Servant Leadership: A view of my world through the eyes of Greenleaf

Robert K. Greenleaf (1904 – 1990), the founder of the modern Servant Leadership movement and the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership

The First Impression

Coming across Greenleaf’s thoughts had given me both hope and confidence. I am delighted that someone like Robert K. Greenleaf did exist and gift those invaluable thoughts to this world. I felt that going through the thoughts shared by Greenleaf didn’t quite lead to discovery of a Standard Operating Procedure sort of thing - a mechanical list of exact steps to accomplish something exact. It, instead, left me with a change in and an addition to my human-spirit. When I came across the essay ‘The Servant as Leader’ years ago, instantaneously, I had this feeling that I had stumbled upon a life-changing treasure. While going through the essay, I kept on saying to myself, yes, yes and yes for all the thoughts he had shared in that piece of work. For, it resonated so much with what I believed in, who I was and what I hoped. There was no dearth of new insights for me in that work. Servant Leadership, for me, is not just a ‘style’ of Leadership; it’s a ‘Way of Life’, not only for individuals, but for organizations and the society at large also.

Not limited to service alone

When I had an opportunity to go through some of Greenleaf’s thoughts, that was the first time I realized that Servant Leadership was not just about serving or a natural desire to serve first. Indeed, it’s way more than that. Servant Leadership is not just limited to an inherent genuine desire to serve first before leading, where the attempt begins naturally at serving, and then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. 

Servant Leadership is profoundly also about 

• Human-centricity
• Strong accountability
• Radical responsibility
• Reflection
• Excellent results
• Not accepting suboptimal (mediocrity)
• Initiative
• Conceptualizing
• Listening to understand
• Language connected to experiences
• Art of withdrawal
• Accepting and empathizing instead of rejecting
• Ability to foresee the unforeseeable
• Foresight
• Awareness and perception
• Persuasion
• One action at a time
• Healing
• Community building
• Introspection accompanying power
• Change starts within
• Not expecting ‘a perfect society or a better system’ to work with
• Addressing fuzzy thinking on the part of able people
• Unlimited liability
• Unconditional acceptance
• Sharing of power in decision-making
• Seeing things whole
• Stewardship
• Commitment to the growth of people
• The belief that the work exists for the person as much as the person exists for the work etc. 

I believe, for many, what is hard about Servant Leadership is that it appears too soft. Lack of knowledge around Servant Leadership, I think, is at the root of that perception. Servant leadership is not a weapon of the weak.

Finding home in the "hole in the hedge"

I believe that I definitely have fallen in love with Bob’s “hole in the hedge” philosophy which he describes as this: "You don't bother much about goals, plans, accomplishments. When you see a hole in the hedge, and the grass looks greener on the other side, you go through. If you don't like it over there, you can come back. You can even be fickle about it and go back and forth while you make up your mind. As a matter of fact, you don't worry much about making up your mind. Something usually happens to make it up for you".

I have been a part of the world of work since 2001. After working for a few years, I had started believing that ‘there had to be better ways of working that could lead to better lives, better business results, and a better society, without having to drop one to pick another’. Then, I wanted to (a) verify my knowledge around how typical business organizations worked, and (b) fill the potential gaps in my knowledge around the subject. I just wanted to ensure that I didn't have a lot of flaws in my fundamental awareness around how business organizations worked. I thought that a bit of business education would probably help me clarify my thoughts. However, I had no idea around how exactly that clarity and knowledge from that education would help my outcomes. I had a sense, however, that I would be able to do something useful and valuable with that. I looked at that as a “hole in the hedge” opportunity.

In 2010, I went for a year-long executive general management program offered by the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, one of the top business schools in India. It was a slightly strange feeling returning to a bit of serious education, and the associated obligation to complete the course successfully, so many years after I had completed my formal education in computers in 2001. I paid for the course out of my own resources: money from my savings, and time that I stole from my family members (the time that I would have otherwise spent with them). Over all the weekends in those 12 months, I was, sort of, not available to my family. Given that it was a program for working executives, the classes took place over weekends.

