Servant Leadership

Servant Leadership


I credit Dave Thompson, a previous manager of mine at Pearson for first presenting the concept of Servant Leadership to me in one of our frequent discussions on leadership. The concept he presented was pretty simple, “leaders are servants.” His insight was enough to get me started and hungry for more details. Thanks Dave.

Servant leadership, although a concept that can be traced back thousands of years, was coined by Robert Greenleaf in his work in the early 1970s. My studied pursuit pointed me to hundreds of books and resources but a specific list, Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders written by Larry Spears at the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership really resonated with me and my thoughts on quiet leadership. Here is his list of ten characteristics:

• Listening
• Empathy
• Healing
• Awareness
• Persuasion
• Conceptualization
• Foresight
• Stewardship
• Commitment to the growth of people
• Building Community

More than another other list of virtues, these characteristics seem to be the the tools of quiet leadership. Check out the list and the description.

Thanks for reading

Don