Servant Leadership Practice--Create Other Servants

Let's say you're the one person to whom the rest of the organizations reports. Let's say you fully believe in this servant leadership "stuff" and are trying to practice. Let's say you show the organization chart with you at the bottom and the largest organizational layers (those with little responsibility and authority) at the top.

It's important but not enough towards creating an alive and thriving organization.

You also need to clone yourself. If you see yourself as a servant, but your staff still enjoys their perquisites (perks) and expects their staffs to serve them, then the organization is still traditional, administrative, bureaucratic and death-inducing. Some organizational tiers will be oppressed rather than liberated to do good work. They will be denied resources--education, tools, equipment, assistance--that could help them do better work.

One of my staff at a previous company was very good at his assigned work. However, because of his personality, focus or talent themes, it was hard for him to go beyond that. He could walk down the hall past a spilled box of office supplies several times without stopping to pick it up. It was difficult for him to fit in with the rest of the organization which was more collaborative and helpful towards each other. My efforts with him were to get him to volunteer to assist others by requiring him to find opportunities. After a while, it didn't need to be a requirement. It became a habit for him, though still a stretch and not a natural thing for him. However, he was acting like a servant.

You know the power and the rightness of servant leadership. Today, share that with someone else. We better understand a topic when we have to teach it. The work will be lighter because you're not the only one "feeding" the organization.  It will be more fun and the organization will thrive.

For C12 and Truth@Work members, Moses needed help. He needed to find others that could also be a judge to resolve the people's disputes. Otherwise there would be bigger problems if they had to wait till Moses could hear and decide on the issues (Exodus 18). Likewise, we are challenged by Jesus to clone ourselves as disciples (Matt 28.19)