The following contains excerpts from the book, Servant Leadership (Robert Greenleaf).
At our music school in Midland, Texas we believe that music is more than sound, it is relationships. At the forefront of understanding relationships is the subject of Leadership.
Greenleaf’s thesis, “Early on I made a distinction between wisdom and scholarship; and the former, what works well in practice, has long been my central interest…There is a new problem in our country. We are becoming a nation that is dominated by large institutions – churches, businesses, governments, labor unions, universities – and these big institutions are not serving us well…wish that leaders will bend their efforts to serve with skill, understanding, and spirit, and that followers will be responsive only to able servants who would lead them – but that they will respond. Discriminating and determined servants as followers are important as servant-leaders, and everyone, from time to time may be in both roles…schools of administration give scant attention to servant leadership.”
We believe, at our music school in Midland, Texas that having an attitude that seeks to serve the student, their families, and our community is foundational to the success of our teaching.
This book, published in 1977, after two decades of research and discovery, by the author’s own admission, became the bedrock for many other leadership authors and teachers. The concepts, well ahead of their time, are still as important to today’s leader as they were when first written. Among authors who highly regard this book and its author are Ken Blanchard and Steven Covey. Covey writes an impressive forward to the book, and Greenleaf’s thoughts can be seen echoing through Covey’s most recent materials.
Steven Covey’s forward to the book is significant:
“We’ve got to produce more for less, and with greater speed than we’ve ever done before. The only way to do that in a sustained way is through the empowerment of people. And the only way you get empowerment is through high-trust cultures and an empowerment philosophy that turns bosses into servants and coaches, and structures and systems into nurturing institutionalized servant processes.
A low-trust culture that is characterized by high-control management, political posturing, protectionism, cynicism, and internal competition and adversarialism simply cannot compete with the speed, quality, and innovation of those organizations around the world that do empower people. It may be possible to buy someone’s hand and back, but not their heart, mind, and spirit…the old rules of traditional, hierarchical, high-external-control, top-down management are being dismantled: they simply aren’t working any longer. They are being replaced by…a sense of vision that people are drawn to, and united in…by motivation inside them toward achieving a common purpose. This has changed the role of manager from one who drives results and motivation from the outside in, to one who is a servant-leader – one who seeks to draw out, inspire, and develop the best and highest within people from the inside out. The leader does this by engaging the entire team or organization in a process that creates a shared vision, which inspires each person to stretch and reach deeper within himself or herself, and to use everyone’s unique talents in whatever way is necessary to independently and interdependently achieve that shared vision.
It is our hope, at our music school in Midland, Texas to provide students with a vision of what they can achieve, based upon their unique skills and interests. All of this would be impossible without a foundation of trust.
Moral authority is another way to define servant leadership because it represents a reciprocal choice between leader and follower. If the leader is principle centered, he or she will develop moral authority. If the follower is principle centered, he or she will follow the leader. In this sense, both leaders and followers are followers. Why? They follow truth. They follow natural law. They follow principles. They follow a common, agreed-upon vision. They share values. They grow to trust one another. Moral authority is mutually developed and shared.
Many people are unaware of this fact, but many significant life-lessons can be learned through studying music and the arts. There are a number of values and overarching principles that yield fruitfulness in other areas of life. These would include: self-discipline, focus, sensitivity to others (i.e. empathy), patience, intuitive awareness. This is a short-list. At our music school in Midland, Texas we endeavor to teach the whole person, not just music.
Conscience is the still, small voice within. It is quiet. It is peaceful. Ego is tyrannical, despotic, and dictatorial. Ego focuses on one’s own survival, pleasure, and enhancement to the exclusion of others; ego is selfishly ambitious. It sees relationships in terms of threat or no threat…Ego can’t sleep. It micro-manages. It disempowers. It reduces our capability. It excels in control. Conscience deeply revers people and sees their potential for self-control. Conscience empowers.
It is ego that tells us that the end justifies the means, unaware that a worthy end can never be accomplished with an unworthy means.
Another highly valuable concept we teach at our music school in Midland, Texas is the value of process. Goals can be achieved, but process makes the achievement last. When a student learns to value the process, they learn the value of incremental gains, which ultimately leads to exponential quality.
Shared vision creates discipline and order without demanding it. Conscience often provides the why, vision identifies what we are trying to accomplish, discipline represents how we are going to accomplish it…People who do not live by their conscience will not experience this internal integrity and peace of mind. They will find their ego attempting to control relationships. Even though they might pretend or feign kindness and empathy from time to time, they will use subtle forms of manipulation and will even go so far as to engage in kind but dictatorial behavior.”
At our music school in Midland, Texas be believe that a teacher simply cannot effectively teach without having a humble attitude of his or her own knowledge. Nobody knows everything, even when considered an expert in their field. A humble teacher is constantly learning and growing, and simply invites others along on that journey.
In Greenleaf’s preface to his book he wrote, “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…the great leader is seen as servant first, and that simple fact is the key to his greatness.”