In 1970, Robert Greenleaf penned his landmark
essay The Servant as Leader, and in doing so, influenced the thinking of
many in reimagining and defining what true leadership should be. He coined it
“servant-leadership.” This is part 2 of the review of his essay, and in this
particular blog post, the definitions of servant-leadership delineated by
Greenleaf (see
part 1) are contrasted to the Scripture’s teachings. This comparison is
essential for the Christian school administrator, primarily because the
influence of the Servant as Leader is still vibrant, and the Christian
leader will need to prepare himself to not only communicate the essentials of
Biblical servant-leadership, but also be prepared to authenticate Biblical
essentials against the intricacies of a humanistic servant-leadership. Thus, as
provided in the following paragraphs, the humanistic servant-leadership
promulgated by Greenleaf and the Biblical definition of servant-leadership are
dissimilar, even though both worldviews utilize some of the same terminologies of
servant-leadership.
In defining his understanding of
servant-leadership, Greenleaf divides his essay into components of
servant-leadership sections. The main components of his essay and my own
sentence summary of each of his components are:
·
Initiative
– provides structure, takes risks, and trusts others will follow his lead.
·
Goal
Setter – establishes direction.
·
Listening
and Understanding – willingness to hear and gather input from others.
·
Language
and Imagination – willingness to alter verbal communication so that the
hearers can understand it meaningfully.
·
Withdrawal
– providing rhythm to leadership to preserve yourself and building the
capacity to serve others.
·
Acceptance
and Empathy – understanding that people are not perfect and
sympathizing with their needs.
·
Knowing
the Unknowable – having a feel for patterns and being intuitively able
to bridge information gaps.
·
Foresight
(Prescience) – the ability to compare upcoming events with the past to
determine an appropriate direction.
·
Awareness
and Perception – the ability of expanding your awareness of your
surroundings to understand your responsibilities.
·
Persuasion
– convincing others without coercion to join your cause.
·
One
Action at a Time – understanding your limitations and goals, and moving
purposely in a direction to achieve those goals.
·
Healing
and Serving – applying wholeness in the relationship between the leader
and those being led.
·
Community
– providing love and care that institutions in general cannot provide,
but through the energy of community, the servant-leader can then impact his
connected institutions.
·
Power and
Authority – understanding how both coercive and manipulative powers have
fashioned as a fully human and how we can avoid them.
Perhaps Greenleaf’s greatest aligned notes are on Empathy
and Awareness. As one reads them, you can picture Christ’s ministry with
his disciples and the wisdom requisite to lead others:
“Acceptance of the person, though,
requires a tolerance of imperfection. Anybody could lead perfect people—if
there were any. But there aren’t any perfect people…It is part of the enigma of
human nature that the “typical” person—immature, stumbling, inept, lazy—is
capable of great dedication and heroism if he is wisely led. Many otherwise
able people are disqualified to lead because they cannot work with and through
the half-people who are all there are. The secret of institution building is to
be able to weld a team of such people by lifting them up to grow taller than
they would otherwise be. Men grow taller when those who lead them empathize and
when they are accepted for what they are, even though their performance may be
judged critically in terms of what they are capable of doing. Leaders who
empathize and who fully accept those who go with them on this basis are more
likely to be trusted” (Loc.245-254).
Because Greanleaf’s definition of servant-leadership is established in humanism, his modus operandi is always beginning with man’s innateness. In a glaring example of his devotion, he notes in his introduction of servant-leadership:
A new moral principle is emerging
which holds that the only authority deserving one’s allegiance is that which is
freely and knowingly granted by the led to the leader in response to, and in
proportion to, the clearly evident servant stature of the leader. Those who
choose to follow this principle will not casually accept the authority of
existing institutions. Rather, they will freely respond only to individuals who
are chosen as leaders because they are proven and trusted as servants (Loc.
78).
In other words, he is expressing that because the morality of the populous has shifted to exclusively allow themselves to be under the governing of leaders and institutions who exhibit servant-leadership, leaders and institutions must quickly awaken to the needs of the populous if they are desiring to exist. In contrast, the Biblical narrative proposes that the moral principle of leadership has always existed because it is founded in an eternal, unvacillating God. How dangerous is the thinking that man’s “emerging” morality should determine their governance? And in the future, what would be the determination if the populous desires a tyrannical leadership instead? The annals of history clearly demarcate the consequences resulting from men's caprices of what they in their own subjective hearts deem prudent and best. Morality must always be defined by God’s truths.
