Stumbling into Servant Leadership (h/t to Andy Stitt)

Leadership. It’s a word that we hear often, but is confused by many.

Yesterday, Andy Stitt blogged about leadership http://andystitt.com/category/blog/  In his post, he opined that he isn’t a leader, however, near the end of his post he stumbled onto something with the line “When you find an opportunity to lead….do it.” 

Leading does not always mean you have to be the person in the front with a “rah rah, let’s go get em” attitude.  Andy showed a perfect example of servant leadership.  By serving others, with no ulterior motive in mind, he led.

Many time you will hear people confuse management with leadership. Peter Drucker said this “Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things.”

Servant leadership goes even deeper.  Robert Greenleaf, who first coined the term servant leadership said: “The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first.”   Servant leaders don’t set out to be leaders, but by serving others around them, it leads to leadership.

If you haven’t explored the concepts of servant leadership, I highly recommend it, even if you aren’t in an official “leadership” position.  Servant leaders are everywhere, from board rooms to family rooms.

This post is part of the Winnie Kao / Seth Godin #YourTurnChallenge to blog seven days in a row.