Book Review: “Servant Leadership in Action”

Why Is Servant Leadership Important?

• Self-seeking management sacrifices people for profit, whereas servant leadership puts people first.
  • “The existing system has elevated people into positions of leadership who lack the qualities needed to lead in today’s world. These people do whatever it takes to deliver the numbers without regard to human cost or long-term consequences for organizational health.” -Raj Sisodia

• Servant leadership drives deeper employee engagement/fulfillment.
  • “Many of the companies named to Fortune magazine’s annual listing of ‘The 100 Best Companies to Work For’ espouse servant leadership and have integrated it into their corporate cultures.” -Larry Spears

• Servant leadership ultimately produces higher profit.
  • “In the long run, our research shows that such companies generate far more financial wealth than do traditional profit-centered firms.” -Raj Sisodia

What Does Servant Leadership Look Like?

• “The defining outcome for the servant leader is trust. How do you know if you are a servant leader? The answer is trust. Trust is the litmus test. Trust is to servant leadership what profit is to a business. It’s the outcome. It’s the core measure. The scoreboard.” -Stephen M. R. Covey
• “Leaders must see themselves on the bottom of an upside-down pyramid--that’s where they serve the entire organization using their power, resources, influence, and everything else leadership affords.” -James H. Blanchard
• “In weak leadership environments, all the decision-making power is focused at the top. Leaders in these environments expect information to be pushed up to those in authority positions. Servant leaders do the opposite. They push authority down to those with the information. And in that kind of environment, people feel accountable for and trusted to do the job for which they’ve been trained without leaders putting undue pressure or stress on them or using fear to drive them.” -Simon Sinek
• “We trust that the servant leader will come running our aid. This is what happens inside great organizations. In contrast, in a work environment that lacks good servant leaders, people will go out of their way to follow the rules at all costs, cover up mistakes, and deny accountability.” -Simon Sinek
• “Great leaders are willing servants of people, organizations, and causes. Instead of worrying about how powerful they are or what position they hold, these leaders focus on what others need.” -Marshall Goldsmith
• “The power of the servant leader does not come from their position but from their sacrifice. They are followed not because they are feared by because they are admired. Their gravitas is not based on their title or rank or status, but on their blood and sweat and tears. They have earned the right to lead because they have set the standard for what it means to serve. They choose to serve. They were chosen to lead.” -Erwin McManus
• “Servant leadership understands that our calling is not to overpower but to empower.” -Erwin McManus

Other Insights

• “Awareness is not a giver of solace--it is just the opposite. It is a disturber and an awakener. Able leaders are usually sharply awake and reasonably disturbed. They are not seekers after solace. They have their own inner serenity.” -Robert Greenleaf
• “Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else takes leadership.” -Peter Drucker
• "If a leader says something is important, people expect that person to live like it's important. The gap between what we say and do as leaders can be lethal." -Mark Miller
• “Only when people feel trusted by and are able to trust their leadership; only when people feel they can make mistakes without fear of dismissal; and only when people feel they can break a rule because it’s the right thing to do without fear of humiliation or retribution will a company ever inspire their people to work at their natural best--our most productive, innovative and cooperative selves. In a strong leadership environment, leaders don’t trust their people to follow the rules--they trust them to know when to break the rules. Rules are there for when things run normally. But sometimes, when things go wrong, following the rules to the letter can actually make things worse.” -Simon Sinek
• “How you see people determines how you serve people. And most of us tend toward the extremes: we see people as either a problem to be avoided or a person to be loved.” -Chris Hodges
• “Humility is personal power under control.” -Tony Baron
• “The final estimate of men shows that history cares not an iota for the rank or title a man has borne, or the office he has held, but only the quality of his deeds and the character of his mind and heart.” -Samuel Brengle