Practicing Servant-Leadership: Succeeding Through Trust, Bravery, and Forgiveness

by Larry C. Spears (Editor), Michele Lawrence (Editor)

Overview

Practicing Servant-Leadership brings together a group of exceptional thinkers who offer a compendium of thought on the topic of bringing servant-leadership into the daily lives of leaders. Each contributor focuses on his or her area of expertise, exploring how servant-leadership works in the real world, using examples from a variety of organizations such as businesses, nonprofits, churches, schools, foundations, and leadership organizations. Highlights of the book's twelve essays include information on:

• how the idealistic vision of the servant as leader works even in the competitive world of business.
• encouraging leaders to begin by looking at what they themselves want to become and then to bring this knowledge into their daily leadership.
• how the principles of servant-leadership can enhance our understanding and practice of philanthropy.
• examining the board chairperson's especially vital role as a servant- leader.
• exploring what leaders learn from being followers.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780787974558
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	10/04/2004
Series:	Jossey-Bass Leadership Series , #215
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.36(w) x 9.70(h) x 1.17(d)

About the Author

Larry C. Spears is president and CEO of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership. Spears is the former managing director of the Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium, a cooperative association of twelve colleges and universities in the Philadelphia area. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including On Becoming a Servant-Leader, Reflections on Leadership, and Seeker and Servant from Jossey-Bass.

Michele Lawrence directs the annual international conference for the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership and acts as editor of the quarterly newsletter, The Servant-Leader. Together with Spears, she is coeditor of Focus on Leadership from John Wiley & Sons.

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Table of Contents

Foreword: Why Servant-Leadership Matters (Warren Bennis).

Preface.

Acknowledgments.

The Editors and The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership.

The Contributors.

1. Who Is the Servant-Leader? (Robert K. Greenleaf).

2. The Understanding and Practice of Servant-Leadership (Larry C. Spears).

3. The Unique Double Servant-Leadership Role of the Board Chairperson (John Carver).

4. Love and Work
A Conversation with James A. Autry.

5. Servant-Leadership and Philanthropic Institutions (John C. Burkhardt, Larry C. Spears).

6. On the Right Side of History (John C. Bogle).

7. Anatomy of a Collaboration: An Act of Servant-Leadership (Wendell J.Walls).

8. Servant-Leadership Characteristics in Organizational Life (Don DeGraaf, Colin Tilley, Larry Neal).

9. Toward a Theology of Institutions (David L. Specht with Richard R. Broholm).

10. Foresight as the Central Ethic of Leadership (Daniel H. Kim).

11. Servant-Leadership, Forgiveness, and Social Justice (Shann R. Ferch).

12. The Servant-Leader: From Hero to Host
An Interview with Margaret J. Wheatley.

Endnotes.

Recommended Reading.

Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Servant-leadership has never been more applicable to the world of leadership than it is today.”
—Ken Blanchard, author, The Heart of Leadership

“We are each indebted to Greenleaf for bringing spirit and values into the workplace.”
—Peter Block, author, Stewardship

“I congratulate the Greenleaf Center for its invaluable service to society and for carrying the torch of servant-leadership over the years.”
—Stephen R. Covey, author, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

“Robert Greenleaf takes us beyond cynicism and cheap tricks and simplified techniques into the heart of the matter, into the spiritual lives of those who lead.”
—Parker Palmer, author, The Courage to Teach

“Servant-leadership is more than a concept. As far as I’m concerned, it is a fact. I would simply define it by saying that any great leader, by which I also mean an ethical leader of any group, will see herself or himself primarily as a servant of that group and will act accordingly.”
—M. Scott Peck, author, The Road Less Traveled

“No one in the past thirty years has had a more profound impact on thinking about leadership than Robert Greenleaf. If we sought an objective measure of the quality of leadership available to society, there would be none better than the number of people reading and studying his writings.”
—Peter M. Senge, author, The Fifth Discipline