A man I know who heads a successful gourmet coffee company talks about sitting in his office and knowing exactly what is happening throughout his company as a function of the sounds he hears through the wall and the smell of the coffee being produced. He doesn’t know exactly how he is able to gain this appreciative sense of the company’s overall health at any one point in time, but firmly believes that this unifying sense of his company is essential to his leadership role in this organization.
Another leader suggests that she appreciates the overall, coherent intentions and dynamics of the school she heads when she serves in the role of teacher. To be a leader she needs to get out of her office and head into a classroom. Like the coffee maker, she can sense and fully appreciative the quality of education in her school only by participating directly in this educational process as a teacher and co-learner. When she is not teaching, the school often seems to lose its unity for her and she feels out of touch with its essential properties.
Conclusions
We find a parallel analysis to Teilhard’s and Eisler’s notions of leader as lover and partner in Robert Greenleaf’s description of leader as servant:xiii
A fresh critical look is being taken at the issues of power and authority, and people are beginning to learn, however haltingly, to relate to one another in less coercive and more creatively supporting ways. A new moral principle is emerging which holds that the only authority deserving one’s allegiance is that which is freely and knowingly granted by the led to the leader in response to, and in proportion to, the clearly evident servant stature of the leader. Those who choose to follow this principle will not casually accept the authority of existing institutions. RATHER, THEY WILL FREELY RESPOND ONLY TO INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE CHOSEN AS LEADERS BECAUSE THEY ARE PROVEN AND TRUSTED AS SERVANTS. To the extent that this principle prevails in the future, the only truly viable institutions will be those that are predominantly servant-led.
