Page 198 - leadership-experience-2008

CikguOnline
CikguOnline
CHAPTER 6: COURAGE AND MORAL LEADERSHIP 179

IN THE LEAD employees develop to their full potential, which means giving them the skills,
information, tools, and authority they need to act independently. Pollard describes
himself as a “leader who leads with a servant’s heart,” and he encourages others to
lead in the same manner. Leaders throughout the organization don’t see their jobs
as just getting people to perform at work. Instead, their role is to help employees
become well-rounded people—enabling them to grow as individuals who contrib-
ute not only at work but also at home and in their communities. They care how em-
ployees feel about themselves, about their work, and about the people they interact
with. ServiceMaster also insists that leaders keep an open-door policy and make
themselves available to listen to any concern.
To Pollard, the real leader is not the “person with the most distinguished title, the
highest pay, or the longest tenure . . . but the role model, the risk taker, the servant;
not the person who promotes himself or herself, but the promoter of others.”
44

For leaders like William Pollard, Linda Burzynski, Robert Townsend, and
David Duffield, leadership contains a strong moral component. Servant leaders

truly value and respect others as human beings, not as objects of labor. To fully
trust others relies on an assumption that we all have a moral duty to one an-
other. To make the choice for service requires a belief in a purpose higher than
45
acquiring more material goods for oneself. Organizational leaders can act from
moral values rather than from greed, selfishness, and fear. Indeed, Greenleaf be-

lieved that many people have the capacity for servant leadership. He said the
greatest enemy to organizations and to society is fuzzy thinking on the part of
good, intelligent, vital people who “have the potential to lead but do not lead, or
who choose to follow a nonservant.” 46

Leadership Courage

Throughout this chapter, you have probably noticed words like backbone, guts, and
fortitude. No doubt about it, doing the right thing requires courage. Leaders some-
times have to reach deep within themselves to find the strength and courage to resist

temptations or to stand up for moral principles when others may ridicule them.
Some would say that without courage, leadership can’t exist. However, for
many leaders, particularly those working in large organizations, the importance of
courage is easily obscured—the main thing is to get along, fit in, and do whatever

brings promotions and pay raises. In a world of stability and abundance, it was
easy to forget even the meaning of courage, so how can leaders know where to
find it when they need it? In the following sections, we will examine the nature of

leadership courage and discuss some ways courage is expressed in organizations.
The fi nal section of the chapter will explore the sources of leadership courage.

What Is Courage?
Many people know intuitively that courage can carry you through deprivation,
ridicule, and rejection and enable you to achieve something about which you care
deeply. Courage is both a moral and a practical matter for leaders. A lack of
courage is what allows greed and self-interest to overcome concern for the com-
mon good. Years of stability and abundance misled American businesses into
47
thinking that courage isn’t needed in the business world. The lesson executives
learned to advance in their careers was “Don’t fail. Let someone else take the
risk. Be careful. Don’t make mistakes.” Such a philosophy is no longer benefi cial.
Indeed, the courage to take risks has always been important for living a full,