1.1 Servant Leadership – “Principles- Exploring the Journey”
The Servant Text:
“Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:43-45)
Greenleaf’s Test:
“The best test is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, not be further deprived?” (Servant Leadership, 13-14)
Course Introduction – What Do We Mean by “Journey”?
· Life and leadership is like a journey, not a casual stroll or a fifty-yard dash.
· Servant leadership is a choice. It is intentional and requires preparation.
· It has direction, goal, stopping points,and a destination.
· It includes many others on the way – not a solo trip across a vast expanse. It has its ups and downs. It curves, detours and dead-ends.
· And, servant leadership has its rewards, satisfaction and celebration.
Note: Throughout this course, hover your cursor over the red text for additional information.
Warm-Up Questions
If we were in a conference together we might start off by asking a few “warm-up” questions – for getting acquainted and thinking together. Let s try it in this distance learning course, ok?
Open My Notes (You will only need to open and save this document one time to your computer for future use as you input additional information throughout the SkillTrack course) and respond to the questions that interest you:
- Why did you choose this course on servant leadership?
- When you think about servant leadership, what comes to mind?
- Who do you know that is a good example of servant leadership?
- Where in your life/leadership do you want to apply this learning?
- What questions do you have about your own leadership practice?
- How could you involve others in servant leadership training?
What is our challenge in this course? We should, all of us together, consistently practice servant leadership as a lifetime journey. Jesus did, and He taught us to do so (see Mark 10:43-44, Commentary . Later in this course we are going to expand on a graphic illustrating the practice of servant leadership. Let’s take a brief preview of it now to set the stage for the real goals of this learning experience:
Unit 1. Leadership: Putting Yourself in the Picture
Unit 2. Leadership: What Others are Saying
Unit 3. Servant Leadership: Going the Second Mile
Unit 4. Walking the Servant Path with Jesus
Unit 5. Robert Greenleaf: Pioneer on His Journey
Unit 6. Greenleaf: Concepts and Characteristics
Unit 7. Practicing servant Leadership – A Pattern
Unit 8. Mapping Your Leadership Journey
Note: You can click on each Unit to jump directly to the corresponding Unit page.
Back to 1.0 Introduction / Next to Unit 1