Comments on: Servant Leadership

By: Shawn

Shawn — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:14:12 +0000

You sir or madam, are a douche bag.

You obviously know nothing of servant leadership and you obviously have never had to lead anything significant in you life.

By: Servant Leadership » Dig for Leadership - Stories that try to make the world a better place.

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:31:46 +0000

[...] target="_blank" href="http://www.greenleaf.org/"… carry on reading. AKPC_IDS += "301,"; 0 Vote Posted in Leadership | Tagged Greenleaf, Lt, Quot, Servant [...]

By: John

John — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:29:57 +0000

Emily Litella: What’s all this I keep hearing about serpent leadership?

By: vsandiego

vsandiego — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:16:57 +0000

Here’s what I’m talkin about — This is a definition of the organizational dynamics of a group of companies in the Basque region of Spain, okay? It puts to rest the paternalistic idea of “servant leadership” and traditional ideas of leadership in general:

Mondragon Cooperatives Corporation: a large, worker-ownership movement based in the town of Mondragon, in the Basque region of northwest Spain. The Mondragon cooperative movement started in 1956, and was founded on the teachings of Jose Maria Arizmendietta. It consists of worker-owned businesses, supported by a savings bank that raises money for the cooperative enterprises. Mondragon is not part of the traditional cooperative movement, and is instead based on ten principles: equality of opportunity; the democratic election of managers; sovereignty of labor; a requirement for capital to be used by labor rather than labor used by capital; participative management; low pay differentials; cooperation with other cooperative movements; social change; solidarity with those working for peace, justice, and development; and education.

Notice, democratic election of managers (not servant leaders), low pay differentials, social change, a requirement for capital to be used by labor rather than labor used by capital.

Personally, I think it’s cool. Could we please start a movement?

By: Laurie

Laurie — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:23:23 +0000

@Kellies You’re right. It’s so basic. I still call bullocks on it as a methodology, but some of the principles are so right.

@Vsandiego It’s an old term that’s hot in b-schools, right now. For some reason, these MBA programs think they can ‘teach’ ethics and use servant leadership as an example of how ethical leaders set an example. Barf. You’re right. Grow. The. Fuck. Up.

@Bill Exactly!

By: Bill Wallace

Bill Wallace — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:50:54 +0000

I’m late but here goes … I’m with H Aria’s first comment: “Grow up, set expectations, be accountable, measure, reward, repeat” (I added a few)

I think I “get” servant leadership but it’s just another (nice) spin on leadership we probably don’t need!

By: vsandiego

vsandiego — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 07:50:15 +0000

Servant leadership is an outdated term, young bloggers. Robt Greenleaf started the servant leadership movement in 1970. It may have worked then, but 40 years later to still be talking about it as if it were a relevant organizational topic is naive. Today we need to put the entire concept of leadership behind us — it’s a concept rooted in Newtonian thinking: linear, hierarchical, and industrial. Today we need to be thinking ecologically, in network terms, about how we are ALL going to take responsibility for what happens at work, instead of sitting back passively and waiting for “direction” from the “leader” who needs to get out in front of us since we are too lame to see where we are going for ourselves. Every single talent and gift gets a company, group, organization where it needs to go and we all serve each other. Let’s get a life. Democratize the friggin workplace. Unless you LIKE being a victim of power in the hands of “others.”

By: Kellies

Kellies — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:19:02 +0000

I just left a very large corporation that thrived on Servant Leadership. I would consider myself very immersed in this program, like it or not. It appreciate it simply because it’s BASIC. I agree, ’servant’ is the wrong word. How basic – be present with your employees for G#%d’s! sake, pay attention and respond. How hard is that? In my mind, servant leadership is about being present, responsive, authentic, and giving direction – guess what? You are leading! You can still have high expectations and expect high performance from your team, with a nice balance of authenticity.

By: Laurie

Laurie — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:29:58 +0000

@Irish Don’t just pass by — stay awhile. This comment is priceless.

@JohnC LOL, there’s nothing like fake teambuilding and team cohesion. Love it.

By: JohnC

JohnC — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:52:49 +0000

@H Aria – right on, I just survived 2 years working for a believer in service management. Maybe they did not practice it correctly but in mainly consisted in my work load doubling, they was either incompetent or unable to make a decision on her own. In the interest of buy in decisions that should have taken minutes sometimes took days while we waited for consensus. On top of that I should probably add that particular manager lied continuously to executive management in an effort to show how well we all worked together.