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Full-Text Articles in Leadership Studies
Insights And Inspiration, Larry C. Spears
Insights And Inspiration, Larry C. Spears
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
The term "servant-leadership" was first coined in a 1970 essay by Robert K. Greenleaf (1904-1990), entitled The Servant as Leader. Greenleaf, born in Terre Haute, Indiana, spent most of his organizational life in the field of management research, development, and education at AT&T. Following a 40-year career at AT&T, Greenleaf enjoyed a second career that lasted 25 years, during which time he served as an influential consultant to a number of major institutions, including Ohio University, MIT, the Ford Foundation, the Mead Corporation, the American Foundation for Management Research, and Lilly Endowment Inc. In 1964, Greenleaf founded the Center for …
Servant-Leadership As A Cornerstone For Restoration Of Human Dignity, Jose Hernandez
Servant-Leadership As A Cornerstone For Restoration Of Human Dignity, Jose Hernandez
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
Human beings are experiencing a loss of dignity that diminishes us as a community of people. Many times the consequences of losing our dignity are not severe, allowing us to recover in a short time; other times, they can be so dramatic that they end up scarring us for a lifetime. Those who lose their dignity ultimately have the choice to find resiliency and recover from their loss. Likewise, those who violate the dignity of others bear the responsibility to choose to live with morality and justice toward others. As Greenleaf (1977) explained, "Because we have a natural authority resulting …
Directions For Arriving In The Middle Of Nowhere, Richard Cummins
Directions For Arriving In The Middle Of Nowhere, Richard Cummins
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
A poem by Richard Cummins.
Gardening Tips For Servant-Leaders, Thorsten Grahn
Gardening Tips For Servant-Leaders, Thorsten Grahn
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
Editor's note: This article is the first in a two-part series. In this installment, Dr. Thorsten Grahn discusses the use of metaphors and analogies by leadership of organizations and delineates why gardening is a particularly appropriate metaphor for the field of servant-leadership. Look for the second installment in the 2010 International Journal of Servant-Leadership.
Receiving The Gift Of Servant-Leadership, Paul M. Nakai
Receiving The Gift Of Servant-Leadership, Paul M. Nakai
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
Editor's note: This article is the first in a two-part series by Paul Nakai. Look for the second installment in the 2010 International Journal of Servant-Leadership.
Can I Be Fearless?, Margaret Wheatley
Can I Be Fearless?, Margaret Wheatley
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions. -Hafiz Human history is filled with stories of countless people who have been fearless. If we look at our own families, perhaps going back several generations, we'll find among our own ancestors those who also have been fearless. They may have been immigrants who bravely left the safety of home, veterans who courageously fought in wars, families who endured economic hardships, war, persecution, slavery, oppression, dislocation. We all carry within us this lineage of fearlessness. But what is fearlessness? It's not being …
Holistic Servant-Leadership, George Sanfacon, Larry Spears
Holistic Servant-Leadership, George Sanfacon, Larry Spears
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
This article was made possible by our dear friend and mentor, Curtis E. (Bill) Bottum, who was an avid follower and friend of Robert K. Greenleaf. As President and CEO of Townsend and Bottum, a worldwide leader in power plant construction, Bill advanced servant-leadership as the company's guiding philosophy and established the first council of equals there. He also served on the Greenleaf Center's board oftrustees for over twenty years. We each spent a lot of time with Bill, both separately and together, discussing servant-leadership and the first-amongequals governance model. This article is, in part, an extension of those discussions …
Servant-Leadership As A Predictor Of Job Satisfaction And Organizational Commitment With The Moderating Effects Of Organizational Support And Role Clarity Among Filipino Engineering, Manufacturing, And Technology Workers, G.R. Bud West, Mihai Bocarnea, Dioscoro Maranon
Servant-Leadership As A Predictor Of Job Satisfaction And Organizational Commitment With The Moderating Effects Of Organizational Support And Role Clarity Among Filipino Engineering, Manufacturing, And Technology Workers, G.R. Bud West, Mihai Bocarnea, Dioscoro Maranon
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
Over the past decade, some popular press writers in the Philippines have pointed out the lack of transparency and stability in both public and private sectors throughout their country. Some have further offered that certain high-profile people in positions of authority have demonstrated relatively unmitigated ambition and lust for power, which has reportedly caused some members of their society to question the integrity and commitment of these organizational authorities in regard to their fellow citizens, as well as to question their collective ability to provide effective leadership (Fernandez, 2003; Limon, 2003). Still others have suggested that a crisis of leadership …
Servant-Leadership: A Case Study Of The Phenomenon In A Public K-12 School Setting, Jason Anderson, Barbara N. Martin
Servant-Leadership: A Case Study Of The Phenomenon In A Public K-12 School Setting, Jason Anderson, Barbara N. Martin
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
As a result of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB), educational accountability standards have increased (Stecher & Kirby, 2004). Educational leaders are now responsible for meeting expectations unparalleled by those of previous decades (Aldridge, 2003). Halpern (2003) affirmed, "Rapid changes ... require new kinds of leadership - leaders who have the necessary knowledge to achieve a goal and leaders who can manage amid the uncertainty of nonstop change" (p. 126). The necessity for a change in leadership is based on the need for an "ethic of caring" (Grogan, 2003, p. 25). Current literature also supports a need …
The Question Of Love And Power, Shann Ferch
The Question Of Love And Power, Shann Ferch
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? These words, penned by poet Mary Oliver, are a fitting place to begin a conversation on servant-leadership and the possibilities that exist in the space created by the paradox of justice and forgiveness. The tension of human conflict can be likened to a great bonfire whose tongues reach the heavens through the enduring gifts of human goodness, but the heat of which can also be a reminder of the hell we so often create by our relentless capacity for evil. In receiving the gift …
An Inward Journey, Richard Cummins
An Inward Journey, Richard Cummins
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
No abstract provided.
