%% #📓 #📚 #🔴 %% **Title:** On Becoming a Servant-Leader: The Private Writing of Robert Greenleaf **Author:** [[Robert Greenleaf]] **Editor:** [[Don M. Frick]] [[Larry Spears]] **Citation:** Frick, D. M., & Spears, L. C. (Eds.). (1996). *On becoming a servant-leader: The private writing of Robert Greenleaf.* Jossey-Bass. https://amzn.to/3wVZAl3 --- # Abstract ~ 3 Sentence Summary # Structure # Notes & Important Ideas ## Introduction > [!quote] 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.... The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people's highest-priority needs are being served. ([Location 129](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=129)) - When successful, those served grow. They become healthier, wiser, more autonomous, and more likely to be servants themselves. - [[servant-leadership|Servant-leadership]] begins with an individual, who wishes to serve first, making a conscious choice to lead. - Institutions can also function as servants Ten critical characteristics of the servant-leader: 1. [[listening]] 2. [[empathy]] 3. healing 4. awareness 5. persuasion 6. conceptualization 7. [[foresight]] 8. stewardship 9. commitment to the growth of people 10. building community ([Location 153](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=153)) ## Part One - The Ethic of Strength > [!quote] > Erik Erikson calls it the crisis of ego integrity versus despair.' ([Location 208](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=208)) > [!quote] > second maturity.' ([Location 208](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=208)) > [!quote] > They have not only the necessity to make the effort to live by values that the game, as normally played, does not require, but they must ultimately ask the searching question, Did I do well enough? ([Location 209](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=209)) > [!quote] > Does naive simple directness have something that sophistication can never have? ([Location 241](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=241)) > [!quote] > it is the ability to state a goal and reach it, through the efforts of other people, and satisfy those whose judgment one respects, under conditions of stress. ([Location 263](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=263)) - Greenleaf's definition of management > [!quote] > To establish what is right, we do not rely nearly as much on tradition as we once did. ([Location 281](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=281)) > [!quote] > When we face a practical situation in which we feel obligated to act, each of us relies heavily on his own reasoning and intuitive powers. ([Location 282](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=282)) > [!quote] > People can hope that as they live from day to day, they will be able to see more clearly the infinite possibilities in each day, ([Location 302](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=302)) > [!quote] > Men and women can hope that their bonds to the limitless cosmos will grow stronger; ([Location 303](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=303)) > [!quote] > and that as they face opportunity or the necessity for decisions, they will do perhaps better than they know-the best they are humanly capable of at that moment, or come reasonably close to it. ([Location 304](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=304)) > [!quote] > "It is an art to drive hard with a light hand." ([Location 320](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=320)) > [!quote] > I am much surer about the verities of means and attitudes than I am about the rightness of any action or result. ([Location 325](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=325)) > [!quote] > nearly everybody who faces a choice or a decision wants to do right. ([Location 330](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=330)) > [!quote] > Rather, when facing a decision in which ethical choices are involved, the ethical dilemma can be summed up as follows: (i) one doesn't know enough and doesn't see enough choices to make a good choice possible; (z) one doesn't see either the problem or one's choices soon enough to use one's initiative prudently; (3) one lacks the perspective on the future to see the long-run consequences of the available choices; (4) one cannot see how to make one's way or fulfill other obligations if one elects what one regards as the best choice; (5) therefore,if one is ethically sensitive, one cannot act with the assurance of rightness enough of the time to maintain a sufficient belief in one's own ethical adequacy. ([Location 338](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=338)) > [!quote] > ethical dilemma just outlined as the need for strength. Strength is defined as the ability to see enough choices of aims, to choose the right aim, and to pursue that aim responsibly over a long period of time. ([Location 344](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=344)) > [!quote] > how a person should judge whether the contemplated action is the closest to right that one is capable of getting. ([Location 348](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=348)) > [!quote] > what I am and what I will become are molded largely by the opportunities I seek and the choices I make in the practical issues I face. ([Location 353](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=353)) > [!quote] > One is not wholly free to make choices that may be ideally right by some standards but destroy opportunity for somebody else. ([Location 355](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=355)) > [!quote] > The final act in decision making is the decision to decide. ([Location 369](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=369)) > [!quote] > the person who has chosen an aim thinks, speaks, and acts as if personally accountable to all who may be affected by his or her thoughts, words, and deeds. ([Location 373](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=373)) - Responsible pursuit > [!quote] > the pursuit of strength is not an option but an ethical requirement, and no one will be judged ethically adequate unless his or her own personal strength is the prime concern, right to the end of life. ([Location 380](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=380)) > [!quote] > Because the destination is unknown, one becomes interested in the search for the sake of the search, not with precise objects in mind that are expected to add up to something. The search is the thing; ([Location 413](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=413)) > [!quote] > The conscious mind, of whose functioning we have some direct awareness, is represented by the small amount protruding above the waterline, and the unconscious isrepresented by the vast mass below. ([Location 427](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=427)) - Iceberg analogy of levels of consciousness > [!quote] > When the unconscious storehouse of experience is sufficient on a certain question, it can exert a powerful enough influence to overrule