Running Head: REFLECTION 1
Reflection
Tricia Williams
CLED 700
January 29, 2023
Dr. Allen England
REFLECTION 2
Introduction
Several authorities on servant leadership have suggested that to learn servant leadership,
individuals need to undergo a journey of self-discovery and personal transformation. The secrets
of servant leadership are gradually revealed to them through listening to their inner voices as
well as the voices of those who have discovered the truth. Despite these caveats about
understanding the true nature of servant-leadership, we must nevertheless provide a clear and
comprehensive, definition of servant-leadership to measure it.
A servant-leader may be defined as a leader whose primary purpose for leading is to
serve others by investing in their development and wellbeing for the benefit of accomplishing
tasks and goals for the common good. Being just a service-oriented person, in the traditional
notion of servanthood, does not qualify one as a servant leader. Howell (2003, p. 14) has
observed that "Doing menial chores does not necessarily indicate a servant leader. Instead a
servant leader is one who invests himself or herself in enabling others, in helping them be and do
their best." In addition, servant-leadership should not be equated with self-serving motives to
please people or to satisfy one's need for acceptance and approval. At the very heart of servant-
leadership is the genuine desire to serve others for the common good. In servant-leadership, self-
interest gives way to collective human development. Servant-leadership must not be a model for
weak leaders or “losers.” When the going gets tough or when difficult decisions must be made,
as is inevitable in all leadership situations, the servant leader must be just as tough-minded and
resilient as other kinds of leaders. What distinguishes servant-leaders from others is not the
quality of the decisions they make, but how they exercise their responsibility and whom they
consult in reaching these decisions.
REFLECTION 3
Proven Character
The concept of servant leadership seems to go back as far as we have written records,
with passages relating to the idea appearing in the New Testament, and the teachings of Islam.
Robert K. Greenleaf coined the term “servant-leader” in a 1970 essay entitled “The Servant as
Leader,” and the modern servant leadership movement was born (Frey, 2017). Greenleaf placed
at the center of his leadership paradigm neither skills, techniques, nor steps to success. Rather, he
said, “The servant leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to
serve, to serve first. The conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. (This person) is sharply
different from the person who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual
power drive or to acquire material possessions (Kumuli, 2017). For such it will be a later choice
to serve after leadership is established. The leader-first and the servant first are two extreme
types. Between them there are the shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of
human nature” (Frey, 2017)). A person who enters the Christian ministry becomes in a distinct
sense a steward of the gospel of God (Titus 1:7). A steward is one who is entrusted to care for
what belongs to another. A steward may be one who takes care of another person or who
manages the property of someone else. All Christians are stewards of the grace of God. But in
addition, in a peculiar sense a Christian minister is a steward of the “mystery of God,” which is
Christ, the Redeemer, the Messiah of God. In all faithfulness, the minister is called to “make
known with boldness the mystery of the gospel” (Eph 6:19, NRSV). Like Paul, he or she must
faithfully preach “the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of
the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church the
wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the
heavenly places” (Eph 3:8-10, NRSV). Greenleaf identified intention as the first necessary
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ingredient. However, anyone who is ever had a small child who was determined to help with
some chore knows that a desire to serve alone will not get a person all the way to leader. What
other qualities are needed? How do we become effective Servant-Leaders? Larry Spears, as
president and CEO of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, in his paper, On Character
and Servant Leadership: Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders, described these
characteristics (Jacobs, 2017):
Listening
Empathy
Healing
Awareness
Persuasion
Conceptualization
Foresight
Stewardship
Commitment to the growth of people
Building community as someone who has lived and breathed servant leadership, I think
Spears’ familiarity and insight on the topic may be unparalleled, so this list while not
exhaustive seems like the best place to start.
