How would you react to this news? Would your head swell or would your heart swell?

There is a scene in the movie “We Were Soldiers Once” where Lt. Col. Hal Moore (played by Mel Gibson) and Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley (portrayed by Sam Elliott) observe two young officers interacting with their troops during a training exercise. One group, exhausted and sweaty, charges pell-mell toward their objective under the excited urging of their leader who exhorts them to “Go! Go! Go!” The other group, taking a break from the grueling training, is asked to remove their boots so that their leader can assess their ability to continue the training. The first officer, observes Plumley, “Wants to win medals.” The second, quips Moore, “Now that young man’s a leader.”

The measure of the servant leader is not what is said about him or her but what is said about those he or she is entrusted to lead.

The GreenLeaf Center’s annual conference offers a wide range of servant leadership learning opportunities for personal and professional growth. Participants will be able to learn from top servant leadership experts, participate in interactive workshops and panel activities, network with other servant leaders professionals, and learn about the latest servant leadership scholarship and best business practices.

Confirmed keynote speakers include leading servant leadership experts Howard Behar, former president of Starbucks International, and best-selling author Peter Block.

WHEN
June 12, 2013 – June 14, 2013

WHERE
Sheraton City Centre
31 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46204 USA

Attire
Business Casual

Conference Registration

Non-Member Conference Registration $675.00 early bird price until January 31, 2013 ($775.00 original price)
Greenleaf Member Conference Registration $595.00 early bird price until January 31, 2013 ($695.00 original price)

Special group rates are also available.

Registration Deadline
June 7, 2013

We hope you will join us in this wonderful opportunity of learning, service, and growth! Please visit the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership website for additional conference information and registration details.

Servant leadership disrupts the performative notion of what a leader should be and how he or she must act in order to perform the role of leader correctly. It challenges us to act in a way that steps outside of the expected role of leader. GreenLeaf Center CEO Joe Larocci points out that Robert K. Greenfleaf himself urged leaders to “flip the organizational pyramid” and seek ways to support and serve others first. In this way, servant leadership calls us to listen and hear with a selfless attitude that is open to new concepts, methods, and ideas. Servant leadership defies the notion that good leadership is a means to fame and fortune, while providing perspective as to what is important for sustainable growth and individual empowerment.

But  change is not necessarily comfortable, and it is not a one time act. Servant leadership is a virtuous cycle of service, learning, listening, self-reflection, and action. As we come to recognize the role we play as leaders, we must consider the needs of others and the importance of authentic dialogue that inspires personal growth and development. We must to choose to disrupt the script of dysfunctional thinking and destructive managing ideals. We have the chance to act as servant-leaders, and to play a part in rewriting the script of what it means to lead as servant-first. We have the ability to create change.

Photo by busy.pochi via Flickr

What are some of the expectations that restrict leaders and employees within the traditional leadership culture?

How we can we break the cycle and create sustainable growth as servant-leaders within our everyday lives?

As we chatted over breakfast, one student asked, “What is your purpose?” Something in his tone told me that he was asking more than the topic of my presentation, “Servant Leadership: Global Trends in Leadership.” Clarifying, he asked, “What is your purpose in doing what you do with us here?”

Good question!

Each of us is called to some purpose in life. Some hear the call loud and clear; others, not so much. Some never hear it at all. Richard Lieder, Founder and Chairman of The Inventure Group and author of The Power of Purpose, said, “Purpose is the conscious choice of what, where, and how to make a positive contribution to our world. It is the theme, quality or passion we choose to center our lives around.”

Our purpose grows out of that which we value. Our values, our bedrock beliefs that represent our unique and individual essence, give us an unwavering belief in what we stand for and ensure that we live our life by design.

We acquire, develop, and make our values uniquely ours through the simple process of living and reflecting on life.

That’s a fairly straight forward sentence, but it contains or implies a huge number of moving parts. It is not as easy or as simple as it sounds. Settling on our values and defining our purpose requires a lifetime of work. It’s assisted with a little openness to Divine inspiration.