Falling in love with ‘Organizational Behaviour’

In that management program, I fell in love with the subject Organizational Behaviour. I did my own personal research into the subject and realized that Organization Development could be an appropriate path of practice to utilize the knowledge I had gained around Organizational Behaviour to (a) make the world of work a better place and (b) achieve those 3 concurrent goals as a result: Better Lives, Better Business Results and a Better Society. I had no idea how exactly I would do that. I chose to I look at that as another “hole in the hedge” opportunity. I spent many of my subsequent weekends working on that idea and ended up designing the Sustainable Holistic Organization Development Framework[Link]. This framework helped me clarify and verify my thoughts further. This entire exercise, of course, involved a lot of reflection.

I ascertained that how people performed within a business organization was significantly influenced by one important organizational element - the Performance Management System. Also, I observed that the culture of an Organization had a grand impact on the texture of the performance management system embraced by the Organization. Of course, on the other hand, the performance management system in question also had an equally grand impact on the collective belief system and the resultant culture of the Organization in question.

I discovered that how ‘performance management’ in general and a ‘performance management system’ in particular were perceived by the people within an organization had a significantly deep impact on how they worked or performed, and what outcomes they generated. I also established that where the people had a positive perception about performance management and the performance management system - i.e., they thought that it was a fair system and it was fundamentally beneficial for them - they performed better, and their improved performance led to greater outcomes. So, one of my conclusions was this: “Where getting rid of performance management or a performance management system was not a choice available, it required a mindset-shift and a shift in perception - around performance management and the performance management system - to arrive at a change in the outcomes”.

With those aspects established, I created a proposal - based on the Sustainable Holistic Organization Development Framework - to design and implement an Organization Development intervention program, for the business organization I was part of, to achieve the following goals:

1. Significant improvement in the perception about ‘performance management’ in general, and our performance management system in particular.
2. Reengineering the Organizational Culture; so that, the improvements achieved could stay longer, embedded in the Organizational Culture.
3. People find more joy in their work, and work becomes more meaningful for them. So that, there is greater ownership, greater voluntary continuous learning for improvement and mastery, and greater innovation and collaboration leading to significantly better outcomes in terms of better business results.

However, I was not sure how exactly the program would work, how the implementation would look like, what outcomes would actually be achieved. Neither Organization Development, nor Applied Organizational Behaviour was a part of my primary day job. This was yet another “hole in the hedge” opportunity I was more than happy to create and embrace. I continued to work on the proposal over the subsequent weekends. I found that experience extremely interesting, exciting, and satisfying.

As soon as the proposal was in a slightly presentable state, I discussed that with the head of our business context, Mr. Nikhil Mokashi. I requested him to sponsor the program described in the proposal. By the way, he has been one of my mentors. He didn't find a proposal like that from someone like me surprising. Neither did I find it awkward to present a proposal like that to someone like him. But, essentially, it was about trying something very new within the organisation when topics like Organizational Behaviour and Organization Development were not explicitly popular or well known within the organization.

The crucial conversation

The deliberation that started with that initial discussion around the proposal went on for a few months. And, eventually, we arrived at an easy agreement that I would run that program in a slightly controlled fashion with only 8 of our members. I offered that I wouldn’t let the program impact any of the intended outcomes of my primary day-job duties. Both of us appreciated the arrangement that we had arrived at. I still had no idea how exactly the program would work. As I continued thinking through it, I gained a little better clarity in my thoughts. Also, as we continued our deliberation, our shared understanding became clearer. 

At a certain point in time, my mentor shared two important suggestions with me: “to (1) Run the program with all the ‘individual contributors’, instead of just 8, within our context of the business and (2) Find a way to measure participants’ ‘shift in the perception’ around ‘performance management’; so that, (a) we could ascertain if the intervention worked, and (b) publish that data (extent of shift in perception achieved); so that, others within the organization would know if the intervention worked and to what extent”. Both of those were extremely interesting goals placed before me. And, between the two, especially the second one was slightly more interesting. I was very happy that we were making progress.

