Commentary Archive

The hard charging professional puts in long hours, overcomes the politics, develops his skills, and really gives it his all. He is a phenomenal producer, a terrific team player, a natural leader. His supervisor assigns two new people to him and leaves them with the guidance, “Pay attention to what he tells you. He’s one [...]

We happily invite you to join us for the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership 23rd Annual International Conference, June 12-14, 2013, at the Sheraton City Centre in Indianapolis, Indiana! Our own David McNamee, director of the Marylhurst Center for Servant Leadership, will conduct a workshop at the conference and deliver his paper on the topic of Leading Differently: [...]

We all play a role within the workplace, prompted to perform as we are directed. We are often compelled to act as is expected of us. But what if we challenge the script assigned to us as leaders? What if we take a disruptive stance against the systematic mindset of leader-first? There is a way [...]

Marylhurst alumna, Cathy Bennett, speaks with doctoral candidate Rusty Horton in her podcast episode “The Practice of Authentic Dialogue” about  how authentic dialogue can enhance the practice of Servant Leadership. This allows for participatory decision making that can increase the ability to claim ownership of one’s voice and effectively resolve interpersonal conflict. One of the hallmarks [...]

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of addressing a group of 40 university student leaders at a retreat sponsored by Oregon Campus Compact. Arriving early, I was invited to share breakfast with the group before giving my presentation. As we chatted over breakfast, one student asked, “What is your purpose?” Something in his tone [...]

In the lasted episode “Servant Leadership: An Alternative Approach to Downsizing” of the Cathy Bennett Show on BlogTalkRadio, Cathy speaks to doctoral candidate in Leadership, Mark McVay about the issue of downsizing. It is hard to imagine that during difficult times, there is another approach to business than downsizing and layoffs. By changing the focus away from [...]

Marylhurst alumna, Cathy Bennett speaks with rabbi and business consultant, Rob Abramovitz, in her lastest BlogTalkRadio episode “Servant Leadership: Narrative Leadership – Creating a Story” about the importance of practicing effective listening . There are many books written on how to do business better, but many still side-step the inherent power in narrative to inform our [...]

This is a story about Black History Month, now referred to as African American History Month. Keep reading and you’ll see why. I stumbled into teaching by accident. Certainly by most definitions up until that moment I was living the dream. As the owner of two small businesses in rural Florida, we weren’t rich…yet…but things [...]

Last week the Marylhurst University Center for Servant Leadership hosted a visit from Dr. Valentyna Yakuba and Dr. Vicktor Ogneviuk, current Rector (President) of Borys Grinchenko Kiyv University. We also welcomed Dr. Marshall Christensen, Founder of Co-Serve International, who accompanied our guests and delegated the event. The Borys Grinchenko Kiyv University is a liberal arts institution in Ukraine that [...]

This is an interesting story we picked up via the San Diego Daily Transcript. It has some interesting ideas as to how a non-profit Board might make servant leadership a “must have” characteristic of each board member. Every developer wants to design a great community, build it to that design with some flexibility, meet all [...]