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the importance and impact of moral leadership on the life and success of an organization have been greatly underappreciated. Moral leaders serve an organization rather than control it. Their goal is to create a community that encourages individuals to take the initiative, practice self-discipline, make decisions, and assume responsibility for their actions.
servant leadership is often misunderstood as being hands off, even passive. It is just the opposite.
Good servant leaders are engaged in every aspect of an organization’s life, from suggesting radical new ideas and strategies to teaching the organization’s principles and values.
leadership is not about managing people.
One of the most difficult lessons I have had to learn is that leadership is not about managing people. People are not resources or assets to be managed.
A leader’s character is far more important than his or her skills.
“Good leadership starts with a person’s character.”
The most important character traits of a leader who embraces the principles and values championed in this book are humility; the willingness to give up power; courage; integrity; and love and passion for the people, values, and mission of the organization. It is not essential to be a great visionary. A leader must communicate a vision, but that vision can come from a colleague or someone outside the organization.
Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”
For the most part we ‘catch’ character and virtue and values by practicing ‘right’ behaviors and actions so that they first become habits and then part of our character. We catch these behaviors and actions from leaders, parents, mentors, teachers, and friends, and by repeatedly acting in ways consistent with the espoused principles in all aspects of our lives.”
A person’s character speaks far louder and with more lasting effect than any speech or letter to employees.
“Beware of bosses who treat subordinates differently than superiors” was the advice given me by Jonathan Moore, my mentor and boss, early in my working years in the secretary’s office of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in the U.S. government. “It reveals a major leadership character flaw.”
Our character is transparent to those around us. Leaders must realize this. The people who work for us absorb our character in both positive and negative ways. They are not fooled even if we try to cover up our flaws. We are an open book.
Humility is at the core of a leader’s heart. Humility is understanding who you really are, regardless of your title or education, your wealth or status. Humility underlies the impulse to make others do better.
The most important aspect of this leadership style is letting others make important decisions. When that happens, leaders dignify and honor their subordinates. At the moment power is shared, everyone is in a position of equality. People feel needed and valued because they are needed and valued.
Max De Pree writes, “Not having the chance to make decisions within the organization in which one works is a great tragedy, leading to hopelessness and despair.”
The intoxicating effect of exercising power can pervert even the most selfless executives. The more decisions they make, the more comfortable they feel making them. They begin to lose touch with the people below, who end up feeling like pawns being moved around a corporate chessboard.
In Good to Great, Jim Collins writes that companies that seemed to do better in the long run were run by understated leaders. “Self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy—these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.
When executives give power away, they often feel insecure, as if they are not doing their jobs. In fact, they are meeting the highest requirements of their jobs when they delegate decisions to subordinates. Not only are decisions being made by the people who are most familiar with the facts, but the act of making them gives more people a real stake in the organization’s performance.
Leaders who create dynamic, rewarding, enjoyable workplaces love people. Love is an act of humility that says, “I need you.” Love affirms that the other person is worthy and important.
Being passionate about your people and what they do is a key characteristic of a leader
Integrity implies a reasonable consistency between beliefs and actions.
CEOs frequently send one message to employees, another to Wall Street, and still another to customers.
The traits of good leaders—humility, courage, love, passion, and integrity—are essential to the roles they play in the workplace.
I believe that leaders have three main roles. They are responsible for interpreting the organization’s shared values and principles. They are senior advisers to everyone in the organization. And they are the collective conscience, pushing the organization to reach its goals and live up to its ideals.
I suggest that leaders exercise tight control only on issues that affect the shared values of an organization. These shared beliefs are the bedrock of an organization’s sense of community. They are the glue that holds everything together.
Shared values are not necessarily the same as the values held by individuals within the organization. This potential discrepancy means two things. First, an organization’s values must be clearly and thoroughly defined. Second, when a conflict arises between the values of an individual and those of an organization, the shared values of the larger group must prevail.
It is important for leaders to distinguish an organization’s unchanging principles from its constantly changing strategy. The former is a function of moral precepts that have been tested and proved over the millennia. The latter is tied to market conditions and the strengths and skills of an organization.
Turning traditional corporate executives into servant leaders can be a wrenching process.
I wonder how many of these leaders ever stop to realize that 90 percent of the people in their organizations never got a chance to exercise their natural gifts and fulfill their potential.
One of the jobs of a great organizational leader is to make everyone on the team better.
People want to be part of something greater than themselves. They want to do something that makes a positive difference in the world.
People tend to act in ways that are consistent with their personal goals. Similarly, a company’s primary purpose—the real one, which isn’t necessarily the one written in official documents or etched on wall plaques—guides its actions and decisions.
Nineteenth-century philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill said, “Those only are happy who have their minds trained on some object other than their own happiness—on the happiness of others … on the importance of mankind, even on some act or pursuit followed not as a means for profits, but as in itself an ideal.”
Selecting a mission is crucial because it becomes an organization’s definition of success.
Every organization has a unique mission. Still, every modern, progressive, and socially responsible organization should strive to achieve three goals: ♦ To serve society with specified services or products; ♦ To operate in an economically sustainable manner; ♦ To achieve these results while rigorously adhering to a defined set of ethical principles and shared values.
the current fad of putting shareholder value at the forefront of mission statements has made serving society a secondary goal, at least for many publicly traded corporations. Many executives forget that “value” doesn’t necessarily have a dollar sign in front of it.
Serving society is an organization’s main reason for existing. This is why I prefer the words “serving” and “stewardship” to “selling” and “management.”
In the workplace, I make no distinction between “managers” or “management” and other employees. All employees are managers; all managers are employees. All are stewards.
Service not only helps an enterprise succeed; it also satisfies the altruistic impulse that is in all of us.
When a company gives a high priority to serving society, its employees are energized.
people want to be part of something greater than themselves. They want to do something that makes a positive difference in the world. Most employees do not consider making a profit for shareholders, or even making money for themselves, sufficient to satisfy this goal.
Corporations exist at the sufferance of society and consequently must have a broader and more meaningful purpose than simply making money.
A healthy profit is an integral part of any successful business, but it should not be the sole or even the primary reason the business exists.
Max De Pree’s analogy: “Profits are like breathing. Breathing is not the goal of life, but it is pretty good evidence of whether or not you are alive.”
Why should enriching shareholders be more important than producing quality products and selling them to customers at fair prices? What logic says that a company should put creating value for shareholders ahead of the economic well-being of its employees?
Clarence Darrow reinforced this view when he said, “The employer puts his money into … business and the workman his life. The one has as much right as the other to regulate the business.” Employees should share in the value they create.
Harvard Business School professor Lynn Sharp Paine says, “superior performance in today’s world has both a moral and a financial dimension. ”
“Keep living the principles and values even if no one else goes along with them or acknowledges your good work. We are trying to live this way, not because it will make us popular or successful or get others to go along with us. We are trying to live this way because it is the way we think life in our Hungarian business ought to be lived.”
If serving society is given the same priority as creating value for stakeholders, it will most likely change the behavior of corporate leaders in a positive way. It might well reduce the pressure to “cook the books” or indulge in other illegal and immoral actions.
