This is considered the seminal work in the fast-growing, and very important field of servant leadership research. Driven by Herman Hesse's Journey To The East story of a leader humbly serving his followers, Greenleaf rambles through twenty years of often stream of consciousness, but always important thoughts on what it means to truly be a servant leader in several important cultural contexts. Basically, everything in this study boils down to Greenleaf's passionate conviction that every great leader must first be and truly always be seen as servant first. To put it mildly, there is strong, substantive and valuable stuff here that builds a firm foundation for servant leadership and, secondarily, followership research.
While talking to and about leaders, Greenleaf implicitly recognizes the intrinsic value of followers and the necessary service attitude of leaders toward followers. A servant leader must be servant of followers first. From the rave reviews of virtually all important leadership students, scholars and practitioners in all directions and at all levels and, from the now extensive research done in the SL area, it is obvious Greenleaf's work resonates loudly throughout the world.
So why do I find it so yawning, rambling and tedious? Why was it so hard to read?
It isn't because I disagree with scarcely a word Greenleaf offers. His ideas are critically important and ideas I strongly embrace as a follower trying hard to be a good and godly servant leader of the followers I serve. Given what I'm about to say, it is thoroughly ironic how desperately I long to be almost exactly what Greenleaf is trying so hard to encourage leaders like me to become...
My yawning at this book is categorically not because his ideas aren't important. Frankly, any voice able to stand and be heard against the overwhelming, ocean tide of writers offering more selfish perspectives on leadership is worth applauding and loudly promoting. These ideas are critically important. I wouldn't want to do anything to minimize them.
And it isn't because these ideas are necessarily boring or badly shared. Although the book isn't as linear, organized or laced with relevant application as I would normally find helpful, it isn't awfully done either. To even suggest such in the minds of some servant leadership fanatics would be the height of blasphemy! And I certainly wouldn't want to be considered a blasphemer...no sir, not me!
I guess the reason I yawned through most of this book is principally because these ideas are so utterly not original or innovative, not even in their first public presentations by Greenleaf back in 1977. More specifically to my point, Greenleaf's servant leadership conversation does not sufficiently get down to the critically core perspectives of the original servant leadership theorist, Jesus of Nazareth.
Even the chapter discussing servant leadership in the church is not helpfully driven by the most important Servant Leader of all. Frankly, I suspect Jesus of Nazareth would have found Greenleaf's definition of the church as "the institutionalization of humankind's religious concern" to be a woefully inadequate, theologically sad and thoroughly nauseating description of the spiritually powerful, gate-smashing body of believers for whom He left His home in heaven, sacrificed His life and was resurrected as the victorious conqueror of death and hell! Greenleaf's entire servant leadership church conversation revolves around the dusty, outward, institutional structures of the church and largely ignores the living, powerful, spiritual, utterly mysterious, inexplicable and wildly messy and miraculous body of Jesus followers. While again, I find nothing overtly objectionable in Greenleaf's servant leadership theorems and applications, and much that is good, solid and important criticism to be properly and respectfully received, I must admit to boredom with the superficiality and Jesus ignorance of most of it.
Greenleaf is categorically not the foundational servant leader energizing my passion and perspective on leadership and followership. I will interact with him as a seminal, valuable and well-recognized contributor to the servant leadership stream of conversation, but foundational he is certainly not. Others may well reject my minimization of Greenleaf, and still others may denigrate my silly, unscholarly passion for Jesus Christ as servant leader and first follower, but these will always, quite unapologetically remain the perspectives driving my research.
I do enormously value Greenleaf (as I value Kelley, Chaleff, Kellerman and so many other intelligent, hard-working, fellow-traveling and academically passionate friends), but Jesus of Nazareth (and what I know and learn of Him in the Bible and elsewhere) must supremely drive my life, leadership and followership research. To stand or study otherwise would be, for me, a completely irrational standing on sand.
While this perspective may seem more spiritual than scholarly to some, it is from here where I must intellectually (and in all other ways) approach my life and research. To paraphrase a follower exalting, life embracing, beer swilling, sometimes flat out wrong and dear Katie hugging, rebelliously leading and Jesus following guy named Luther, "here I stand, I will go no further."
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