These days, the buzzword in leadership is servant leadership. Especially when the leader is a religious leader, servant leadership is considered essential. Yet few leadership styles are as misunderstood and misapplied as servant leadership. Fundamentally, a leader and a servant are opposing concepts. If a leader serves, he cannot lead; if a servant leads, there is no one to follow. Against this seemingly self-evident principle of leadership, how, then, should servant leadership be understood and practiced?
The foundation of leadership is altruism. A leader does not lead an organization and its followers for personal gain. The goal of leadership is to make others successful. Servant leadership means respecting people, respecting what they value, and helping them achieve what they pursue so that they may succeed. Depending on character, values, and culture, people respond to a leader’s demands in vastly different ways. Some people move only when given strong commands, while others act only when approached gently. A leader must influence followers in the most effective way so that they take action. Making them successful—that is servant leadership.
If one ignores this and assumes that servant leadership simply means lowering oneself beneath others and running petty errands for them, try it. Leaders of that kind will ruin the organizations they lead and will not lead a single member to success. Becoming a servant is a leadership principle that focuses on making others successful; it does not refer to a leader’s position or demeanor. If a leader behaves in a servile and submissive manner, there will be no followers who respect or follow him.
In 1984, Lou Whittaker led a team of five professional climbers to Mount Everest. They established their final camp at 8,230 meters above sea level. Only about 600 meters remained to reach the summit. Then a problem arose: their food, water, and oxygen ran out. Leadership shines through problem-solving. Whittaker sent the two strongest team members down to the previous camp to bring back food, water, and oxygen tanks. He himself stayed behind to care for the two most exhausted team members.
When the two returned with supplies, however, they no longer had the strength to attempt the summit. Meanwhile, the two exhausted members who had rested at camp had recovered their strength and were burning with determination to summit Everest. Whittaker made a critical leadership decision: he sent the two who had regained their strength to the summit and remained at camp himself to care for the others.
Those two climbers achieved the historic feat of becoming the first Americans to summit Everest. When reporters asked Whittaker, “Why didn’t you summit with the two who had regained their strength?” his answer was clear and simple: “As the team leader, my job was to get my team members to the summit of Everest.”
A servant does not serve himself; a servant serves his master. A leader’s goal is not his own success, but the success of the people he leads.