Should You Attend a Center for Servant Leadership: 5 Compelling Reasons

Everyone in a leadership position has room to grow, whether in developing new techniques or, perhaps more drastically, adopting a new framework for thinking about what it means to be a leader. If you’ve done any research into alternative models of leadership, chances are you’ve come across the concept of servant leadership.

In this article, we’ll break down what this school of thought is and why you might find great enrichment by attending a center for servant leadership.

Learning the Art of Servant Leadership

Before we dive into the reasons to attend a servant leadership center, it’s important to define what, precisely, servant leadership is.

In short, servant leadership is a style of leadership that imagines the leader as one whose role, above all, is to work for their community members, whether they be employee, volunteers in a nonprofit organization, or even clients. This might sound commonsensical – doesn’t a CEO work for stockholders, and don’t managers want team members to succeed? – but in reality, servant leadership is a radical alternative to mainstream management and leadership styles seen in the majority of companies and organizations.

A contemporary innovator of servant leadership, Robert K. Greenleaf, asserted that for most leaders, the welfare of community members is only a secondary priority, if it’s a priority at all. Even though a businessperson might not actively want their employees to fail, they’re more concerned about the company’s financial success and personal ambition at the end of the day.

In contrast, servant leaders put their constituents, employees, or community members ahead of themselves and ahead of the abstract idea of the organization. They typically focus on meeting employees where they are, putting their skills in service of others, and emphasizing their role as, well, a servant, instead of an authority.

As bold as this approach sounds, though, it might be more familiar to you than you think. Many principles of servant leadership are related to hugely influential spiritual leaders, from Dr. Martin Luther King Junior to Jesus Christ, for whom the essence of leadership was for the greatest to become the least and the least the greatest.

Now, I often get pushback when presenting this at a keynote or in a workshop. People say “but I want to make money”, “what about growing the company”, etc. I love these questions because they’re authentic and come from people showing where they are.

In my experience growing companies both locally and across the world, there is no better way to meet your business goals than with servant leadership. Outdated leadership or hierarchy can allow you to grow your business by 5% – 20%, but if you want to grow faster or higher, even unlocking hypergrowth, how do you do it? This is really only possible with a different leadership style that puts others first.

Why does servant leadership matter?

Amidst contemporary pushes for justice and equality, not to mention the ever-changing needs of all organizations and communities, servant leadership is more relevant than ever.

Large-scale trends like the Great Resignation have indicated that many people are dissatisfied with traditional work culture, seeking instead environments that fulfill them. By the same token, more and more organizations, from churches and social clubs to businesses and colleges, are trying to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Both of these changes demand leaders who work more for their communities than for themselves, who are servants instead of tyrants. Servant leaders throughout history, by their nature, always look to elevate others and treat everyone as equals, regardless of titles or backgrounds.

How can you learn servant leadership?

After that deep dive, you just might be wondering how you can cut your teeth in the world of servant leadership. After all, it isn’t as simple as going out and deciding to be a better leader!

Fortunately, there are many servant leadership centers throughout the country that allow people all over the world to try new ways of working with and for others.

What is a servant leadership center, you ask? In essence, these institutions offer professional and academic programs that allow students to dive into the philosophy and practice of servant leadership, including innovative leadership classes.

Such centers have had an immense impact on the spread of servant leadership more broadly. The Robert K. Greenleaf Center, for example, has done a lot of work to show people how servant leadership can be learned. They have programs and training for people, companies, and universities.

Other approaches to learning servant leadership include attending a keynote or workshop on the topic.

Here are 5 Compelling Reasons to Attend a Center for Servant Leadership

If you’re still on the fence about attending a servant leadership center, read on to learn why it may be an incredible and enriching opportunity.

Awareness Of Societal Challenges

One of the most significant reasons to attend a servant leadership center is to become better acquainted with the social issues that inflect leadership situations.

Servant leadership begins from the understanding that no organizational environment exists in isolation. It is always shot through with the problems of the society around it and the issues of the people within it.

This is most obvious when it comes to social ills like racism, sexism, and ableism. Many organizations face issues with updating their culture to support those with diverse opinions and backgrounds – and for servant leaders to be successful in working for their communities, they need to spend time learning about how such issues intersect with organizational management.

The same applies to personal issues. If people are going to bring themselves authentically to an organization and grow in it, they will do so with all their needs, from financial responsibilities to mental health challenges to different stages of raising a family to dreams and aspirations. For servant leaders to be successful, they must become acquainted with the way people express these challenges and aspirations, and know how to respond appropriately.