The program and the outcomes

We launched the program in 2012. Not only did my mentor sponsored the program and actively participated in and supported it consistently, but he also supported me in preparing for and presenting the program, before the launch, to the members of the leadership team - his direct reports - to seek and get their acceptance and support. He chose not to exercise his ‘authority’ or power and ‘tell’ or ‘ask’ his direct reports to agree to and support the program, instead. That's how he worked. Our HR business partner also actively participated in and supported the program on a continuous basis. Over a period of 5 years, we worked with 279 colleagues through 22 Sustainable Holistic Organization Development [SHOD] intervention workshops. We achieved a 55% positive shift in participants’ perception around performance management. 

We learnt from each intervention workshop and applied that learning to the subsequent one to refine and improve the intervention further. We observed that, post those interventions, the quality and frequency of the conversations - around the individuals’ development, career progressions and performance management - between individuals and their managers improved, leading to other valuable resultant benefits. This was a case in which the sponsor of the program also chose to embrace a “hole in the hedge” opportunity. And, of course, that was not very surprising at all. Thanks to my exposure to Greenleaf's thoughts, I understood, in retrospection, that my mentor had been demonstrating some of the important traits of a servant-leader in his own life and his interactions with the world.

Application of the Sustainable Holistic Organization Development Framework has been discussed in the 2016 IEEE whitepaper[Link] ‘Organizational Behavior Engineering for Sustainable Global Software Development’ and referenced in the 2015 IEEE whitepaper[Link] ‘Offshore Supplier to Preferred Partner: A Journey’.

While doing this above-mentioned research, designing the framework, creating the proposal, designing and applying the interventions and assessments, to be able to stay in touch, learn and gain first-hand awareness around the context, I consciously stayed as close as possible to the ground (the organizational context) where a large chunk of the real work was being done. I believed, felt and experienced that it was significantly more effective and efficient to work with people with influence, than authority, to arrive at the outcomes considered valuable by everyone involved. Well, I really didn’t have another choice. Working towards the goals while staying close to the ‘ground and action’ not only helped me work with influence and persuasion that led to results, but that also led to a position where not only the people I worked with felt good, but I also felt good. A shared good feeling, I believe, led to a stronger connect and a significantly stronger desire to work together towards a common goal.

Human-Centric Agile and Servant Leadership

Before I came in close contact with Agile and Scrum, I had always believed that “there had to be a 'better way' of working - a more human-centric way that led not only to ‘better business results’, but also significantly ‘better lives’ for people within the world of work”. My journey with Agile and Scrum started in 2007 when I worked as a Scrum team member in Siemens, Buffalo Grove, IL. I realized that the Agile way of working was that ‘better way’ I had always thought about.

Based on my personal research around (a) what has worked, what has not worked and why, around successes and failures in the application of Agile and (b) the advancements in the application of Agile methodologies, I had designed this Human-Centric Agility Framework[Link] in 2018. The Human-Centric Business Agility Framework is a proposition that I have arrived at based on some of my fundamental beliefs, ideas, life experiences and more specifically the awareness that I have gained from one of my favourite long-term slow-paced weekends research projects in which I have been studying Human-Centric Ways of Working since 2010. In the scope of this research, I had processed information - available from many countries, especially in the context of Europe, Asia and North America, and many types of business organizations engaged particularly in complex work and solving complex problems - pertaining to application of Agile and the resultant outcomes. 

In this research work, I had covered a wide range of topics including the impact of the national and organizational cultures on the attributes of Job Advertisements pertaining to recruitment of Agile Practitioners, how diverse cultures impacted how Agile was understood and applied, why some business organizations could arrive at the desired outcomes (lower cost, better quality, better time to market, greater customer satisfaction etc.) through application of Agile while many others couldn’t etc. When it felt like I was going to come up with something like a framework, I wanted to create one with a set of tried and tested fundamental values and principles, a tried and tested Agile framework, a leadership philosophy that the world really needed, and an explicit standard against which every decision and behaviour would be evaluated. So, I went ahead with the Agile Values and Principles, the Scrum Framework, Servant Leadership, and Ethics as the building blocks of the Human-Centric Agility Framework[Link].