Second, for Greenleaf, servant-leadership
begins and ends with the servant-leader. He admits that the impetus for servant-leadership
is ostensibly selfish, “Perhaps, as with the minister and the doctor, the
servant-leader might also acknowledge that his own healing is his motivation” (Loc.
487); and in lamenting there are not more servant-leaders in society today, he
explains that the true enemy of servant-leader is actually the potential
servant-leader: “The real enemy is fuzzy thinking on the part of good,
intelligent, vital people, and their failure to lead, and to follow servants as
leaders” (Loc. 624). The Scriptures disagree with these sentiments. The real
enemy to servant-leadership is the flesh (Rom. 8:5-6, 13; Gal. 5:19-21, 24),
not “fuzzy thinking,” and our highest motivation for ministering to others is to
glorify God (Ps. 115:1, I Cor. 10:31, Col. 3:23).
Third, Greenleaf, a professing
Quaker, oddly avoids Jesus as the greatest and most clear example of servant-leadership.
He does mention him once (specifically his interaction with the woman caught in
adultery, John 8) under the component of Awareness and Perception, but
relegates him to just another one of the around 30 individuals alluded to in
his writing to help us understand his definition of servant-leadership:
A leader must have more of an
armor of confidence in facing the unknown—more than those who accept his
leadership. This is partly anticipation and preparation, but it is also a very
firm belief that in the stress of real life situations one can compose oneself
in a way that permits the creative process to operate. This is told
dramatically in one of the great stories of the human spirit—the story of Jesus
when confronted with the woman taken in adultery. In this story Jesus is seen
as a man, like all of us, with extraordinary prophetic insight of the kind we
all have some of. He is a leader; he has a goal—to bring more compassion into
the lives of people. In this scene the woman is cast down before him by the mob
that is challenging Jesus’s leadership. They cry, “The law says she shall be
stoned, what do you say?” Jesus must make a decision, he must give the right
answer, right in the situation, and one that sustains his leadership toward his
goal. The situation is deliberately stressed by his challengers. What does he
do? He sits there writing in the sand—a withdrawal device. In the pressure of
the moment, having assessed the situation rationally, he assumes the attitude
of withdrawal that will allow creative insight to function. He could have taken
another course; he could have regaled the mob with rational arguments about the
superiority of compassion over torture. A good logical argument can be made for
it. What would the result have been had he taken that course? He did not choose
to do that. He chose instead to withdraw and cut the stress—right in the event
itself—in order to open his awareness to creative insight. And a great one
came, one that has kept the story of the incident alive for 2,000 years—“Let
him that is without sin among you cast the first stone. (Loc. 363-372).
In this passage, Greenleaf looks at
Jesus as establishing his awareness through withdrawal, but he fails to
understand that though Jesus might be modeling an example for us, he didn't
need to withdraw to conjure up an appropriate response during this stressful moment.
Being omniscient, he already knew the situation, its remedy, and the hearts of
the woman and her accusers. Thus, when Jesus says, "Let him that is
without sin among you cast the first stone (John 8:7)," he is stating that
because of his awareness of their own sin, they have no right to morally
condemn her, not that they should take a moment to rationalize their thoughts
and behavior. This is seen most clearly in the deterrence of the mob. In all
their conniving and ire, would they really disperse in a "let's have a brainstorming
exercise" moment?
It is
clear from Greenleaf’s writings that he viewed Christ as not divine and that he
is not the greatest example of servant-leadership. Just five chapters
over in his Bible, Greenleaf would have been able to read and then write about the
great model Jesus gave us in washing his disciples’ feet, but this is glaringly
avoided. These great words from Jesus still ring true today:
Know ye what I have done to you? Ye
call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and
Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I
have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he
that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are
ye if ye do them. (John 13:12-17)
Since there is
no certain way to know this [examples of servant-leadership], one must turn to
the artists for illumination. Such an Illumination is in Herman Hesse’s
idealized portrayal of the servant Leo whose servanthood comes through in his
leadership (Loc. 598).
What is this love that translates to servant-leadership? For Greenleaf, the man credited with coining the term servant-leader declares that “love is an undefinable term” (Loc. 520). This, then, is the tragedy of The Servant of Leader, it avoids the example of our eternal Love, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and God.
Picture:
Reference:
Greenleaf, R. (1970). The servant as leader. [Kindle
Edition]. The Robert K Greenleaf Association.
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