Looking at many of the really effective leadership role models, people like Gandhi, Mandela, Tutu, or further back in time, The Buddha or Jesus Christ, they have one thing in common: leadership based upon service rather than on dominating their followers. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this recently and it seems to me that one of the main distinctions may be expressed on a polarity with control at one end and stewardship at the other.

And as we all are leaders in some contexts, whether at home, at work or in our social lives, I think this is a relevant issue for most of us.

Some people see leadership in terms of control; they feel the need to be in control of their resources, their posessions, the people around them; in short, they try to control their lives
The flip side, though still seeing life as a control issue, is those who cast themselves as victims, feeling out of control or having given up their coontrol to others. We often see
this in people who have been through a personal tragedy or trauma and who believe that nobody can ever understand their grief and what they have been through. Sadly, at an unconscious level,
they have surrendered control to their tragedy and they view their lives through the lens of their tragedy.

Control-based leadership seems to place emphasis on:

• having to win an arguement;
• on talking far more than listening;
• on judging the value of an idea by who has said it rather than by the merits of the argument;
• on focusing on image rather than on substance;
• self-promotion at the expense of others;
• on external recognition achievements and posessions.

The servant leaders seem to see life as being about stewardship; they view their ownership of posessions as only being temporary and see their lives, as Charlie Robertson wrote elsewhere, in terms of Givers Gain.

It seems to me that servant leadership is:

• patient;
• and compassionate;
• not enious or boastful;
• not proud and arroganct;
• not rude;
• not self-seeking;
• not easily angered;
• not into keeping score of who has ‘wronged’ them;
• focused on the truth;
• always protecting of those who need protection;
• always trusting;
• always full of hope;
• always persevering.

Ironically, whilst many of our clients want their people to work from a base of the behaviours and attitudes in the second list, their reward, recognition and promotion processess all emphasise the behaviours in the first. Hardly surprising then, that such behaviours persist!

Is servant leadership a model that is relevant today or do you believe it to be outdated and unrealistic by today’s standards?