Hey all!
I tried to spend some time thinking about who I wanted to “be” as a blogger since my first post.  You know the kinda stuff, “what story do I want to tell?” or “what kind of advice should I try to provide?”
I couldn’t really come up with a theme that seemed compelling and so I tried to think about the “theme” of my own leadership instead. What is it that I think I am supposed to do as a leader? What is my purpose? My mission? My vision for my own leadership?
As I am sure you can imagine, this is no small question to ponder. And I didn’t find any easy answers.
What I did find, I hope, was the “theme” of my leadership:
Service.
I lead to serve others.
In the classroom or in the meeting room, I seek to serve others. I put those around me ahead of me and always seek to find ways to serve their interests. When it’s my students, I seek to serve their interests and help them climb the mountain to college and beyond. When it’s parents, I seek to serve them by helping them build a life full of options for their children.   When it’s our admin team, I seek to serve them by empowering them to develop as leaders in our building. And when it’s our instructional team, I seek to serve them by helping them grow as instructional leaders.
Now, I have to admit, I did not come up with the idea of servant leadership. It is what leadership consultant and author Ken Jennings calls “Servant Leadership”.  “The Serving Leader: Five Powerful Actions that Will Transform Your Team, Your Business, and Your Community,” is a super quick and easy read that outlines the mindsets of a serving leader. I think I finished it in one sitting on a Saturday afternoon, but if you don’t have a Saturday afternoon, here are the highlights:
Run to Great Purpose – To do the most possible good, strive for the impossible. Beyond self-interest, seek benefit for all.
Upend the Pyramid – You qualify to be first by putting other people first. You are in charge principally to charge up others.
Raise the Bar – Set high expectations. The best reach-down is a challenging reach-up.
Blaze the Trail – Make it possible for others to perform well. Your biggest obstacle is the one that hinders someone else.
Build on Strength – To address your weaknesses, focus on your strengths. You cannot become the best unless others do too.
Give it some thought. Serving others is the theme of my leadership and what I strive to do.
Have you ever given it any thought? What is your theme? Why do you lead?
I lead to serve others! Love it. I am already thinking about getting the book. What an important point to make. Why do I lead? I want the child to discover his unknown capabilities, to be amazed by them and give him a sense of pride from it.
Loved your article!
Hi Zach,
Thanks for posting on the topic of servant leadership. It is a topic that is timeless and is as relevant today as it was in the time of Jesus Christ and Lao Tzu. In fact, Lau Tzu said: “The work of the great leader is done, the people will say that they did it themselves.” This quote reinforces the points you made regarding empowering others.
One point I found particularly interesting is “Run to Great Purpose – To do the most possible good, strive for the impossible. Beyond self-interest, seek benefit for all.” At first glance, it seemed reasonable. But then I began wondering why we should strive for the impossible in order to do the most possible good. Striving for the impossible might commit precious resources to something that might be inspiring but not cost effective or the most leveraging.
In the vast majority of organizations for I which I served, that which would have created the most good for the organization and its stakeholders/customers was not doing the impossible, but rather doing the unpleasant and unpopular.
Let me explain, most of the causes for subpar performance in the organizations I have witnessed up close was due to lack of will and ability to overcome human foibles in doing what they knew needed to be done and which they knew how to do. So it wasn’t that they needed a vision to achieve a “moon shot” but rather they needed a structure, culture and institutional will to overcome infighting, incoherence and intransigence among dispersed and fragmented parts of the organization competing for attention and resources.
Overcoming the human tendency to focus on selfish goals to instead focus on the greater good of the organization requires organizational credibility, persistence, political acumen and clout, courage and willingness to be unpopular at times. Unpleasant work? Yes. Impossible? Not at all. So I would say that “strive for selfless dedication to one common goal” and “create the organizational structures, culture and practices to facilitate such” would be more relevant, based on limited experience.
Also, the point about “Build on Strength – To address your weaknesses, focus on your strengths” caught my attention. While making the most of our strengths is a good idea, we don’t always have a strength that can compensate for a glaring weakness. So in addition to building our strengths, I believe we should also take inventory of any glaring weaknesses that we should either remediate in ourselves or compensate by partnering with trusted colleagues who have the capabilities we lack. No leader is expected to be complete in of him/herself, but a leadership team can be when assembled with humble and realistic insight.
Thanks for posting on this relevant topic. I’d like to hear about your experiences and what you have found to be similar or different compared to mine. My experience has been heavy in the for-profit manufacturing/industrial sector and some in the non-profit sector. So it is only a small sliver out of a huge panorama of work experiences.
Best regards,
Peter Han