I believe that there is no real value in (a) attempting to glorify the findings of this research, or (b) making the outcomes of this research appear more credible, by publishing further internal details of the research. So, I intend to refrain from doing that. The idea is to help the world of work benefit from the application of the outcomes of this research. The greatest value of an idea is in the outcomes of its application. I hadn’t started this research to design another Agile Framework. It just manifested in that. When I had started this research, I didn’t know what exactly was going to come out of it. I was extremely satisfied with the outcomes, however.

It’s always home

What initiated this research? What I had observed in the world of work, in the light of my optimism and hopes associated with some of my fundamental beliefs, had disappointed me to a great extent. That disappointment and hope had triggered a desire within me to do this research. This was another “hole in the hedge” opportunity that I chose to go after. The findings of the research have been reviewed in the light of the principles of Organizational Behaviour and the practices of Organization Development. I have studied further to verify my own assertions. This research is still progressing in some way or form. I intend to share the new insights from it. I have reflected on the findings from this research and verified my thoughts around the findings using all the means available to me. My attempt has pretty much been to get as close as possible to attaining something that would lead to the stated goals: Better Lives for the human beings, Better Businesses, and a Better Society. Those are some of the goals Greenleaf had found dear. That’s how, for me, it’s always home.

The major findings

In the 'The major findings' section of the Human-Centric Agility Framework[Link], I have listed some of the major the findings from the aforementioned weekends research project in which I have been studying Human-Centric Ways of Working since 2010.

Who sponsored the research work?

Who sponsored all the research work that I have done so far? My family members have supported and funded all of my research work, not with money, but with loads of time, by sharing my responsibilities, and by extending a lot of emotional support. They have allowed me to (a) have the privilege of a great deal of quiet solitude, and (b) steal the time that I would have spent with them and on taking care of my duties within the family. They have tolerated, forgiven and accepted me unconditionally.

My views and interpretations

I think I loved the thoughts of Greenleaf so much because I had personally always believed that “there had to be 'better ways' of working - i.e., more human-centric way of working - that would lead not only to ‘better business results’, but significantly ‘better lives’, as well, for the people within the world of work”.

Agile Mindset and Growth Mindset

Bob believed that “even though an end result is in mind, one does not block the gifts of inspiration by planning each detail in advance”. That’s what, I understand, is so much aligned with the modern-day Agile Mindset and Empiricism. Bob has written, “I have never been one to set big idealistic goals. I just work along from day to day and let inspiration guide me”. Again, in my world, that thought exactly aligns with Agile Mindset and Empiricism. Bob was a hole-in-the-hedge man in an age of hedged-in men who preferred security over seeking. That side of his personality perfectly reflected Empiricism, Curiosity, Continuous Learning, Continuous Improvement and a genuine passion for experimentation. Also, in my mind, a ‘hole in the hedge’ mindset is tremendously aligned with the concept of Growth Mindset. There is another powerful thought: “Consensus is not unanimity. It is a position everyone can accept, even if it is not what was originally wanted or proposed”. I believe, this is about collaboration and an Agile Mindset to accept a change and proceed with an acceptable proposition. This is so practical an approach for achieving progress in the real world.

Bob tried new Ideas like T-Groups out in the real world, reflected on lessons learned from the experience, then modified the theory and tested it again. This experiential learning cycle was both scientific and humanistic. The key to it, and the element so often missing in traditional learning and teaching, was reflection, which opens the door to intuitive insight. In my mind, that resembles the modern-day Agile Mindset and many prominent aspects of Scrum. Bob Greenleaf wrote, “As a theoretician, I’m an idealist. As a practitioner, I’m a gradualist”. I have been an Agile practitioner in business-organization contexts since 2007. I believe, the term ‘gradualist’ is very much aligned with the Agile ways of creating and delivering value to customers. In the context of Study Teams for behavioural research, Bob always recommended and supported a ‘team approach’ and ‘oral communication’. That reminds me of the modern-day small Scrum Teams, and the line ‘The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation’, from the Agile Manifesto.

