Servant Leaders: Valuing People
By Matt Monge
Like many of you, I’ve had the “pleasure” of working for a boss or executive who seemed to enjoy reminding me how “in charge” they were. Like many of you, I didn’t enjoy it.
On the other hand, servant-leaders place enormous value on people and their inherent humanity. They seek to foster collaboration, understanding, mutual respect (crazy, I know), and wholeness, both within themselves and others.
There’s a certain moral center to this leadership, as was mentioned in an essay by Dr. John Horsman that I read recently. A brief excerpt that I found especially poignant follows:
The moral-relational focus of Servant-leadership ensures the focus is on the development of self and others for the purpose of creating mature, responsible individuals, groups, organizations and a more caring productive society. All of this requires profound respect for all sentient beings.
In other words, leaders who are ego-maniacs need not apply. This sort of human leadership is critical, as it is almost antithetical to much of what passes as leadership within the corporate arena today (raise your hand if you’ve been on the receiving end of a condescending, angry, or vindictive manager’s rant). In some sense it may be the antidote to much of the dysfunction prevalent within so many teams and organizations.