Doxological Motive
REFLECTION 5
Doxological motive is a passion for God's honor and a deep concern for the spiritual welfare
of others. These qualities provide a great foundation for servant leadership, but there are
certainly additional traits that would be useful for leaders to utilize in serving integrity, humility,
intelligence, passion, a sense of humor, and more. It is exciting to imagine all the wonderful
qualities that each of us can apply in our own unique way as we choose to serve and take up the
mantle of leadership. As cooperatives continue to strive to create a better world, a top-down
scheme is contrary to our desired goals of empowering local communities. Servant leadership
provides an approach and a framework that can help us serve our teams, help our teams serve our
co-ops, help our co-ops serve our communities, and help our communities serve the world today
so that we can indeed manifest the tomorrow we strive for. Roberts’s states, “In order to be a
good steward of God’s Story one must, among other things, give oneself to careful and
systematic study, both before and after ordination” (2018). This will occur not because he or she
is forced to do so, but out of a love for God and His people, the world He is working to redeem,
and out of an inescapable sense of responsibility. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the
attitude one brings to preparation for the ministry reveals much about what he or she thinks of
God, the gospel, and Christ’s Church. The God who became incarnate in Jesus and who made a
way of salvation for all gave His very best in the life, death, and resurrection of His Son. In order
to be a good steward, a Christian minister must respond in kind. Jesus told numerous parables
about stewards who did not recognize the importance of what had been entrusted to them (Mt
21:33-44; 25:14-30; Mk 13:34-37; Lk 12:35-40; 19:11-27; 20:9-18). How can you use the
characteristics of servant leadership in your life to serve those around you, especially your
cooperative board? How can your board use the characteristics to better serve the co-op? How
can our GM and other managers apply these principles to enhance their teams? How can our co-
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op be a better servant leader to our member-owners and our community? Just imagine if every
director, manager, and member-owner was able to better embody just one of these characteristics,
how that focus and influx of better service to others would take our boards, co-ops, and
communities to the next level and make all our lives better. That is the potential that co-ops and
servant leadership have and the future that I want to see. If we each make that commitment, I
will meet you there.
Divine Agenda
Divine agenda is defined as faithful stewards of the divine mandate to evangelization and
discipleship. To believe means to accept the free gift of salvation that God gives us in his Son,
which far surpasses anything we could deserve or accomplish (cf. Eph 2:3-10). Our life in Christ
is always a response to God’s initiative. Grace comes first; our part is to receive. “The life of the
Church should always reveal clearly that God takes the initiative, that ‘he has loved us first’ (1 Jn
4:19) and that he alone ‘gives the growth’ (1 Cor 3:7).”19 The invitation to believe in the Gospel
is always personal: it is not a moral program but the offer of communion with a person, Jesus.
“Heart speaks to heart,” as Cardinal John Henry Newman put it. The invitation is effective if it is
made by a joyful disciple, one who has found joy in responding to the Lord’s demands. The
evangelist presents the challenges of the Gospel not as the word of a superior to an inferior, but
of a friend to a friend. Smith describes, “Relationships are key to this whole process. We prepare
the ground by first establishing trust, and then we offer accompaniment to the sinner along the
challenging road to life in Christ” (2009). Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman at the
well (Jn 4:5-42) is a paradigm of evangelization. When the woman came to the well for her daily
task of drawing water, Jesus engaged her in conversation, showing that he cared for her as a
person. He spoke to her of “living water” that would quench her deepest thirst. As the
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conversation went on, he exposed areas of sin and roundedness in her life, implicitly calling her
to repentance: “you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” Yet
looking into his eyes, she saw no condemnation, only a love and mercy she had never
experienced before. By the end of their encounter she forgot all about her bucket, because she
had now drunk of the living water that water that is the Holy Spirit (Jn 7:37-39). Because of that
encounter the woman herself became an evangelist. She ran back to her village, exclaiming to
everyone who would listen, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done! Could he
possibly be the Messiah?” Her message was neither eloquent nor complete, yet it was
spectacularly effective. The joy of her new life was evident to all who saw her. This formerly
isolated, outcast person was now forgiven, healed and reconciled to God. So powerful was her
testimony that, as a result, the entire town came to faith in Jesus (Jn 4:39).
Conclusion
Servant-leadership is an attitude toward the responsibilities of leadership as much as it is a
style of leadership. It is most often presented and understood in juxtaposition to autocratic or
hierarchical styles of leadership. Servant-leadership considers the fact that traditional forms of
leadership are inadequate for motivating today's people to follow. In today's thinking about
effective, productive, and enduring organizations, we can reorganize, restructure, or reengineer
our organization to be more effective but it will not be successful for very long, unless change is
first built on the preeminence of human resources. Howell describes, “People and process will
always be more important than tasks and organizational structure in accomplishing goals and
productivity” (2003). Effective systems and processes are only effective if the people who make
them work are effective. Highly motivated and well-trained human resources provide the only
REFLECTION 8
assurance that any organization will be effective in accomplishing its goals. Servant-leaders
motivate followers through investing in them and empowering them to do their best.
References
Frey, M. (2017). Greenleaf's Legacy: Reflections on Being a Servant Leader. The Catholic
Library World, 87(4), 243-253.
Howell, D. (2003). Servants of the Servant: A Biblical Theology of Leadership. Eugene: Wipf &
Stock Publishers.
Jacobs, F. C. (2017). Leadership and Redemption. Society, 43(5), 22-24.
Kumuli, W. F. (2017). The case for servant leadership. New African. p. 18.
Roberts, D. (2018). The ECFFM Initiative: What Theological Schools are Teaching Us about
Faith, Finances, and Leadership. Theological Education, 51(1), 1-15.
Smith, K. (2009). A. Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic.
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