Leadership is an Act of Service
Leadership is unifying and mobilizing others around a shared vision. It requires a fundamental shift toward understanding that the role of the leader is to be of service to the greater purpose of the company and the stakeholders it serves.
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
-Rabindranath Tagore
The initial reason people seek and strive for leadership is usually a belief in the idea itself and (usually subconsciously) a drive to attain a certain status, influence, and power. Sometimes it requires personal heroics and machiavellian moves to get in the seat. However, there can be a series of humbling moments after taking on significant responsibility that it is not about the individual anymore. The moment occurs in a flash and then over and over; the role of the leader is to steward others and things towards a common cause.
Early life is spent busying ourselves learning and building a life. We are driven to acquire things: a job, a partner, money, children, and status as an adult. The arc of this has been studied and is developmentally appropriate for young adulthood, from roughly 20 to 40. Usually, there is a moment of adversity thrown in that requires a complete transformation of the operating system from self to other. Holding a baby and feeling its absolute dependency is a great breaking of the ego as is the realization that your team doesn’t care about your needs and in fact needs true help and guidance. The first arc of adulthood is to build the ego, the next is to dismantle and rebuild it.
At first, work-life is about being technically proficient, moving in a linear path, and getting things done-- the archetype of the warrior. The movement into service-driven leadership happens as we grow up and initiate a second phase of growth. This happens not at a specific chronological age but usually during an intensive process of development that is supported by the archetype of the sovereign, anchored in the principles of vision, wisdom, and guidance. Once we have initiated into a more sovereign form of leadership, discretion and decision-making based on fairness and precedence comes to the forefront, and a leader takes the long view to make decisions that will benefit the most. This is easier said than done and poses a real challenge. Investors, board members, drops in revenue, and world events all put pressure on this form of decision-making. The early stages of the company can be more linear, but getting to scale is another initiation and can force a deeper sense of stewarding culture and shaping hundreds or more towards a common purpose. The sovereign needs counselors and guides to make sure they stay on track, wise, and true to the vision and values that will keep the people and entities they serve aligned.
While this growing up is happening, the process can feel extremely painful and disorienting as the image of ourselves as a young immortal in the world crumbles and the human emerges. Illness, divorce, crying babies, and job loss are all initiations into a new way of being and a life of greater peace and meaning. It can be dysregulating as who we are in the world is challenged. But what emerges is wondrous and aligned with a deeper form of living. We realize that all life is worth stewarding, that people exist at companies by their own volition and don’t owe us anything. Values like truth, intention, and compassion come forward and we find that the truths of the spiritual traditions are true and like the Bodhisattvas, we can take a vow after our awakening to help others awaken. Life is service. Service is leadership.
Robert Greenleaf is the father of the study of Servant Leadership, which discusses leadership not as a drive towards individual achievement, status, and power but as an act of service to the rings in which the leader operates, including the community at large and the planet. Servant leadership is driven by wisdom, depth, and character. The servant leader makes the best decisions for the whole, keeping purpose and values in the center. Servant leaders have done their own work and see leadership as a privilege and a process of helping. They are oriented beyond just the enterprise but to other groups including the community at large and the planet. This orientation to be of service to the higher purpose of the company and to all of the stakeholders is the North Star. The work of becoming a servant leader requires a lifelong commitment to personal growth. It means building an internal code of values as the cultivation of character, becoming more complex and outwardly focused, and deliberating for the greater good with every decision. This form of leadership supports life itself and the advancement of it across all dimensions. Servant leadership is a spiritual pursuit.
Leadership is a privilege, with long nights and sometimes little reward. This privilege is an opportunity to realize that life is service and service is joy. As we add value to people’s lives, we spiral up as a society towards greater levels of peace, growth, and wholeness.
