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Dealing with Difficult People

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Serving Up:

The Overlooked Half of Servant Leadership
Wesley K. Willmer | Outcomes, May/Jun 2007

"Servant leadership" is a buzzword both in Christian and secular circles. Almost all position descriptions—from hourly employees to the CEO— cite servant leadership as a valued characteristic and an important qualification for the job. It's a concept we readily accept, but is it possible we should give more thought to what it means and how it should influence our lives?

One aspect of servant leadership is commonly applied to every employee—that is, each person ought to be viewed as a leader within his or her realm of influence. Another prevalent principle is: Do whatever is necessary to empower and support those who report to you.

To be effective, then, managers are urged to perform duties that depict a servant-like attitude. This "serving down" notion suggests assisting subordinates by crawling under a desk to plug in a computer, staying to clean up after a major event, arriving early for a meeting to make coffee and tidy up the room, or coming in on the weekend to help process a mailing list.

Is it possible that by viewing servant leadership as serving down, we're overlooking and missing out on potentially the most important half of servant leadership—serving up?

The servant leadership concept can be traced back to 1970, when Robert Greenleaf published an article titled "The Servant as Leader." Greenleaf suggests that the sign of a true servant leader is the growth of the people being served. He went on to produce a book in 1983, Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness. Writings on servant leadership now abound, from both Christian and secular perspectives, but that literature focuses exclusively on the leader's role in serving those who are under him or her.

The premise of this article is that we're overlooking the most important part of servant leadership when we dwell on serving down, and we miss out on the full potential of servant leadership, which also involves serving up. The inclination is natural for Christians, because we're accustomed to the image of Christ washing the disciples' feet as an example of servant leadership. And it's easy to forget he was here, first and foremost, as he said, "to do the will of Him who sent me" (John 6:38).

True servant leadership means serving in all directions, 360 degrees, not just serving those below us or expecting those above us to meet our needs. The command in Mark 9:35 doesn't say that those who would be first should be the servant of their subordinates, but rather that they "should be servants of all."