the conclusions of the conscious mind and block visual perception, for instance, from actually communicating what the conscious mind clearly and logically knows is on the screen of vision. ([Location 430](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=430)) > [!quote] > by the time we reach maturity, we have a vast amount of experience stored away that effectively conditions perception and sometimes will not permit us to perceive correctly. ([Location 433](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=433)) > [!quote] > The search begins, then, with an awareness of one's vast mental resources beyond conscious memory and reasoning. ([Location 437](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=437)) > [!quote] > Simply practice being aware. Look, and be still. Feel, and be still. Listen, and be still. Give the practice of awareness time, time when you are alone. ([Location 440](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=440)) > [!quote] > Pay attention to your thoughts upon waking, upon going to sleep, during reveries. Keep a daily journal-write freely what comes to mind in response to the events of the day ([Location 441](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=441)) > [!quote] > Awareness is a combination of a constant conscious scanning of the environment and the concurrent searching question, "What would I do if I were in the action spots within my view?" ([Location 471](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=471)) > [!quote] > The capacity for intuitive response is constantly exercised by questioning oneself: "What is likely to happen? ([Location 473](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=473)) > [!quote] > The trap that sometimes brings failure to otherwise successful people is to substitute routine for awareness. ([Location 477](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=477)) > [!quote] > I can suggest five concerns that I have found helpful as a means for getting on with the search:The concern for a sense of responsibilityThe concern for openness to knowledgeThe concern to live and act now as if the future is nowThe concern for entheos and for personal growthThe concern for purpose and laughter ([Location 483](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=483)) > [!quote] > Responsibility, as the word will be used here, requires that a person think, speak, and act as if personally accountable to all who may be affected by his or her thoughts, words, and deeds. ([Location 491](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=491)) > [!quote] > A sense of responsibility is an attitude, a feeling. It is an overriding point of view, the color of the glasses through which one sees the world, the frame of reference within which one's philosophy of life evolves. ([Location 497](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=497)) > [!quote] > there is no virtue that, carried to the extreme, does not become a vice, ([Location 537](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=537)) > [!quote] > Whenever a person says to himself or herself, "Now I fully understand this," or "This is the final or complete truth," the chances are that he or she has blocked the possibility for further growth in knowledge or insight in that area. ([Location 551](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=551)) > [!quote] > Human growth in understanding is not a movement toward certainty; it is best described by words like perspective, enlargement, insight. ([Location 553](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=553)) > [!quote] > Am I sensitive to the needs and aspirations of all who may be affected by what I think, say, and do? And being sensitive, am I willing to say the words and take the actions that build constructive tension? ([Location 564](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=564)) > [!quote] > The best assurance of knowing is to be interested, to take the time to listen, and to have a developed skill for doing so. ([Location 566](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=566)) > [!quote] > Openness to knowledge helps one achieve the state in which one sees a wide enough range of choices in a practical situation and is able to choose the best one. ([Location 619](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=619)) > [!quote] > We don't really know a lot that we think we know. ([Location 637](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=637)) > [!quote] > no mathematical calculation ever takes one all of the way to a practical decision. There is always a gap, usually an important gap. The object of mathematical research is to reduce this gap, but it will always be there and it will always be an important discrepancy. The problem is how to fill the knowledge gap and get the best possible assurance of a good decision. ([Location 644](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=644)) > [!quote] > The gap is filled by a person who can bring a decision out of his experience. ([Location 656](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=656)) > [!quote] > He developed the conscious reasoning partly to check his intuitive judgment, partly because a world that makes a fetish of conscious rationality requires it. ([Location 659](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=659)) > [!quote] > Knowledge gets lost and has to be rediscovered. ([Location 667](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=667)) > [!quote] > New conscious knowledge disturbs our feeling of certainty about what we know. ([Location 699](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=699)) > [!quote] > most of us operate from day to day with a heavy dependence on intuitive decisions, then the intrusion of new conscious knowledge may confuse us, especially if it suggests a radical change of direction. ([Location 700](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=700)) > [!quote] > Anti-intellectualism. The set of anti-intellectualism is the tendency to disparage people who know, ([Location 716](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=716)) > [!quote] > Scholastic rigidity and exclusiveness. ([Location 724](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=724)) > [!quote] > Soaking up a lot of knowledge to be remembered is not the best preparation for wide-ranging decision making. ([Location 764](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=764)) > [!quote] > Your response is what is important to you, not what I say." ([Location 769](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=769)) > [!quote] > Learn to let the sense of the total situation speak first; set the critical-analytical apparatus in operation later. ([Location 776](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=776)) > [!quote] > if the student becomes preoccupied with the mechanical and analytical procedures before learning to see, he will never learn to see. The analytical wheels spinning will get in the way. ([Location 781](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=781)) > [!quote] > Listening might