Servant Leadership from Within
Finding Your Voice in the University
What?
Me a leader?
What?
Me a leader?
MINION: Someone who is not powerful
or important and who obeys the orders of
a powerful leader or boss
Biblical view
of the Body
I Corinthians 12
Unity and Diversity in
the Body
…God has placed the
parts in the body, every
one of them, just as he
wanted them to be.
If they were all one
part, where would the
body be?…
John 17:20-23
Jesus Prays for All Believers
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for
those who will believe in me through their
message, that all of them may be one, Father, just
as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be
in us so that the world may believe that you have
sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave
me, that they may be one as we are one— I in
them and you in me—so that they may be
brought to complete unity. Then the world will
know that you sent me and have loved them
even as you have loved me.
John 13:34-35
"A new commandment I give to you, that
you love one another, even as I have loved
you, that you also love one another. By
this all men will know that you are My
disciples, if you have love for one
another."
George Fox University
Our Vision
• To be the Christian university of choice known for
empowering students to achieve exceptional life
outcomes.
Our Mission
• George Fox University, a Christ-centered community,
prepares students spiritually, academically, and
professionally to think with clarity, act with integrity, and
serve with passion.
Our Values
• Students First
• Christ in Everything
• Innovation to Improve Outcomes
Our Promise
• At George Fox, each student will Be Known – personally,
academically and spiritually.
George Fox University
Our Core Themes:
• Excellence in liberal arts foundation
• Excellence in professional preparation
• Christ-centered community
• Local and global engagement
Biblical view of the Body
 All functions are important
 Many that are least visible
are most essential
 Easy to think otherwise
 Easy to dismiss our role
 Easy to be envious
“Wish Dreams” of Community
“Innumerable times a whole Christian community has
broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream …
But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely
as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian
fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great
disillusionment with others, with Christians in general,
and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves … the very hour of
disillusionment with my brother becomes incomparably
salutary, because it so thoroughly teaches me that neither of
us can ever live by our own words and deeds, but only by
that one Word and Deed which really binds us together–the
forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. When the morning mists
of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian
fellowship.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
As followers of Christ, as servants in his
story, as servant leaders, we take up the
challenge:
Our common work, our common mission, our
common vocation, is to live into the unity that
Christ calls all his followers to, here in this
part of the real world, in all the messiness
and “jerkiness” each of us contributes, and
allow ourselves to be formed in the process of
serving one another, thereby offering a glipse
of the Kingdom that is both now and not yet.
The Body of Christ: Now and Not Yet
David is our Destiny
Chris is our Current Reality
Three Lenses to View Your Work
 Written JOB DESCRIPTION
 How you THINK about your work
 How you GO ABOUT DOING your work
The people who make a
difference in the lives of
students and staff and provide
daily leadership –
are not the ones with the most
credentials, the most fame, the
loftiest titles, or the most
awards.
They’re people like you who
lead from the middle.
Three Key Understandings
 Leadership is relationship
 Leadership is everyone’s business
 Leadership development is selfdevelopment
(Kouzes & Posner, 2003)
Leadership is relationship
 It’s not about position
 It’s about relationships and
influence
 It’s about working and learning with
everyone you touch in the
organization
 Individuals who lead from the
middle enhance those relationships
 Those relationships, in turn,
strengthen the community
Leadership is everyone’s business
 Who do you influence?
 What do you have to share?
 How do you make a difference daily?
Think—Pair—Share
 Who do you or can you influence?
(above, below, and beside you)
 What opportunities do you have to
support others and help them grow in
this organization?
 What is the unique contribution
and view you provide?
Leading from the middle
 A new way of thinking about
collaborative leadership
 Leading as a peer, not a superior
 Using persuasion, influence,
relationship skills, and wisdom to
achieve the desired outcome
 Influencing others to accomplish
things that none of them could
accomplish – at all or as well individually
Robert K. Greenleaf
Career:
38 Years at AT&T, largely in management training and
development
25 Years consulting on Servant Leadership thereafter
Coined the term Servant-Leader in 1970s
Inspiration:
Hermann Hesse’s short novel Journey to the East in 1960s
 Account of a mythical journey by a group of people on a
spiritual quest
True leadership stems first from a desire to serve
Essays:
The Servant as Leader (1970)
The Institution as Servant (1972)
Trustees as Servants (1972)
Greenleaf: “The Servant-Leader”
The servant-leader is servant first… It
begins with the natural feeling that one
wants to serve, to serve first. Then
conscious choice brings one to aspire to
lead. That person is sharply different
from one who is leader first, perhaps
because of the need to assuage an
unusual power drive or to acquire
material possessions…
25
Servant-first and other people’s
priorities
The difference manifests itself in the care
taken by the servant-first to make sure
that other people’s highest priority needs
are being served.
26
The best test of a servant-leader
Do those served grow as persons?
Do they, while being served, become
healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous,
more likely themselves to become
servants?
27
Caring for the least privileged
And, what is the effect on the least
privileged in society? Will they benefit
or at least not be further deprived?
