Servant Leadership -- Robert K. Greenleaf Introduction Book Review

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Servant Leadership -- Robert K. Greenleaf

Introduction to Robert K. Greenleaf

In order to examine the views and philosophies of Robert K. Greenleaf -- even before reading his book -- it is helpful to review the Web site which fully describes his brainchild, "The Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership." The late Greenleaf, a former executive at AT& T, began his initial career there in management research, development and education. Following his work at AT& T, Greenleaf became a respected lecturer and consultant for MIT, Harvard Business School, and Dartmouth College.

It was during the 1960s, the anti-Vietnam war years when many young people were rejecting traditional American values that Greenleaf began to develop his theory that the institutions in America were not fulfilling their responsibilities in serving the needs of the people. He wrote an essay in 1970 called The Servant as Leader, in which he pointed out that the nation needs a whole new fresh way to look at leadership; he wrote that leaders must be able to serve first, prior to their familiarity and understanding of the pivotal duties and responsibilities of leadership.

"The servant-leader is servant first," according to the Web site for the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership (originally founded as "Center for Applied Ethics" in 1964), which Greenleaf developed in Indianapolis, Indiana, and which today serves as an important reflection of his legacy. Servant-Leadership, the Web site states, "is a practical philosophy which supports people who choose to serve first, and then lead as a way of expanding service to individuals and institutions."

Servant Leadership

In his book, Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power of Greatness, Greenleaf writes that a great leader embraces the theory of prophecy -- "seekers make prophets" -- and he alludes to Hermann Hesse's Journey to the East, as the work that first inspired him to come up with the idea for "servant-leader.

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" In order to learn more about Greenleaf's inspiration and vision it is worth a brief review of Hesse's story.

In Journey to the East, the protagonist (presumed to be Hesse), along with a group of musicians, artist, and poets, called "the League," is going on a mystical journey to Arabia. Among the travelers is a man named Leo, a servant, who carried the luggage and helped out in menial ways. Even though Leo was at the bottom of the ladder, in terms of prestige, he carried out duties happily, singing, whistling, and being a delightful helper. But Leo disappeared, and with his exit from the traveling group, the unity of the members of the group disappeared, faith seemed to vanish, and depression set in.

Some time later, the story continues, Hesse found Leo, and discovered that he was actually an important person, in fact, he was the president of the League; hence, "servant-leader" emerged from the story of on who was carrying out in splendid fashion duties of a servant, but who in truth was actually a true leader.

Greenleaf (page 23) writes that Albert Camus is a prophet worthy of attention because " ... his unrelenting demand that each of us confront the exacting terms of our own existence." And Greenleaf seems himself worthy of designation as a philosopher when he writes, first, on page 35, that "Intuition in a leader is more valued, more trusted, at the conceptual level," and next, on page 62, when he explains that "... caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock on which a good society is built.

He went on to say that a more just and loving society will emerge from institutions if people " ... raise both the capacity to….....

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