Servant Leadership Behaviors
On Friday, I attended a Winsights Executive Roundtable to learn from James Sipe, author of Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership. “Simply put,” Sipe says, “it is the leader’s commitment to serving others that matters most of all.”
I’m enthusiastic about this new book because it’s practical, walking step-by-step through the execution required for each pillar:
- Person of Character
- Puts People First
- Skilled Communicator
- Has Foresight
- Is a Systems Thinker
- Leads with Moral Authority
As James articulates so well, leadership goes astray without the first pillar, being a Person of Character. The last pillar, Leads with Moral Authority, is earned once pillars 1 though 6 are consistently practiced.
Often people ask, “Does servant-leadership work?” James shared some great statistics comparing Jim Collin’s good-to-great companies against comparable servant-lead companies. The results were astounding. Over the same 10-year period, the good-to-great companies had a 17.5% pre-tax portfolio return while the servant-lead companies experienced a 24.2% return. James calls the servant-lead companies better-than-great companies!
What are your thoughts on servant-leadership? Have you heard of the concept before? If not, you might enjoy these excerpts.