The Servant

by

James C. Hunter

The Servant is a very inspiring story about the true meaning of leadership. I found this story to be skillfully written to capture daily lessons, powerful terms, concepts, principles, thoughts, ideas, etc. in each class session. The monk, who was once a renowned former business executive, Wall Street legend and published author, taught the class. He gave up riches and a wealthy lifestyle to live as a monk in a monastery.

Even though, the book was centered around John Daily a general manager of a large firm, it also depicted classroom sessions from other participants in John's class. John was advised by his pastor to attend a weeklong retreat at the Christian monastery after confessing to his pastor about his failures as a boss, husband, father and coach. As with John, each participant had their own personal reasons for attending the retreat where they all came from all walks of life. The participants included an army sergeant, a nurse, a preacher, a Hispanic principal, a black female basketball coach and so on. Each class session was a learning experience for all the participants including me. I felt like an invisible student in each class session. Each class was filled with knowledge, wisdom and understanding about the true meaning of leadership broken down into simple terms. Throughout the weeklong sessions, the meaning of leadership was defined and refined according to the daily teachings by the monk. The monk illustrated the old paradigm of leadership as top heavy beginning with the CEO, vice presidents, middle managers, supervisors, employees, and last but not least customers who were outside the box. Today, I find this same old paradigm leadership model to be in existence in most businesses. According to the monk, this model is built on power instead of authority. Power was defined as the ability to force or coerce people to do your will and authority was defined as a skill of getting people to willingly

do your will with personal influence. The new paradigm was illustrated as customers, associates (employees), supervisors, middle managers, vice presidents, and last but not least the CEO. By way of this new model or paradigm, the customers as well as the employees are always satisfied. The entire structure changes, whereas, the roles of each level manager will no longer be in the ruling or power position but the servant and/or authoritative position. The leadership model was illustrated as leadership, authority, service and sacrifice, love and will. Each level was defined and refined by classroom participants to see how it fitted within the leadership model. It was interesting to learn that the word, love, was defined and described as a verb instead of a noun. Overall, the participants learned that the true foundation of leadership was not in power but of authority that is built upon serving the employees as well as the customers.

As a future leader, I plan to apply the servant paradigm model as my leadership style instead of the old paradigm. In choosing to use the new leadership paradigm, not only will the employees be satisfied but customers as well. Also, this paradigm will increase morale among the employees that will be beneficial for the company as well as the employees. I am certain that use of the new paradigm will not only lower employees turnover rates but also generate a successful company or corporation.