Philosophy of Leadership
When I first started the ORGL program and decided to pursue the Servant Leadership concentration, I would have defined myself as an accomplished servant leader. Most of my modeling of servant leadership stemmed from my time in the church as a volunteer and then a staff person. With that perspective, which I would summarize as a narrow view of servant leadership, I felt like I was “there”. Looking back at that time I realize how far I needed to come and how much there was to learn in the last two years. My entrance into the program was somewhat unexpected, as a friend invited me to apply with him at the beginning of COVID, and I decided I would finally take this next leadership step. This program has been incredibly formative and has brought me to the realization that as a servant leader, I will never “arrive”. As Horsman (2019) states we are all servant-leaders in training and that is an ongoing, lifelong pursuit. In my original Philosophy of Leadership, my first large point was that I need to “know who I am”. As I reflect on my time in this program, that is my biggest take away, that I embarked on a continuous journey to learn more about myself and to see how I need to grow and become more of the leader God has called me to be.
I would begin that I am a servant-leader in training and continue with this thought from Greenleaf (2002) that states:
The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people's highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is this: 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 further deprived? (loc. 350)
I want to be a servant leader who is always in the mindset of learning, knowing that my continual growth as a leader is dependent on my ability to act in humility and realize my own areas of needed growth, while listening clearly to feedback of those around me. Additionally, I want to make an impact on the lives of those I lead. I want my service to them to be something that makes them freer, wiser, healthier, and more autonomous with them growing more and more into servant leaders themselves. The church is in an era where we see so many failures in leadership. We don’t need any more leaders who are about the growth of their own platforms rather than the growth of those they lead and interact with. I want to be a leader in the church who continues to grow and multiply other leaders who will serve others first.
My second point in my original Philosophy of Leadership was to “grow who I am” (Lack, 2020, p.3). As this program comes to an end, that is one of my biggest worries, that I will somehow slow my pace of learning. I am working to be very proactive to continue learning pathways so that I will continue to grow and develop as a lifelong leader. I feel that many leaders in the church eventually become stale in their learning. They get to a point where they only listen to the same voices over and over again and they become anemic in their growth. I want to learn with the same energy and fervor my entire life that I have the last two years. I don’t ever want to think that I have arrived or that I somehow have it all figured out. I anticipate that as I grow older and continue to become more and more experienced the temptation to adopt that attitude with grow greater and greater. It is the easy way out that I do not want to take, instead, I want to do the hard work of learning continually throughout my lifetime.
We currently live in a world full of tumult and division. It seems like every day another divisive issue appears in the media and people get more and more fragmented. I want to ask what in my leadership needs to continue to grow in order to bring greater connection and unity with those I encounter. Throughout this program, I experienced a great level of connection and unity, especially with those with whom I didn’t agree or share similar viewpoints. In the learning environment created by these courses, we were able to have generative dialogue and move past our differing viewpoints into a common space to learn and grow from each other. My goal is to learn to induce dialogue in all spaces I enter so that generative learning can happen. As a leader I need to be ready to learn from all I meet and see the ways that they can contribute to my growth and the betterment of all.
Ultimately as a Pastor, I want to help people find and follow Jesus, and if I look at how Jesus made an impact on others, it was by serving . Jesus met people where they were and served them in love to show them their value to him. I want to do the same, I want to meet people where they are and show them that they have value and potential as people and as servant leaders. It is through servant leadership that I will be able to have an impact on the lives of those around me and see them eventually grow to have impact on those around them.
I will finish with a statement that still rings true from my initial philosophy of servant leadership nearly two years ago from ORGL 600:The best example of success for me will be seeing a tree of leaders who have risen out of both the relationships that developed and the opportunities I was able to help provide to others. If at any time I don’t see other leaders growing and thriving out of the foundation of my leadership, I will know that I have failed. That will continue to be my measure as success as a servant leader as I continue to learn and grow and work to serve those around me.
References
Horsman, J. H. (2019). Servant-Leaders in Training: foundations of the philosophy of servant-leadership. Palgrave-Macmillan.
Greenleaf, R. K. (2002). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness (L. C. Spears, Ed.; 25th anniversary ed.). Paulist Press.
Lack, P. (2020, October 11). Know Who You Are, Grow Who You Are. Spokane, WA; Gonzaga University.