Servant leadership centers address both of these important issues by providing students an opportunity to engage with the issues affecting contemporary communities and determine servant leadership’s place in responding to them.

Insight Into Servant Leadership Implementation Framework

Another benefit of servant leadership centers is that they give students knowledge right from the source, which allows them to better implement service methods/

Classes give trainees the chance to talk with other leaders in the real world who practice servant leadership. This gives them a better understanding of how different organizations practice servant leadership.

Ideally, this opportunity will allow students to design a roadmap by which they can implement the proven methods of successful leaders in their organization or community, letting them blend their perspectives.

Opportunity to Collaborate, Co-Learn

In keeping with servant leadership’s emphasis on collaboration, centers for servant leadership are excellent opportunities to become co-learners.

As passionate as you may be about servant leadership, it is difficult to develop your skills when you don’t have like-minded partners to share this process with. Working alone can only get you so far. But by working in a learning center in a communal setting, you can share resources, share your experiences, work on projects, and build relationships that will help you for years to come.

Heightened Levels of Strategic Thinking & Innovation

Like any educational setting, a servant leadership center allows you to create a “laboratory” for developing your leadership style from reactive to proactive.

While you can learn a lot about servant leadership from personal reflection and isolated reading, these ideas can truly grow when you build on other people’s shared knowledge, experiences, and stories.

Doing so allows you to improve the culture of your organization or community proactively. Instead of simply regurgitating the existing values of your organization, you can question, develop, and innovate them.

For instance, the learning environment of a servant leadership center might prod you to consider the ethical concerns and accountability issues at play in your organization’s culture. By the same token, it might drive you to consider what it might look like if your organization genuinely wanted to impact people’s lives positively.

Either way, in reactive and reactionary environments, such modes of inquiry can be discouraged, but servant leadership centers allow you to develop these innovative ideas in new and exciting ways.

Developing “Thought Leadership”

The final reason to attend a center for servant leadership is to bolster your capacity as a “thought leader.”

Thought leadership, in short, is the idea that ideas do not just spring out of nowhere – they become mainstream due to the power of a small number of people.

In the case of servant leadership, it is challenging to shift an organization’s culture from one of self-centered achievement to community-oriented care all by oneself. However, by learning tools in thought leadership, you will be more adept at modeling the principles of servant leadership in your community.

Now, to be sure, the concept of thought leadership can connote a degree of authority-driven leadership, which servant leadership seeks to avoid. However, this is precisely why it is so crucial to learn thought leadership techniques at a servant leadership center: they provide settings to utilize your platform for change and inspire others to act without aggrandizing yourself.

FAQs

In case you have any lingering questions about servant leadership, read below for more information.

What are some centers for servant leadership?

Some prolific servant leadership centers include the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership (founded by Terre Haute native Robert Greenleaf well after his major essay), the Spears Center for Servant Leadership (founded by Larry Spears), Seton Hall University’s Center for Vocation and Servant Leadership.

I personally prefer servant-leader organizations, such as CEO Netweavers, to grow my leadership skill by walking with the lives of individuals that make a conscious choice, come from major institutions, and that have a natural feeling for the modern practice of this ancient philosophy.

What programs do centers for servant leadership offer?

Typically, centers offer a variety of programs in the different dimensions of servant leadership. The Greenleaf Center, for instance, offers a program on the foundations of servant leadership, the practice of servant leadership, and methods for implementing servant leadership. They sometimes have collaborative partnerships with those of us that full-time executives and yet have a passion for teaching and sharing insights from a myriad of sectors on this leadership approach.

Are the training sessions conducted online or offline?

Different centers maintain different policies. The Greenleaf Center, for example, offers online programs, while the Spears Center offers in-person training. I’m also brought in to give private workshops to companies and teams, both via Zoom and in-person.

Final thoughts

Servant leadership is one of the most relevant innovations in organizational culture in recent years, and it is only poised to grow. If you want to bring a spirit of service, compassion, and mutuality to your community, it might be time to start a servant leadership program. You can start today!

Kurt Uhlir

Kurt is a globally-recognized 10x marketer, operator, and speaker. He has built and run early-stage companies as well as those over $1B in annual revenue, assembled teams across six continents, been part of the small team leading an IPO ($880M), and participated in dozens of acquisitions. His unique experience being inside hundreds of high-growth companies with the opportunity to analyze, scale, make changes of leadership, and oversee operations has labeled him “the king of scaling companies”. This has enabled him to advise thousands of leaders, from startup founders to the President of the United States.