership. You can also read where members of an organization may be placed in positions beyond their capabilities. You'll read where this concept of servant leadership isn't all that familiar to many people.

We would only agree with that last one. This concept isn't understood very well. Which means it doesn't get duplicated very well. Servant leadership requires good listening skills, empathy, a willingness to take the back seat after teaching new people to take on bigger decision-making roles, and a desire to help people grow and develop. It requires humility, patience, vision, and courage. These traits will guide you in building a system that is capable of quick, accurate decisions and never puts people in places where they are not capable of succeeding.

Servant leadership has no chance to succeed if the person in charge is unwilling to cede any authority to someone else. This is manager mentality, not leadership thinking. Managers put a lid on personnel development because they are jointly afraid someone will fail and the blame will fall on them or they will succeed and push them out of the spotlight.

We're trying to continue to add content within this website that features particular leadership skills as well as personal stories and inspiring, motivational quotes to help you grow in all those traits that develop servant leaders. You'll find those posts in our page directory.

We've seen first-hand how well this can work in the real world. We've seen young student leaders embrace the concept of service above self. Their decision-making is backed by all those traits you just read. Humility, patience, vision, courage, empathy. They developed a desire to lift people and make themselves replaceable. There is no place for ego in servant leadership. Self-confidence for sure, but not ego.

Lessons I learned long ago from my dad are still working today. It's a great feeling to see someone take what we teach them and see them go past us and do more than we could do. It's not about any one of us. It's about all the good we can do when we develop new leaders who duplicate the process.

Servant leadership is all about attitude. An attitude of gratitude for gifts and skills. It's about using those skills to help people in need. It's about meeting people where they are because we don't know what they might be going through, so we are willing to help them through the tough stuff.

Servant leaders are all about making things better than they found them. Can you imagine our nation if this concept is fully understood, implemented, and then duplicated? It's not a silly pipe dream. It's a goal.

Return to Accountability As A Core Value

Return to Home Page

Privacy Policy