Savoring Life Through Servant-Leadership, Richard Leider, Larry Spears
Savoring Life Through Servant-Leadership, Richard Leider, Larry Spears
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
Since the dawn of civilization, great thinkers have debated the quality of human existence, often calling it "the good life." To some thinkers, the ideal state is one of generating power and wealth; to others, it is about community and relationships; and to yet others, it is about service and humanitarian ideals as the path to the good life. The good life from cradle-to-grave has proven to be an elusive concept to agree upon. There are enough definitions to fill a small book. Yet, one central theme, purpose-having a reason to get up in the morning-seems to be an element …
“Purity Versus Popularity”: Potential Opportunities And Tensions Among The Differing Emphases Of Servant-Leadership, Stephen Prosser
“Purity Versus Popularity”: Potential Opportunities And Tensions Among The Differing Emphases Of Servant-Leadership, Stephen Prosser
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
On the first occasion I spoke in public about my commitment to the principles of servant-leadership, I told the story of a manager who, on hearing me discuss being a servant-leader, saw it as an opportunity to develop his career. The latest thinking, any new idea being discussed by senior management, could be used as a fashionable shibboleth to help advance that career. With this potential misuse of servant-leadership in mind, I made my way toward the conclusion of my lecture: There is an understandable temptation to see the concept of servant-leadership as something so important that one has to …
Positively Impacting Our Wasteful Ways Of Life, Matthew Kincaid
Positively Impacting Our Wasteful Ways Of Life, Matthew Kincaid
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
The following section highlights the presidency of two institutions of higher learning in the Western United States, Gonzaga University and Whitworth College. Robert Spitzer, SJ. of Gonzaga and Bill Robinson of Whitworth have developed a lasting friendship with one another, unique in that one is president of a Catholic university, the other president of a Protestant college. Considered by many to be servant-leaders with effective and very different approaches, the two presidents have become crucial developers of their respective communities. Under their leadership Gonzaga and Whitworth continue to receive national acclaim.
Faith-Based Volunteers In Local Jails: The Inaugural Test Of Servant-Leadership, Linda Keena
Faith-Based Volunteers In Local Jails: The Inaugural Test Of Servant-Leadership, Linda Keena
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
Robert Greenleaf believed the best leadership results from a desire to serve others (Greenleaf, 1991). Servant-leaders approach others with humble spirits, seeking to serve rather than to be served. In his essay The Servant as Leader, Greenleaf (1991) asserted, "Not everything that is old and worn, or even corrupt, can be thrown away. Some of it has to be rebuilt and used again. So it is with the words serve and lead" (p. 1). For that reason, the message of the "leader-as-servant" (Greenleaf, 1998, p. 4) exemplifies the spirit of faith-based correctional volunteers. As advanced by John MacArthur (1994) in …
Serving The Led: Democratic Options For A Nigerian Village, Peter Oleh Amah
Serving The Led: Democratic Options For A Nigerian Village, Peter Oleh Amah
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
In a world of hard-to-predict, rapid change, leaders must understand the complexity of our social and natural world of variations, need for mutual interactive discussion, and process of selection for effective leadership. According to Axelrod and Cohen (2000), it is hard to predict situations in Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS), which means a "world where many players are all adapting to each other and where the emerging future is extremely hard to predict" (p. xi). Complex Adaptive Systems has a premise that agents are diverse (pp. 47 & 33). In a monoculture community, such as that of the Okpo/Ihechiowa in Southeast …
Transcendent Leadership: Theory And Practice Of An Emergent Metaphor, John Jacob Zucker Gardiner, Elizabeth Lena Walker
Transcendent Leadership: Theory And Practice Of An Emergent Metaphor, John Jacob Zucker Gardiner, Elizabeth Lena Walker
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
Albert Einstein once said that a problem could never be solved at the same level of consciousness that created it. Yet, great difficulty may lie in shifting from an old to a new paradigm. The road ahead will be difficult, but the course is clear: a new paradigm is needed to bring human efforts to higher levels of synergy: the metaphor of transcendent leadership. Transcendent leadership provides a revolutionary frame of viewing human interaction in organizational settings. And as David Suzuki said of human interactions: "Solutions are in our nature."
