I sat in a Bible study this week on servant leadership. It’s a phrase I’ve heard for years, in church and out of it, and I’ve noticed something: it means the same thing in both places, as long as you have your answers figured out. If you don’t, it’s just a buzzword.
Robert Greenleaf coined the term in a 1970 essay as a management idea. The practice is much older. It was patterned perfectly by Jesus, who the Bible says set aside His standing as God and made Himself a sacrifice for many. So the question isn’t whether servant leadership works. The question is what it is, why you’d lead that way, and what it does.
What it is
A servant leader takes care of two things at once: the goal and the people getting there. You still own the goal. You still push for excellence. But you set the example for the kind of service you expect, and you spend your energy building the team up, coaching, resolving conflict, and covering each other’s weak spots, so that you reach the goal together.
What it is not: waiting on people hand and foot. Giving everyone what they want. Letting people run over you. You can serve with healthy boundaries and a backbone. Servant and doormat are not the same word.
Why
This is the part that gets skipped, and it’s the part that decides whether the whole thing holds up.
At home it’s easy for me. I want to serve my wife and my son because I love them. I’m looking for ways to bring delight into her life and help her reach her goals. I want my son to see what it looks like to be a man who takes care of people, sticks up for what’s right, and is still courteous. The why is love. Nobody has to tell me to do it.
At work the why is different but it’s still a why. You’re there to serve the organization, to make sure it’s successful and profitable, and that means the team’s needs will often come ahead of your own. If you don’t know that going in, serving people will start to feel like a tax. If you do know it, it feels like the job.
Here’s the harder part: I’m competitive. I want to win. I’ve had to learn to pick my areas of competitiveness, because the goal of the team and the goal of me are not always the same goal. What I’ve found is that if I’m getting better, pushing myself, doing excellent work, and still helping the people around me improve, then the team is better because I was there. The competitive part of me gets to know that. The rest of me gets the satisfaction of knowing we got good things done together.
What it does
Heavy-handed leadership gets compliance at best, and only when the person at the top has real power to hurt you. Without that power, it mostly causes problems.
Leading by example does something different. It builds a culture where we all rise together, where people get a chance to serve each other’s needs and pick each other up. And when you’ve been the one picking people up, something happens: when you’re the one who’s down, they pick you up. It becomes a cycle of service and a cycle of improvement. I would rather my effort lift everybody than shoot to the top and leave everyone behind me.
The reminder
I don’t think you have to quote Scripture to agree with me. But most people with an accurate read on who Jesus was understand that He came to take care of people, to heal them, to love them, and to reconcile them to God. That’s what He did. So why wouldn’t we, out of love, take care of the people in front of us?
Taking care of others is one of my highest goals. I don’t always hit it. But I know why I’m aiming at it, and that turns out to be most of the work.
