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t its heart, servant leadership is a system of interlocking processes that enable leaders to balance the roles of loyal servant and inspired leader. With this system in place, leaders guide others through their duties and execute their duties to the best of their abilities; yet they keep the leaders in a position to lead as well. Robert K. Greenleaf first spoke of this interlocking system in a 1972 management training program in the United States. More recently, Richard Lymbery wrote an article entitled, Servant Leadership: The Leadership System We Need Now. Greenleaf himself argued that servant leadership is not a new system, but simply a change in orientation for leaders.
Best Books By Robert K. Greenleaf: THE LIST
1. Servant Leadership |
2. Teacher as Servant |
3. The Servant as Leader |
4. The Power of Servant Leadership |
5. Servant Leader Within |
6. On Becoming a Servant Leader |
7. Seeker and Servant |
8. Trustees as Servants |
9. Creating Mindsets |
10. Servant: Retrospect and Prospect |
1. Servant Leadership
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The Revolution Has Only Just Begun Twenty-five years ago Robert Greenleaf published these prophetic essays on what he coined servant leadership, a practical philosophy that replaces traditional autocratic leadership with a holistic, ethical approach. This highly influential book has been embraced by cutting edge management everywhere. Yet in these days of Enron and what VISA CEO Dee Hock calls our “era of massive institutional failure,” Greenleaf’s seminal work must reach the mainstream now more than ever. Servant Leadership― · helps leaders find their true power and moral authority to lead. · helps those served become healthier, wiser, freer, and more autonomous. · encourages collaboration, trust, listening, and empowerment. · offers long-lasting change, not a temporary fix. · extends beyond business for leaders of all types of groups.
2. Teacher as Servant: A Parable
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In other words, for me there is little opportunity to judge God on behalf of me, but little more opportunity to be angry at the injustices he has suffered from all who hold themselves in high honor. What an opportunity to find an authentic faith and true religion in which all stand on equal ground, with God always to be served by the one who deserves all our hatred and contempt.
3. The Servant as Leader
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Servant and leader. Can these two roles be fused in one real person in all levels of status or calling? If so, can that person live and be productive in the real world of the present? My sense of the present leads me to say yes to both questions. For the individual in society and his bent to deal with the massive problems of our times wholly in terms of systems, ideologies, and movements: these have their place but they are not basic because they do not make themselves. What is basic is the incremental thrust of an individual who has the ability to serve and lead. For the individual as a serving person has a tendency to deny wholeness and creative fulfillment for himself by failing to lead when he could lead.
4. The Power of Servant Leadership
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Based on the seminal work of Robert K. Greenleaf, a former AT&T executive who coined the term almost thirty years ago, servant-leadership emphasizes an emerging approach to leadership—one which puts serving others, including employees, customers, and community, first.
The Power of Servant Leadership is a collection of eight of Greenleaf’s most compelling essays on servant-leadership. These essays, published together in one volume for the first time, contain many of Greenleaf’s best insights into the nature and practice of servant-leadership and show his continual refinement of the servant-as-leader concept. In addition, several of the essays focus on the related issues of spirit, commitment to vision, and wholeness.
5. The Servant Leader Within
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In this inspirational and practical book are gathered some of the classic works of visionary management consultant and educator Robert K. Greenleaf. This volume includes his definitive work on developing servant-leadership in a university, Teacher as Servant. Along with that parable are two of his essays, “Life’s Choices and Markers,” and the original version of “The Servant as Leader,” written for a student audience. Each provides a different but complementary perspective on servant-leadership and its relationship to the art of teaching and the act of learning.
6. On Becoming a Servant Leader
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Delve into the personal writings of the grandfather of the modern empowerment movement in business leadership. In this collection of previously unpublished works, eminent writer, consultant, and lecturer Robert Greenleaf shares his personal and professional philosophy, which postulates that true leaders are those who lead by serving others. Spanning a time frame of fifty years, these essays and lectures touch on such key issues as power, ethics, management, organizations, and servanthood. And they offer the reader a wealth of practical suggestions and useful information garnered through the course of a remarkable career.
7. Seeker and Servant
8. Trustees as Servants
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A must-read for all trustees and directors who would venture to become powerful forces in regenerating trust. This essay seeks to address the needs of senior executives for sustained, caring (but demanding) assistance from able trustees. Drawing on a lifetime of experience in institutions, Greenleaf addresses the ambiguity of the trustee role and offers ideas on how each trustee group can claim its rightful functions.
9. Creating Mindsets: Movies of the Mind
10. Servant: Retrospect and Prospect
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In this essay, Greenleaf summarizes his reflections on servant leadership during the ten years after his seminal 1970 essay, The Servant as Leader. He returns to many of the themes in his past writings: his concern for the lack of vision by existing institutions, the need for trustee leadership, and the critical leadership role of seminaries and foundations in society.
Final Thoughts on the Best Books by Robert K. Greenleaf
Servant leaders seek to serve the people who surround them, even if they do not belong to the same social classes, even if they do not obey the instructions of the dominant hierarchy or corporation. Servant leaders do not make important decisions for the people who do not belong to the dominant society; rather, servant leaders choose which of their fellow citizens to help. Servant leaders do not interfere in the affairs of non-dominant members of society. But most importantly, servant leaders are servants to the people.
Happy reading!
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