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176 PART 3: THE PERSONAL SIDE OF LEADERSHIP
early management thinker, Mary Parker Follett, captured the spirit of stewardship
80 years ago when she described the type of leader who motivated her.
The skillful leader, then, does not rely on personal force; he controls his
group not by dominating but by expressing it. He stimulates what is best

in us; he unifies and concentrates what we feel only gropingly and scatter-
ingly, but he never gets away from the current of which we and he are both
an integral part. He is a leader who gives form to the inchoate energy in
every man. The person who infl uences me most is not he who does great
deeds but he who makes me feel I can do great deeds. 35

The Servant Leader
Servant leadership takes stewardship assumptions about leaders and followers one
step further. Robert Wood Johnson, who built Johnson & Johnson from a small pri-
vate company into one of the world’s greatest corporations, summarized his ideas
about management in the expression “to serve.” In a statement called “Our Man-
agement Philosophy,” Johnson went on to say, “It is the duty of the leader to be a
servant to those responsible to him.” Johnson died more than 30 years ago, but his
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beliefs about the moral responsibility of a leader are as fresh and compelling (and
perhaps as controversial) today as they were when he wrote them.
Servant leadership
Servant leadership Servant leadership is leadership upside-down. Servant leaders transcend self-interest
leadership in which the leader to serve the needs of others, help others grow and develop, and provide opportunity for
leadership in which the leader
transcends self-interest to serve
transcends self-interest to serve
the needs of others, help others
the needs of others, help others others to gain materially and emotionally. In organizations, these leaders’ top priority
grow, and provide opportunities
grow, and provide opportunities is service to employees, customers, shareholders, and the general public. In their minds,
for others to gain materially and the purpose of their existence is to serve; leadership flows out of the act of service
for others to gain materially and

emotionally
emotionally
because it enables other people to grow and become all they are capable of being. 37
There has been an explosion of interest in the concept of leader as servant in recent
years because of the emphasis in organizations on empowerment, participation, shared
authority, and building a community of trust. 38
Servant leadership was first described by Robert Greenleaf in his book,

Servant Leadership. Greenleaf began developing his ideas after reading Hermann
Hesse’s novel, Journey to the East. The central character of the story is Leo, who
appears as a servant to a group of men on a journey. Leo performs the
lowliest, most menial tasks to serve the group, and he also
Action Memo
cheers them with his good spirits and his singing. All goes well
until Leo disappears, and then the journey falls into disarray.
As a leader, you can put the needs,
Years later, when the narrator is taken to the headquarters of
interests, and goals of others above your
the Order that had sponsored the original journey, he encoun-
own and use your personal gifts to help
ters Leo again. There, he discovers that Leo is in fact the titular
others achieve their potential. Complete the
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head of the Order, a great leader. Hesse’s fi ctional character is
questionnaire in Leader’s Self-Insight 6.2
the epitome of the servant leader, and some doubt whether real
to evaluate your leadership approach along
human beings functioning in the real world of organizations can
the dimensions of authoritarian leadership,

ever achieve Leo’s level of selflessness in service to others. How-
servant leadership.
participative leadership, stewardship, and
ever, many organizational leaders have shown that it is possible
to operate from the principles of servant leadership, even in the
business world. For example, when Robert Townsend took over
as head of the investment department at American Express, he made it his mission
to stay out of his employees’ way and invest his time and energy in getting them the
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pay, titles, and recognition they deserved from the organization. After PeopleSoft
lost its bitter battle against Oracle’s takeover, PeopleSoft founder and former CEO
David Duffield offered $10,000 of his own money to each employee who lost his

or her job, a sharp contrast to many of today’s top leaders who grab the rewards
for themselves and show little concern for followers who have been hurt. 41