The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership

• by James C. Hunter

• Livre donné par Jean-Michel Lebeau

• … servant is simply the business of identifying and meeting the legitimate needs of the people entrusted to your care.

  • Feedback is a huge human need.

• … other-focused” (that is, focused on their people and not on themselves).

• … servant is finding that sweet spot between the hugging and spanking.

• … leadership, character, and love are synonymous.

• Leadership Is a Skill

• … agree with the principles of servant leadership is an easy task. Getting people to change and get the principles into their game is another matter …

• Character is having the moral maturity to do the righ thing even if it costs you something …

• Developing Character

  • Changing is the hard part …

• “Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence.” — Vince Lombardi

• … continuous improvement — being able to say every few months, “I’m not where I want to be, but I am better than I used to be.”

• Be the change you want to see in the world. — Mahatma Gandhi

• Listening is one of the most important skills …

• The Theory of Social and Economic Organization by Max Weber … difference between power and authority …

  • Power:
    • The ability to force or coerce someone to do your will, even if they would choose not to, be cause of your position or your might.
    • Authority:
      • The skill of getting people to willinghy do your will because of your personal influence.

• … when power must be exercised, the leader should reflect on why resorting to power was necessary.

• … leadership is about getting things done through people.

  • … two dynamics involved - the task and the relationship.

• … healthy relationships with the customers, employees, owners, and suppliers (the C.E.O.S.)

• Trust is the glue that holds relationships together.

• … cut people off in midsentence … sends some bad messages.

  • … refuse to take the time to hear me out …
  • … what you’ve got to say is much more important than what I’ve got to say.

• … we do not see the world as it is-we see the world as we are.

  • … world looks … different depending on your perspective.

• Everyone in the organization is looking upward toward the boss and away from the customer …

  • … people in many organizations today are looking up the food chain …
  • … everyone is focusing on keeping the boss happy, who’s focusing on keeping the customer happy?

• … suppose the frontline supervisors began seeing their employees as their customers …

• … role of the leader … is to serve.

• … seagull manager is one who periodically flies into the area, makes a lot of noise, dumps on people, maybe eats their lunch, and flies away.

• Slaves do what others want, servants do what others need. There is a world of difference between meeting wants and meeting needs.

• Service and Sacrifice

  • Law of the harvest
    • You reap what you sow.

• Efforts and lots of it.

• Love as a verb.

  • Love is as love does.

• INTENTIONS - ACTIONS = SQUAT (NO VALUE)

  • INTENTIONS + ACTIONS = WILL

• … older I get, … less attention I pay to what people say and the more attention I pay to what people do.

• … actions are aligned with our intentions that we become congruent people and con- gruent leaders.

• … four word job description …

  • Identify and meet needs.

• Feelings can come and go depending upon what you ate for dinner last night!

• … love in the New Testament the word agapé is used, a love of behavior and choice, not a love of feeling.

  • Agapé love and leadership are synonymous.

    • Charity or service better defines agapé than the usual English definition of love.

    • … agapé was translated into the English word charity.

      | AUTHORITY AND LEADERSHIP | AGAPÉ LOVE |
      |---|---|
      | Honest, trustworthy | Patience |
      | Good role model | Kindness |
      | Caring | Humility |
      | Commited | Respectuflness |
      | Good listener | Selflessness |
      | Held people accountable | Forgiveness |
      | Treated people with respect | Hosnesty |
      | Gave people encouragement | Commitment |
      | Positive, enthusiastic attitude | |
      | Appreciated people | |
      

• … increased productivity did not come from the cause of the lights going up and down but from

  • somebody paying attention to the people … Hawthorne Effect.

• … greatest opportunity we have to pay attention to people is by actively listening to them.

• William James … core of the human personality is the need to be appreciated.

• Once you begin looking for the good in others … you begin to see things you’ve never seen before.

• … respect was “treating people like they’re important.’ I think we should add to the end of that definition, because they are important.’

  • …roles as leader is to assist them in becoming successful.

• People who are late …

  • One message is that their time is more important than my time, a rather arrogant message to be sending to me.
  • … message that I must not be very important to them because they would almost certainly be on time for an important person.
  • … communicates to me that they are not very honest because honest people stick to their word and follow through with their commitments, even time commitments.

• Selflessness … meet the needs of others even before your own.

• Forgiveness — giving up resentment when wronged

• Honesty — being free from deception

  • … lie is any communication with the intent to deceive others.
  • … withholding pieces of the truth … are lies nonetheless.

• business … not hold their people accountable to a set standard are, in effect, thieves and liars.

  • … stealing from the stockholder who pays them to hold people accountable …
  • … liars because they pretend that everything is OK with their people …

• Commitment — sticking to your choices

• … never dare to ask the people we lead to become the best they can be, to strive toward continuous improvement, unless we’re willing to grow and become the best we can be.

• … leadership model … influencing people for mutual benefit.

  Virtues, Character Trait	Description
  Patience	Showing Self-Control
  Kindness	Giving Attention, Appreciation, and Encouragement
  Humility	Being Authentic and Without Pretense or Arrogance
  Respectuflness	Treating Others as Important People
  Selflessness	Meeting the Needs of Others
  Forgiveness	Giving Up Resentment when Wronged
  Hosnesty	Being Free from Deception
  Commitment	Sticking to Your Choices
  Results: Service and Sacrifice	Setting Aside Your Own Wants and Needs; Seeking the Greatest Good for Others

• Men and women want to do a good job. If they are provided the proper environment, they will do so. — Bill Hewlett

• … love others in the same way as we love ourselves.