Bob was very much aligned with the motto of one of his impressive bosses: “If it ain’t fun, it won’t get done”. This resembles, in my mind, the statement from the Scrum Guide, ‘The Scrum Master encourages the Scrum Team to improve, within the Scrum process framework, its development process and practices to make it more effective and enjoyable for the next Sprint’. It’s about making work not only more impactful or outcome-oriented, but more fun, as well. In my mind, this thought “a seeker is open to new knowledge, able to live in joyful awareness of the moment and committed to growth, all in the context of radical responsibility” is very much aligned with the modern-day manifestation of the concepts of Empiricism, Continuous Learning, Continuous Improvement, a Growth Mindset, Retrospection, Commitment and Accountability. Greenleaf’s contention is that “anyone who makes decisions should, as an ethical imperative, develop this kind of seeking, openness, and strength”.

Bob believed that, “leaders should allow group members to arrive at their own conclusions. Not only the leaders will likely learn something new, but the group members will own the new insights also”. I find that belief very much aligned with Agile and Scrum in the context of Self Organization which helps in building an Ownership Mindset. In many a case, not much that is really important can be accomplished through command-and-control. Instead, persuasion, collaboration and self-organization lead to the outcomes of great significance. As far as my perception is concerned, the ‘freer’ and ‘more autonomous’ in the “The best test” resemble the modern-day self-organized individuals and teams, instead of command-and-controlled ones. Through my experiences and research, I have arrived at the realization that Servant Leadership - in its intended whole incarnation, and not just as an attribute attached to a particular role in a framework - and Agile complement each other and go together so well that a marriage between the two would never be a bad idea.

Life-changing thoughts

Bob was influenced by his father’s ‘principle above pragmatism’ view. That’s what, I believe, respect for ethics looks like. Bob’s ability to see things whole, I believe, was very much aligned with what is popular today as Systems Thinking. His maxim that ‘organizations are how you get things done’, in my opinion resemble the aspects associated with teamwork and collaboration.

I came across this about Bob: ‘He was hard-wired as a “conceptualizer” who enjoyed the big picture, not an “operationalizer” who saw to daily details.’ I thought about it and arrived at this conclusion: “Every 'Conceptualizer' has an 'Operator' within. Conceptualization is a massive amount of real and hard work. That work, however, is extremely silent and largely invisible. Without that 'Operator' within, a 'Conceptualizer' just can't be a 'Conceptualizer'”. This is a very tiny example of how Bob still influences people’s thoughts.

This one is interesting. Even though Servant Leadership is about unlimited liability and unconditional love and acceptance of an individual, this is also about this thought: “Be courageous in separating those who cannot meet the standard. In the end this is better for all concerned... we all know that management takes backbone”. Greenleaf wrote, “The servant as leader always empathizes, always accepts the person but sometimes refuses to accept some of the person’s effort or performance as good enough”. That suggests that Servant Leadership is not just confined to empathy and unconditional acceptance of an individual. It also demands superior excellence in the performance of the individual in question.

I can’t agree more with Bob when it comes to what he believed about one’s maturity. He believed that the emergence, the full development, of who one uniquely is should be an important concern throughout one’s life”. I really love what he has outlined as the four requirements for living into maturity:

1. If one accepts responsibility, one must expect commensurate stress. 
2. One must hold fast to the essential inner person while participating in legitimate, external conformity. 
3. Find personal significance outside the complications of status, property, and achievement.
4. Engage in processes of growth, drawing on the power of entheos to track the changing patterns and depths of one’s interests.