One of my favorite books is Richard Bach’s Illusions: Reflections of a Reluctant Messiah. It’s a story about a disillusioned writer and itinerant barnstormer who meets a former mechanic and self-described messiah and goes on to learn to be a messiah himself. Full of pithy and timeless quotes, Bach wrote about the process of discovering one’s purpose: “You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don’t turn away from possible futures before you’re certain you don’t have anything to learn from them. You’re always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.”

Indeed!

My purpose, and this is what I shared with the questioner, is to serve as a facilitator of dialog about what it means to be a leader.

What is your purpose?

Photo: Hamed Saber via Flickr

Written by David McNamee Director of Marylhurst Center for Servant Leadership

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 were looking promising. Yet something was missing for me. I just didn’t feel like I was where I was intended to be.

Over a cup of coffee at the local diner, a friend nailed the problem on the head. “You need to be working on something bigger than yourself,” he said. He was absolutely right. Having grown up the eldest child of an Air Force family and having recently retired from my own 20-year Air Force career, I was steeped in an ethos of service to a higher cause. Until that moment I hadn’t realized that service to others was practically a part of my DNA.

After some soul searching, I gave up the businesses and signed up to be a substitute teacher in the local school district. That, in turn, led to teaching stints in classrooms ranging from Play-Dough sessions in Head Start to monitoring orchestra classes at the high school. My toughest assignment: A two-week gig covering a Drop Out prevention class at a middle school.

The experience of working with kids on whom the system had all but given up was my personal turning point. I’ll save that story for another post. Suffice to say that I had found my new calling!

It wasn’t too much later that I got a call from the principal of the middle school asking if I was interested in a long term contract substituting for a teacher who was taking a year of maternity leave. I jumped at the chance and became a 7th grade communications teacher.

I loved the process of creating lesson plans. The experience with the dropout prevention group proved to me that creative thinking was one key to keeping students engaged and stimulating learning. When Black History Month rolled around, I came up with the idea of encouraging my students to write reflective essays on the meaning of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech. I then invited a reporter from the local newspaper to visit the class and listen to the students’ presentations. What follows is a reprint of the article that was originally published in the Charlotte (Florida) Sun Herald.

“Martin Luther King inspires 7th-graders”
Author(s): ROBERT ECKHART

Staff Writer Date: January 18, 1999
PUNTA GORDA — He had a dream.

Punta Gorda junior high student Jillianne Genus-Leach already knew that much about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

But it was different when she actually saw the proud, powerful face of King delivering his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on a television screen in her Punta Gorda classroom last week.

“I’d never heard it for real before,” Genus-Leach said. “It’s more believable. He really said this stuff. He really meant it.”

Genus-Leach and her classmates at Punta Gorda Middle School spent this week researching and writing about King, the civil rights leader who won a Nobel Peace Prize for coordinating nonviolent protests of racism and inequity in America in the 1950s and ’60s.

“Usually, I don’t take a lot of time on my reports,” said Christina Bryant, another student in David McNamee’s English class. “But this one meant a lot.”

Bryant and Genus-Leach are two of five students in McNamee’s classes whose essays are being reprinted in today’s Sun Herald.

Another of those students, Rachael Serur, said she spent four days working on her paper, which included a photo of King that she found on the Internet.

“The color of your skin is just something natural that you’re born with,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”

Serur said she was especially impressed with King’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech — another fiery talk about racial conditions in America.

“He didn’t take time off to talk about himself,” she said. “He talked about the racial problems.”

The students whose essays appear in today’s paper are Christina Bryant, Jillianne Genus-Leach, Fraser Mackay, Artnetta Patterson and Rachael Serur.

As we celebrate African American History Month, I wonder what happened to those kids. I hope they’ve grown to become servant leaders.

Photo: Viewminder via Flickr

Written by David McNamee Director of Marylhurst Center for Servant Leadership

Every developer wants to design a great community, build it to that design with some flexibility, meet all the statutory requirements, sell to people who love living there, make a profit, and move on to the next project. So, how can the developer ensure that those to follow in the leadership of the community will work to enrich the community and uphold their fiduciary duty to maintain and enhance the common areas? The answer lies in finding responsible and trustworthy board members.

via Success through servant leadership (San Diego Daily Transcript).