Servant-Leadership In The Mythology Of J.R.R. Tolkien, Frederick Schuepfer
Servant-Leadership In The Mythology Of J.R.R. Tolkien, Frederick Schuepfer
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
And then to Sam's utter surprise and confusion he [Aragorn the king] bowed his knee before them; and taking them by the hand, Frodo upon his right and Sam upon his left, he led them to the throne, and setting them upon it, he turned to the men and captains who stood by and spoke, so that his voice rang over all the host, crying: "Praise them with great praise!" -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King The fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien, respected philologist and revered fantasy writer, is subtly underpinned by the lifestyle and spirit of servant-leadership. Throughout his …
Book Review: Political Leadership And Jesus’ “Best Test”: A Review Of The Politics Of Jesus: Rediscovering The True Revolutionary Nature Of The Teachings Of Jesus And How They Have Been Corrupted, Richard Cummins
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
Obery M. Hendricks, Jr., an accomplished biblical scholar, began this analysis of the political dimension of Jesus with a description of his frustration with his early education, when he was taught about only the meek and otherworldly Christ, the "long-suffering Jesus who was concerned with the things of heaven, with little thought for the matters of this world, matters like social injustice, racial and gender inequities, or the systematic oppression of the poor" (p. 3). He could not square this interpretation with what he was reading in scriptures about the Christ who opposed the Pharisees and other oppressive forces in …
Greenleaf On Servant-Leadership: Who Is The Servant-Leader?, Robert K. Greenleaf
Greenleaf On Servant-Leadership: Who Is The Servant-Leader?, Robert K. Greenleaf
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
Robert K. Greenleaf coined the term servant-leadership in his seminal 1970 essay, "The Servant as Leader." The servant-leader concept has had a deep and lasting influence over the past three decades on many modern leadership ideas and practices. Greenleaf spent his first career of 40 years at AT&T, retiring as director of management research in 1964. That same year Greenleaf founded The Center for Applied Ethics (later renamed The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership). He went on to have an illustrious 25-year second career as an author, a teacher, and a consultant. Greenleaf, who died in 1990, was the author of …
The Emergence, Expansion, And Critique Of Servant-Leadership As A Leadership Philosophy, Jeffrey Mcclellan
The Emergence, Expansion, And Critique Of Servant-Leadership As A Leadership Philosophy, Jeffrey Mcclellan
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
Editor's note: This article is the first in a three-part series that will give a comprehensive literature review ofthe extant theory and research currently available on servant-leadership. In this first installment, scholar Jeff McClellan reveals the evocative depths of Greenleaf's thought and lifework that led to Greenleaf's subtle, profound articulation of the concept of the servant-leader.
Book Review: Here Comes Everybody: The Power Of Organizing Without Organizations, Chris Francovich
Book Review: Here Comes Everybody: The Power Of Organizing Without Organizations, Chris Francovich
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
To make claims about or even adequately understand the "true nature" of organizations or leadership is a monumental task. To peer into the nature of the future of these complex phenomena is an even more daunting project. In this book, however, I think we have both a plausible interpretation of organization ( and by implication leadership) and a rare glimpse into what we are becoming by virtue of our information technology. We live in a complex, dynamic, and contingent environment whose very nature makes attributing cause and effect, meaning, or even useful generalizations very difficult. It is probably not too …
Naikan Therapy: An Approach For Developing Corporate Executive Servant-Leaders, Kurt Takamine, Ryo Ishida
Naikan Therapy: An Approach For Developing Corporate Executive Servant-Leaders, Kurt Takamine, Ryo Ishida
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
No abstract provided.