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29
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Ten Characteristics
Listening
Empathy
Healing
Awareness
Persuasion
Conceptualization
Foresight
Stewardship
Commitment to the Growth of People
Building Community
Introduction > Background > Characteristics > Paradoxes > Practice > Examples > More
†
© 2008 Benjamin Lichtenwalner
Characteristic Breakout
Breaking out Spears characteristics into 3 dimensions
SERVANT-LEADER
Servant
Leader
Listening
Stewardship
Awareness
Empathy
Commitment to People
Persuasion
Healing
Building Community
Conceptualization
Foresight
Introduction > Background > Characteristics > Paradoxes > Practice > Examples > More
†
© 2008 Benjamin Lichtenwalner
In a group where individuals lead
from the middle, you’ll see them . . .
 Take the time to read each other’s cues and
adjust their own behavior in supportive ways
 Demonstrate mutual respect in the way they
share observations, raise questions, participate
and reveal their professional selves
 Reinforce and support both collective and
individual needs and priorities
 Remain resilient in periods of stress
 Repair breakdowns when they occur
Remember . . .
A leader is anyone who engages in
the work of leadership.
Everyone has the potential and
right to be a leader.
Leadership is a shared endeavor.
(Lambert, 1998)
Harvesting Examples
THINK of a story about somebody
else—not you—at GFU,
who demonstrated an aspect
of Servant Leadership.
Describe it. Be very specific.
NO NAMES!
Your Perspective Matters:
Home for Sale
Your Perspective Matters
What is Trust?
Positive expectation
Regarding others’ behavior
(Kramer & Lewicki, 2011)
Individuals’ “expectations, assumptions,
or beliefs about the likelihood that
another’s future actions will be
beneficial, favorable, or at least not
detrimental to one’s interests”
(Robinson, 1996)
What Breaks Trust?
 Disrespectful behaviors
 Communication issues
 Unmet expectations
 Ineffective leadership
 Unwillingness to acknowledge
 Performance issues
 Incongruence
 Structural issues
Fraser, 2010
38
What restores broken trust?
 Apologies
 Explanations
 Penance
 Forgiveness
 Reinstatement
 Creation of social structures
(Kramer & Lewicki, 2011)
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What grows presumptive trust?
 History of interactions
 Common group identity
 Common understanding of
interdependence of different roles
 Rule-based “oughts” spelled out
and match practice; people
socialized into the “oughts”
 Strong leadership
(Kramer & Lewicki, 2011)
40
Example: Covenant of Trust
I will strive to…
 Competence Trust
 Character Trust
 Communications Trust
41
Conflict:
Difficult Conversations
(Stone, Patton, Heen)
Three “conversations” to understand
 • The “What Happened?” Conversation
 • The Feelings Conversation
 • The Identity Conversation
Vexing and Discipleship
Look upon every fellow man
who tries or vexes you
as a means of grace
to humble you.
Andrew Murray, Humility, 1895
Discuss:
• What’s an aspect of trust in action
we can celebrate in our circle?
• What’s an aspect of trust we could
target for strengthening? How
might we go about that?
REMEMBER:
Leaders in the middle influence the
organization’s agenda, BUT
they control the organization’s
culture—
and the culture remains long after
strategic plans and initiatives come
and go.
Your Perspective Matters:
When the Organization Gets Off Track
Let’s get personal:
In your mind, lock into a decision or
change that you experienced as
“top-down” that you believed to be
out of line with the mission, vision,
and/or values of the university.
How did you respond?
Fight or flight?
“Go along to get along”?
Knuckle under?
Stew, grumble, and take swipes?
Lean into the work—inside
yourself and in the organization?
Hold a mirror up to yourself
and to the organization
Examine yourself, your motives
Ask questions
Share your view
Bring light not heat
Your Perspective Matters
“Positive Deviance”
 Constructive Deviance
(Vadera, Pratt, &
Mishra, 2013)
 Creative Insubordination (Haynes &
Licata, 1995)
 Artistic Insubordination (Buskey & Pitts,
2009)
 Tempered Radicalism (Meyerson, 2001)
Tempered Radicals
Committed to organization mission
Negative paths: exit, surrender, assimilation
Positive path: balance conformity and
marginalization to make change
Positive Approach:
Look for small wins
Seize spontaneous, unplanned opportunities
Pick right moment to defend key beliefs
Find allies
Work quietly and selectively deep in the system
Tempered Radical Strategies
“Linguistic Jujitsu” example
Core theme #3: Christ-centered community provides the
context for the work of faculty, staff, and students
Mission outcomes: Think with clarity, act with integrity
and serve with passion. Outcomes are to be pervasive in our
community, modeled by faculty and staff
Thinking with clarity: Ability to look carefully at evidence,
to realize and understand bias, to learn how to differentiate
and weigh the values of competing points of view, and to
recognize and hold these competing points in healthy
tension. Modeled for students by faculty, staff, and
administrators
Key belief: All are gifted and “spiritually called” to service.
Identify the gifts of students, faculty, staff, and
administrators--Equip for vocation to serve passionately
within giftedness.
Results: fruit of love, peace, joy, patience, kindness,
generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control
Servant Leader Takeaways
 Your story of your work: Part of God’s story
 Your role: Servant Leader
 Leadership is rooted in relationships
 We are a “Farley” body destined for “David”
 We are all “Jerks” with a glorious future
 Take responsibility
 Act, don’t react
 Bridge, link, connect
 Grow trust
 Covenant with others
 Walk humbly
Walk the Talk
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Check your self-perceptions with whom?
What will you commit to?
What is the timeframe?
What will it look like?
To whom will you be accountable?