The Path to Power for Servant Leaders
No one wakes up thinking, “I want other people to run my life.” Healthy people want power.
Normal people want a voice in decisions that touch our future. We want positive influence with the people we care about. We all want to be treated with respect, make our own decisions, and feel in charge of our lives.
The exercise of dominance perverts a healthy urge for power.
How Servant Leaders Use Power:
Servant leaders pursue the best interest of others.
Marcus Aurelius said, “What injures the hive injures the bee.” Today we say, “All that is best for you is what is best for all.”
Rabbi Hillel said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” Self-reliance is essential, but life lived solely for self is empty.
Reflection question: How can you serve the best interest of individuals and your organization today?
Servant leaders use power to elevate others.
The agnostic, Robert Ingersol said it best, “We rise by raising others…”
Challenge: List the things you’re currently doing to lift others. More important, how will you lift people today? Confucious said, “To rule a country of a thousand chariots, … there must be, … love for men.”
7 Questions that Lift People:
- What’s important to you?
- What do you want for yourself?
- What do you want for others? (Not what do you want others to do for you.)
- What have you tried? Ask this when someone comes with a problem.
- What would you like to do about that?
- What are your trying to accomplish?
- How can I help? (Don’t do people’s jobs for them.)
Ask questions that assume people are powerful.
Jesus taught servant leadership when he said, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
How can you exercise servant-power today?
Still curious:
The 5 Habits of Highly Effective Servant Leaders
Servant Leadership Distilled and Simplified