  • ”… there are times … I can’t stand myself …”
    • “Remember, John, agapé love is a verb describing how we behave …”

• … healthy environment for people to grow and thrive …

• … planting a garden. Nature clearly shows us the importance of creating a healthy environment …

• … therapist can do is to create a healthy environment for the client by establishing a loving relationship based on respect, trust, acceptance, and commitment.

• … people want and expect fast results but the fruit only comes when it is ready.

• … never publicly punish people.

• … for every withdrawal you take out of your account with a person, it takes four deposits just to get back even. A

  • four-to-one ratio
    • … “My wife can tell me over and over again how much she loves me. but I can still remember the time last spring when she said I was getting too fat. …

• … people have generally high opinion of themselves …

• … employee attitude survey to take the pulse of the organization.

  • …most screwed-up company
    • … still always find healthy islands of apparent tranquillity …
    • And what do you think I would invari- ably find?” “A leader,” the nurse offered quietly.
    • … They couldn’t control the bigger picture but they could control how they behaved every day toward the people who had been entrusted to their care …
  • As leader … you are responsible for the environment that exists in your area of influence and you have been given power to carry out your responsibilities.
    • Therefore you are empowered to legislate their behavior.

• Alcoholics Anonymous keeps repeating:

  • The only person you can change is yourself.

• Everyone wants to change the world but nobody wants to change themselves. — Tolstoy

• If everyone would just sweep in front of their own door, soon the entire street would be clean.

• … leaders we can motivate people to change, can’t we?

  • … motivation is any communication that influences choice.
  • … leaders, we can provide the necessary friction but people must make their own choice to change.

• … motto here at the Ritz

• We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.

  • If we don’t behave this way, we don’t get to work here!

• Lou Holtz

  • … everyone to be so enthusiastic on your team?
    • I eliminate the ones who aren’t.

• … more concerned with the behavior of the leadership team and legislating their behavior.

  • … leadership team is on the right page, the rest will follow naturally.

• Nine and a half times out of ten, when I took over a troubled company, the problem was right at the top.

• … behavior also influence our thoughts and our feelings.

• What we pay attention to, spend time with, or serve, we become attached to.

• … dislike someone and treat them badly, we will come to hate them even more.

• Jerome Bruner … we are more likely to act ourselves into a feeling than feel ourselves into action.

• I will change when … should be turned to … I will change …

• … nurse … psych floor …

  • people with psychological problems are oftentimes suffering from ‘responsibility’ disorders.
  • Neurotics
    • assume too much responsibility …
  • Character-disordered
    • … assume too little responsibility for their actions.

• We have become so character-disordered in America … Nobody wants to assume responsibility for anything anymore.

• … word responsibility

  • into two words
    • response
    • ability

• Man is ultimately self determining.

  • … decision but not on conditions.

• …not making a decision is itself a decision.

  • Not making a choice is itself a choice.

• … authority and leadership begin with the will.

  • … will is choices we make yo align our actions with our intentions.

• We will choose to be

  • patient or impatient
  • kind or unkind
  • humble or arrogant
  • respectful or rude
  • selfless or selfish
  • honest or dishonest
  • commited or just involved

• Human nature

  • Going to the bathroom in your pants. — Scott Peck

• … unnatural act soon becomes natural as the child practices self-discipline and develops the habit of using the toilet.

  • … true of any discipline.

• … discipline ourselves to learn.

  • … discipline is teaching ourselves to do what is not natural.

• … four stages of developing new habits …

  • Stage one: unconscious and unskilled
  • Stage two: conscious and unskilled
  • Stage three: conscious and skilled
  • Stage four: unconscious and skilled
    • … leader at this stage doesn’t have to try to be a good person, he is a good person.

• Thoughts become actions, actions become habits, habits become our character, and our character becomes our destiny.

• … single most important you have learned this week …

  • … love, the verb …

• … being supported by a loving community on our journey is certainly helpful …

• … popular in recent years for organizations to write their mission statements and articulate what they stand for.

• … if we don’t stand for something, we will fall for anything.

• … hundred people over the age of ninety.

  • … asked one question: “If you were to live your life all over again, what would you do differently?”

    • risk more

    • reflect more

    • do more that would live after they were gone

  • risk more

    • … leading with authority sure means taking some risks

• … all of life is risky.

  • Especially for the leader.
    • … closer you are to the top the closer you are to the door.

• do more that would live after they were gone

  • … only important question ion … What difference did our lives make?

• American Indian tribe had an old saying that goes,

  • When you were born you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.

• … each of the world’s great religions contains some version of the Golden Rule.

  • … behave towards those … Just as I would want to be treated.

• Self-centered people are the loneliest and most joyless people I know.

• … joy …

  • … not referring to happiness …
    • based upon happenings.
  • Joy is about inner satisfaction and conviction of knowing that you are truly aligned with the deep and unchanging principles of life.

• … man’s greatest problem since the beginning of time is his self-centered nature, his pride, and his selfishness.

• … extending ourselves for others is teaching ourselves to do what is not natural.

• … joy in loving — the verb — extending ourselves for others.