This is a contemporary version of the essay that started it all. Powerful, poetic and practical. "The Servant as Leader" describes some of the characteristics and activities of servant-leaders, providing examples which show that individual efforts, inspired by vision and a servant ethic, can make a substantial difference in the quality of society.
This book brings the best of leadership theory and research together with biblical reflection and examples of leadership in action to offer a practical guide to Christian leaders. Combining expertise in leadership studies and biblical studies, Justin Irving and Mark Strauss explore how leadership models have moved from autocratic and paternalistic leader-centered models toward an increased focus on followers. The authors show how contemporary theories such as transformational leadership, authentic leadership, and servant leadership take an important step toward prioritizing and empowering followers who work with leaders to accomplish organizational goals. Irving and Strauss organize their book around "nine empowering practices," making it accessible to students, church leaders, and business leaders. Integrating solid research in leadership studies with biblical and theological reflection on the leadership ideas that are most compatible with Christian faith, this book is an important resource for all Christian students of leadership.
Servant Leadership in Nursing: Spirituality and Practice in Contemporary Health Care embraces the philosophy that a true leader, in any venue, must be a servant of those he or she leads. This text includes current information on the relevance of servant leadership for nurses practicing in a health care setting with extensive literature review on leadership in nursing and healthcare as well as on servant leadership. This unique text also includes many powerful and poignant perceptions and experiences of servant leadership elicited in tape-recorded interviews with 75 nursing leaders currently practicing in the contemporary healthcare system.
This book explores the concepts from Scripture for Servant leadership and compare these findings with contemporary models of servant leadership. It is an examination of Christian leadership for the contemporary world in its global and increasing secular context. Leadership studies typically view leadership externally from the results. This is a good beginning but leadership needs to also view the inside of leadership in the person of the leader. Scripture is uniquely qualified in this area since its first concern is the person who leads not just in leadership behaviors. The author uses examples from both the Old and New Testament to establish a new shepherd model of leadership that moves beyond the servant mode to the mode of caring direction. This model will provide scholars and researchers as well as leaders themselves with a way of leading that overcomes negative forms of leadership which lead to failure.
In today's political environment with the emphasis on testing, standards, and accountability, teachers can easily feel frustrated by the amount of time and resources left over for teaching-for guiding students not only in academics but also in character education. Educators can find themselves losing focus of what initially inspired them to teach. Teachers as Servant Leaders provides pre-service teachers and those currently in the profession with a renewed perspective of not just being a content expert or classroom/behavioral manager, but leaders within their own classrooms, school buildings, and local communities.
Servant Leadership addresses a fundamental concern of the contemporary church by asking pertinent questions of the New Testament: Who became a leader in the Jesus movement and in Pauline Christianity? What was the social status of these leaders in the outside world as compared to the importance of such social status within the faith community? What practices characterized their leadership within the communities they served? The book explores models of leadership in the New Testament s two prime exemplars, Jesus and Paul, and in their respective communities of faith. It studies both Paul s statements and actions with regard to leadership issues with specific church communities, using Thessalonians, the Corinthians, the Galatians, and the Philippians correspondence as case studies in the practice of leadership. It concludes with a discussion of leadership challenges in the modern church and how a Pauline or Deutero-Pauline model can work for us today. The author shows how understanding one s followers, as well as the goals and purposes of the group one leads, is a fundamental function of leadership today, even in the corporate world. Similarly, although we expect Christian leadership to be confrontational and assertive at times, it must also be open to creating opportunities for others to exercise their gifts and, therefore, their leadership. Good leaders move others to respond to their own personal calls and commitments.
In The Spirit of Servant-Leadership editors Shann Ferch and Larry Spears present an elegant and powerful approach to the nature of the leader-follower dynamic, with a specific focus on many of the most radical, life-affirming, and transformative facets of the servant-leader. In essence, The Spirit of Servant-Leadership speaks to the soul of humanity by gathering a bright symphony of voices, including some of the current thought-leaders of contemporary leadership. Among the many voices in this volume, Peter Block questions the very nature of leadership and draws people to more deeply understand the subtlety, humility, and self-transcendence required to develop one another, individually and collectively. Larry C. Spears delves into the rich earth of holistic servant-leadership, and creates multidimensional growth and healing for the heart, mind, and spirit. Margaret Wheatley calls people to deeply consider the interior formation of leaders that create greater transparency, less command and control, and more willingness to be sincerely changed by others. James Autry unveils important truths about the process of insight involved in true servant-leadership, and Shann Ferch speaks to the nature of intimacy and the profound questions of forgiveness between people, cultures, and nations. Robert Greenleaf, former AT & T executive and the contemporary founder of servant-leadership said, "Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams." The Spirit of Servant-Leadership affirms people in all the complexity and nuance of the human endeavor, and helps renew in readers the ability to dream great dreams. +
This book is an introduction to servant leadership. The author argues that servant leadership is ethical, practical, and meaningful. He cites the universal importance of service, defines servant leadership, compares the power model of leadership with the service model, describes some key practices of servant-leaders, explores the meaningful lives of servant-leaders, and offers questions for reflection and discussion. The new second edition of the book provides additional quotations and examples; summaries of scholarly definitions of servant leadership and research on the impacts of servant leadership in the workplace; an appendix on servant leadership compared with other ideas or theories of leadership; and a list of sources for those who wish to explore servant leadership further.