Servant-Leadership And Love: The Horizon Of The Possible, Shann Ferch
Servant-Leadership And Love: The Horizon Of The Possible, Shann Ferch
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
To build a good family requires immense personal discipline. Consider then the organization, the nation, the world. The personal and collective responsibility to initiate, develop, and sustain a way of life self-sacrificial and life-generative is daunting. Inevitably, in response to the crisis of humanity engaged in each new age, those who feel so called enter a crucible in which the paradox of the tragic and the comedic overlap, where the sacred is touched by the profane and human evil is not a separate entity but rather is found even within human good. The complexity and the initial agony of this …
Servant-Leadership, Building Of Community, And Prisoners Of War, Brian W. Landry
Servant-Leadership, Building Of Community, And Prisoners Of War, Brian W. Landry
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
When there is war, there inevitably are those who are captured and taken as prisoners. Since the American Revolutionary War, there have been more than 609,180 published cases of persons who have obtained Prisoner of War (POW) status (Advocacy & Intelligence Index For POWs-MIAs Archives, 2007). The perpetration of brutal, inhumane, and vile actions by one human on another has been documented throughout these wars. Although these accounts of human suffering and domination are plentiful, there exist stories of healing and self-sacrifice, of people who overcame the physical and mental torture, those who endured and not only survived, but thrived …
Servant-Leadership In Sport: A Concept Whose Time Has Arrived, Jon Hammermeister, Damon Burton, Michael Pickering, Matthew Chase
Servant-Leadership In Sport: A Concept Whose Time Has Arrived, Jon Hammermeister, Damon Burton, Michael Pickering, Matthew Chase
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
As we enter the year 2007, more and more organizations are beginning to see that traditional, autocratic, and hierarchical models of leadership are failing to provide the framework necessary for productive work environments. According to McGee-Cooper and Trammell (2002), servant-leadership is one model of leadership that can help turn those traditional notions of leadership and organizational structure upside down and provide the needed context for a more satisfied and productive workforce. The servantleader model (Greenleaf, 1977) is one based on teamwork and community, one that seeks to involve others in decision making, one strongly based in ethical and caring behavior, …
Art And Literature In A Servant-Leadership Curriculum For Undergraduate Female Students Who Are From Mexican Migrant Farm Worker Backgrounds, Patricia Valdes
Art And Literature In A Servant-Leadership Curriculum For Undergraduate Female Students Who Are From Mexican Migrant Farm Worker Backgrounds, Patricia Valdes
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
This paper proposes a university leadership curriculum for undergraduate female students who are from Mexican migrant farm worker backgrounds. The curriculum incorporates the philosophy of servant-leadership and utilizes literature and art to provide media that are congruent with the cultural background of the students. The curriculum's intent is three-fold: a) to improve the capacity of Latina migrant students to be leaders and fulfill leadership roles in organizations and communities; b) to contribute to the understanding of servant-leadership and its possible congruency with the culture of female Mexican migrant students; and c) to add to the current knowledge of leadership in …
Xhosa Tribal Culture And Its Influence On The Servant-Leadership Of Nelson Mandela, Mary C. Sobralske
Xhosa Tribal Culture And Its Influence On The Servant-Leadership Of Nelson Mandela, Mary C. Sobralske
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
Your pain is my pain, my wealth is your wealth, your salvation is my salvation. -an African expression of ubuntu (www.simongoland.com, 2004) In 1994, Nelson Mandela became the first democratically elected black president of South Africa. This historical event had a tremendous impact on the world. Much has been written about Mandela as a leader, but little has highlighted his cultural background, how it influenced his deep-seated cultural values and beliefs, and how his culture shaped his leadership. It is important to analyze how his cultural upbringing determined his destiny as a dignified, respected, and popular global servant-leader.
Servant-Leaders In Action: Philadelphia Freedom Schools Foster Servant-Leadership, Larry C. Spears
Servant-Leaders In Action: Philadelphia Freedom Schools Foster Servant-Leadership, Larry C. Spears
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
I recently had the distinct privilege of visiting the Philadelphia Freedom Schools (PFS), where I learned about a significant and inspiring program underway to encourage young people in their understanding of servantleadership, and to live their lives as exemplary servant-leaders. "It always begins with a vision," said Sedrick Miles, Philadelphia Freedom Schools Manager. "For a great institution like Philadelphia Freedom Schools, any worthwhile contribution to the collective vision of the community must be equal to the legacy passed down from servant-leaders who came before us."
Remembering Humanity In The American Justice System, Norman Carter
Remembering Humanity In The American Justice System, Norman Carter
International Journal of Servant-Leadership
As a police officer working for a municipal law enforcement agency, I see that human suffering and gross atrocities occur daily. This exposure creates much heartfelt struggle within me, as well as in other members of police department organizations throughout the United States. The struggle revolves around one's ability to maintain the capability of objectifying people or experiences, which is often necessary in order to protect one's own psyche from such traumatic events, while maintaining enough subjectivity to treat people with compassion, respect, humanity, and forgiveness. In my experience, the internal struggle that members of my organization and I are …