Leaders explore mandate to embrace Servant Leadership for Vision San Diego

Servant Leadership Institute hosted a workshop on “Transforming Your Community as a Person of Influence”. The purpose of the leadership experience was to help leaders lead at a higher level.

We were inspired by the responses from the various members of the group. It reminds me that there is a deep hunger for the right kind of leadership in our society regardless of vocational domain.

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Tony Baron interviewed on The Mark Larson Show

Listen here to Monday’s broadcast with Tony Baron  on the Mark Larson Show here in San Diego (KCBQ-1210) discussing Servant Leadership and our 2012 Winter Conference!

“If ever there was a time for Servant Leadership, the time is now”–Mark Larson

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Sleepless in Seattle

This past week I had the privilege to see the inner sanctum of three major organizations in the Emerald City of Seattle that are known world-wide.  I entered the “geek” capital of the world when I visited the Microsoft Corporation, and what I saw blew my mind.

[Microsoft headquarters]

 I was not in the same line with them when God passed out our brains.  Wow!  Of course, I didn’t understand the entire “tech rap” that was taking place.  All I know is that they are continually innovating and creating new technologies that will help change the world for the better.

One such gadget is a pair of glasses that actually translates for you visually when you are in a foreign country hearing someone speaking a different language.  You can now actually communicate without Rosetta Stone!

[Kevin Turner]

But I was most impressed with their Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner.  He is a clear-cut, hands-down servant-leader bent on continuous improvement for self, others, and the world.  Over the next few blogs I will share some of his thoughts on leadership.

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Leaders beyond Power

His military coup in 1969 made his followers call him “king of kings in Africa.” His demise was cheered today by euphoric Libyans as many of them yelled that “the mad dog of the Middle East is dead.” The historic streets of Tripoli were filled with celebratory car horns and gunfire while other Libyans hugged and danced in the streets. Moammar Gadhafi’s death will certainly change the way Libyans live. The transitional Prime Minister, Mahmoud Jibril, proclaimed that “This is a time to start a new Libya, with a new economy, with a new education and with a new health system–with one future.”

I hope so. Power has a way of changing people into different channels of leadership. One such channel of utilizing power is resorting only to positional authority and enforcing that authority with threats and dehumanizing actions. Moammar Gadhafi or Saddam Hussein serve as the extreme political examples of using power in ways that destroy lives, create fear, and turn people into voiceless tools of selfish gain. To a lesser degree, the best positional power has to offer, even to a person of integrity, is simply the right to be followed by others because of one’s title. Control, in this channel, is best regulated by rules, policies, and organizational charts. As John Maxwell says in his book, The Five Levels of Leadership, “people follow because they have to.”

The greatest channel in utilizing power correctly is based on moral authority. This kind of leadership is rare in politics and the business world, but it does exist. One of the seven sages of Greece, Pittacus, led with moral authority. Today, 2,400 hundred years removed from Pittacus, Dan Cathy of Chick-fil-A and Colleen Barrett of Southwest Airlines influence their corporate teams in order make a difference in the world through moral authority. This kind of leadership may have positional authority, but people respond to these business leaders because of the kind of people they are, in public and in private. People with moral authority inspire, equip, and encourage others to dream beyond themselves in order to make this world a better place. They live by the motto “service above self” without becoming doormats. They seek lasting change, create authentic relationships, preserve with an non-anxious presence, inspire personal responsibility, invest in motivated people, and live to the applause of a higher authority than just stockholders.

All power eventually dissipates for the individual in charge. It always has, it always will. Ask Nebuchadnezzar of ancient Babylon or the modern Babylon dictator Saddam Hussein – wait, you no longer can. They are people who are both dead and without power. Positional power usually ends self-destructively while the power surrounding moral authority can last for decades, even centuries, beyond the leader’s life.

This channel of leadership is transformational for people, companies, and countries. This kind of leadership is called “servant leadership.”

Dr. Tony Baron
President, Servant Leadership Institute

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What Condoleezza Rice and Bono Have in Common?

One grew up in the segregated city of Birmingham, Alabama; the other grew up in Protestant-Catholic divided North Dublin, Ireland.  One is a black woman with extraordinary parents; the other is a white male who lost his mother at the age of 14. One has never married; the other has been married since 1982 and has four children. Both, however, are musicians–one for pleasure and the other for pay.  And both have changed the world by living for the sake of others.

I had the privilege to meet and then later hear Condoleezza Rice speak on “service, compassion, and philanthropy” at a packed dinner gathering recently at the Rancho Bernardo Inn.  The gathering was designed to support one of the most successful non-profit organizations that is conquering the issue of homelessness, North County Solutions for Change. Condoleezza Rice’s talk to the spellbound audience of business leaders, sponsors, and friends of Solutions for Change wasn’t lengthy.  It wasn’t long, but it was profound.  As the 66^th Secretary of State of the United States, Rice was the second woman and first African American woman to hold the office. Her words reflected her experience, her education, and her passion for servant leadership.  I realized I was listening to a true servant leader.

Bono comes from “across the pond,” wears his famous shades, and has a notable flair for getting people’s attention.  His fame is international, his band U2 fills stadiums around the world, and his heart, like Condoleezza Rice, goes out to the fatherless, the impoverished, and the abused.  He doesn’t hold a PhD in Soviet Studies like Dr. Rice, but he has spoken at Harvard University.  Bono has never held political office, yet presidents and prime ministers around the world have spoken to him about the issues of hunger. Both Bono and Rice are committed to justice.  Both, although radically different in backgrounds and personalities, are servant leaders.

So the next time someone tells you that servant leaders are soft and all cut from the same cloth, tell them about Rice and Bono. Robert Greenleaf, the father of modern day servant leadership, would say they passed the test as genuine servant leaders.  In his influential essay on “The Servant as Leader,” Greenleaf writes, “The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons?  Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?  And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be deprived?”

It doesn’t matter your age, your position, your gender, or your religious convictions–you can become a servant leader.  All you need to do to change your world is to start living for the sake of others.

Dr. Tony Baron,
President, Servant Leadership Institute

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