be defined as an attitude toward other people and what they are attempting to express. ([Location 821](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=821)) - Involves attention, constructive responses, and assessing the relationships among facts, opinions, attitudes and feelings that are expressed. > [!quote] > Everyone who aspires to strength should consciously practice listening, regularly. ([Location 827](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=827)) > [!quote] > Teach. ([Location 838](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=838)) > [!quote] > Act on insights. ([Location 839](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=839)) > [!quote] > Intuitive insights need to be supported, after the fact, with sound reasoning. This not only tests the validity of the insight but also helps give credence to intuitive insight in a world that likes to think it is wholly rational.Develop respect for thinkers. ([Location 842](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=842)) > [!quote] > Learn to withdraw and return. ([Location 845](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=845)) > [!quote] > withdrawal from the stress of the incident while he listens to the inner voice of inspiration. Then he returns to make that tremendous response: ([Location 848](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=848)) > [!quote] > alert to relevance. The cultivation of the intuitive, which is what openness is about, leads one close to the line that separates reality from unreality. ([Location 849](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=849)) > [!quote] > In practical affairs, where few actions are wholly right, the test of the consequences, through foresight, is crucially important. ([Location 857](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=857)) > [!quote] > it is possible for now to encompass much of what is conventionally called the future. ([Location 871](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=871)) > [!quote] > Foresight, filling in the gaps, ([Location 881](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=881)) > [!quote] > what anybody who is disposed to make the effort can do to improve his grasp of the future. ([Location 882](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=882)) > [!quote] > we bring the future into the present. ([Location 885](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=885)) > [!quote] > Awareness that comprehends the future views time as a process. ([Location 890](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=890)) > [!quote] > If I have a problem, if I've reached a block, my first stance should be, What questions can I ask about it? ([Location 903](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=903)) > [!quote] > the greatest foresight, the most difficult and most exciting, is the influence one wields on the future by helping the growth of people who will be in commanding positions in the next generation. ([Location 929](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=929)) > [!quote] > the future can be radically altered by the kinds of people now being prepared for the future. ([Location 933](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=933)) > [!quote] > entheos ([Location 945](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=945)) > [!quote] > roots-en, "possessed of," and theos, "spirit." ([Location 946](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=946)) > [!quote] > Entheos is the essence, the power actuating the person who is inspired. ([Location 948](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=948)) > [!quote] > It provides the prod of conscience that keeps one open to knowledge when the urge to be comfortable would close the door. ([Location 962](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=962)) > [!quote] > valid tests of growth of entheos? ([Location 985](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=985)) > [!quote] > concurrent satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the status quo. One is effective in what one is involved in and feels constructive in it and at the same time has an urge to be on with the search that will lead to new levels-and ([Location 985](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=985)) > [!quote] > concurrent feeling of broadening responsibilities and centering down. One's outlook and undertakings are expanding while at the same time one is more clearly formulating "this one thing will I do." ([Location 987](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=987)) > [!quote] > Purpose becomes pervasive in all thinking. ([Location 988](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=988)) > [!quote] > Interests are changing, both in pattern and in depth. ([Location 989](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=989)) > [!quote] > One becomes willing to be seen more as one is. ([Location 990](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=990)) > [!quote] > Whatever one's work is, one has a growing sense of achieving basic personal goals through it. ([Location 991](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=991)) > [!quote] > All of life becomes more unified. ([Location 992](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=992)) > [!quote] > All people are seen more worthy of being trusted and believed in and are seen less as beings to be used, competed with, or judged. ([Location 993](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=993)) > [!quote] > I think that he is saying that we cannot apprehend the ultimate, not with the knowledge that can be brought within any rational focus. But we "know" that it is the best, the great, thegood, and by this we mean a perfection beyond our comprehension or attainment. ([Location 1044](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=1044)) > [!quote] > in the area of ultimate purpose and its meaning, each person stands alone. ([Location 1050](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=1050)) > [!quote] > One way to view the question of purpose is to see it in ascending levels from depth to surface. Beginning with the greatest depth, where all rationality is stilled, the next level-symbol and essence-is one which a person can contemplate and, with the resources of the deep mind, can ponder; but when one attempts to bring it within the scope of language, it loses much of its essence. Then we come to the surface level of purpose at which people speak of aims, goals, and objectives and lay them out for common discourse. ([Location 1068](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=1068)) > [!quote] > I submit, with respect to purpose, that no person is to be trusted with any aim unless he or she has some contact, however tenuous, with ultimate purpose and unless his or her involvement is substantial at the level of symbol and essence. ([Location 1077](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B001469TYC&location=1077)) # Connections to Other Materials # Personal Reflection & Application --- # Other References ## Tags