Getting Things Done: Servant Leadership

Photoshop version of the my doodle during the session

My sophomore year at Miami University was a privileged year in which I lived in a wood closet built in the 1800's. This is true. The wood closet (now converted to a very small single dorm room) was located in one of the two oldest dorms West of the Allegheny mountains, collectively and affectionately known as "Stelliott."  The program that allowed my living circumstance is called Scholar Leader, which provided scholarships and an entrance into an unforgettable community of servant leaders. After living a year with fellow Miamians (and now close friends) acting out servant leadership, I came into the session titled "Servant Leadership: Leading with the Heart" with a slight advantage.

Our first task in the conference session was to "brain dump" words we associated with servant and leadership. Some of my fellow conference-goers listed words like slave and coerced for servant, and concepts like disconnected under the word leader. The presenter, Jeff Miller, helped re-shape the notions in the group. A servant doesn't mean subservient, and being a servant isn't simply a position but rather a choice. Also, there is a difference between a Leader (bestowed title) and a leader.

The final point was one that backed up the notion I had walking in to the session. Looking at the two lists of words under servant and leader, can you switch them?  Can words like sacrifice under servant also apply to a leader?  Are respect and empowerment both as applicable to a servant as a leader?  I believe they are interchangeable and one in the same. If I want to be a good leader, I will sacrifice and serve the people I am leading. 

Mahatma Ghandi's challenge to "be the change you want to see in the world" is so prevalent in my life it's almost cliche, but it is the cord that ties my service aspirations together. Another thought, this one from Frankel's "Man's Search for Meaning," contains a concept I could write an entire separate post on: attitude.  Pivotal to being a true servant leader is the attitude, the choice. If you are forced in, unwilling and unsatisfied, you cannot be a servant leader.

...everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.