In 1964, Robert K. Greenleaf founded The Greenleaf Center, an international non-profit organization that promotes the understanding and practice of servant leadership.
In 1964, Robert K. Greenleaf founded The Greenleaf Center, an international non-profit organization that promotes the understanding and practice of servant leadership.
The phrase “Servant Leadership” was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in The Servant as Leader, an essay that he first published in 1970, lauching the modern servant leadership movement. In that essay, he said: "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…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature."
Leadership Wisdom from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, by Robin Sharma
Servant Leadership: A Journey Into The Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness, Robert K Greenleaf, Paulist Press, New York, 1977.
Amazon UK, Amazon USA.
25th Anniversary Special Edition, Amazon UK, Amazon USA.
The Power of Servant Leadership - Robert K Greenleaf, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, California, 1998. Amazon UK, Amazon USA.
Also see The Greenleaf Center books
Synchronicity: the Inner Path of Leadership, by Joe Jaworski, Peter Senge (Introduction). Jaworski's account of the influence of synchronicity on his life is well written and interesting. He describes how he became dissatisfied with his successful life-style, he was a highly paid trial lawyer, and wanted to do something else. He resisted this, but details a number of influences and incidents that were important for his own development and growing awareness.
Amazon UK, Amazon USA. Read book review in PS Magazine.
In his second major essay, The Institution as Servant, Robert K. Greenleaf articulated what is often called the "credo." He said:
" This is my thesis: caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built. Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions - often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt.
If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them."