I believe that unless one experiences this, it’s relatively difficult to understand and appreciate Bob’s profound thought: “Loss, every loss the mind of man can conceive of, creates a vacuum into which will come (if allowed) something new and fresh and beautiful, something unforeseen - and the greatest of these is love”. I find Bob’s ideas - captured in the below mentioned non-traditional ‘Strategies of a Leader’ - invaluable for our modern-day society:

1. The principle of systematic neglect (the art of withdrawal)
2. The full impact of listening
3. Language as a leadership strategy
4. The three value choices in a leader: Honest, Loving and Responsible
5. Personal growth as a characteristic of leadership
6. Tolerance of imperfection
7. Genuine acceptance
8. Love and friendship over virtue and justice

I really hope that more people get inspired by the profound thoughts of Greenleaf and understand that “a moral leader is one who incarnates doing and being, who is plugged in to contemporary issues and finds inspiration in the quiet solitude of intuitive insight, who takes responsibility for each decision on its own merits and for the impact it will have on others, now and in the future”.

My struggle, and a question to myself

This is in the context of this thought: “In just three value choices, we can separate what we want from what we don’t want in a leader. We want a leader to be honest, loving, and responsible. As I see it, responsible people build. They do not destroy. They are moved by the heart; compassion stands ahead of justice. The prime test of whether an act is responsible is to ask, how will it affect people? Are lives moved toward nobility?”

My struggle was with the thought, ‘compassion stands ahead of justice’. I asked myself if that was aligned with the fundamental principles concerning ethics? In the context of ethics, I believed, justice probably came first. May be that's just me, at that point in time, and my way of looking at and understanding the world at that point in time. I was probably somewhere in my journey, and not there yet to see that “compassion stood ahead of justice”. However, I believe that I have made progress in my journey. And, I am very strongly inclined to think that it's compassion that leads to ultimate justice.

Retrospection and conclusion

When I take a critical retrospective view of how my own behaviours have been, I see that I have been fairly and consistently intolerant of deviations from ethical standards of behaviour in general. That’s where too I fall further in love with Bob’s thoughts and find a home in Servant Leadership. I, however, have my own lessons learnt and discovered my own blind spots. And, I have my own little struggle in helping people see that there indeed are better ‘ways of working’ that lead to Better Lives, Better Business Results and a Better Society; and there is no need to drop one to pick another or have one at the cost of another.

My father, Dr. Bijay Kumar Mohapatra, a retired professor of Philosophy, and my wife are two of the most prominent servant-leaders I have seen within my own little world. Not only has their servant-leadership role helped me in shaping my life, but that also has been a profound inspiration for me. Whenever I have been invited to think of a servant leader that I have come across in my own live, I have almost always spontaneously thought of my father and my wife. Without reading Greenleaf and understanding servant-leadership a bit, I believe, it would have been close to impossible for me to identify two such invaluable servant-leaders in my life. Without my wife’s help and care, all the research work that I have done wouldn't have been possible. Of course, there have been a few other people who I have considered Servant Leaders in my own life. Thanks to my study of Greenleaf’s work, my convictions around suitability of servant-leadership for the contemporary world have become significantly stronger. I intend to continue to nurture, strengthen and expand my journey around servant leadership over the rest of my life.

The ‘hole in the hedge’ concept has been such a real and practical aspect of my life-experiences. It has always started with a belief that I will be able to do something useful; and that something valuable shall come out of that. It has always been that soft sense instead of a concrete course for me. No one external had ordered, funded and expected all the research work that I ever did. I have gone ahead and applied - silently and softly - the outcomes of all of my research work to the immediate context of my professional work and its periphery while no one external has ordered, funded and expected that. I have always believed that looking at life through a ‘hole in the hedge’ is a magnificent way to embrace life in its natural purest incarnation.

All of my research work has been a wonderful set of learning opportunities for me. I trust that it has widened the horizon of my thoughts and enhanced my abilities to serve the ‘world of work’ better, as a servant-leader. It has all been about finding, creating and embracing the ‘hole in the hedge’ opportunities in my life to make this ‘world of work’ a better place. It's been a profound and evolving journey around my concern to find out who uniquely I am. It's been my humble attempt to go out ahead, find, and show the way, in my quest of finding my own completeness. That’s my own pursuit of completeness. Whether or not to the east, it’s a journey. And, I believe, I am making progress in becoming capable of viewing my world through the eyes of dear Greenleaf.