nurturing servant leaders in religious education - Scholarly ...

Servant Leadership, now in its sixth year with presenters from various sectors 14 . In the
education field, increasing numbers of universities, schools and adult education
programmes offer courses and instruction specific to servant leadership 15 .
The literature of overcoming self
Greenleaf spent nearly forty years working at American Telephone and Telegraph
(AT&T), finishing his career with the telecommunications giant in management
development. During that time he saw great changes in leadership not only within his
workplace, but also in national and international spheres. It was during this time his
ideas of servant leadership were sown.
Greenleaf attributed the solidifying of his theory of servant leadership to a reading of
Hesse’s (1956) short novel The journey to the east (Greenleaf, 2002). In this work a
band of men embark on a mythical quest. The men are aided by a faithful and capable
servant, Leo, who sustains the group with his spirit and service. All goes well until
one night the faithful servant Leo goes missing. The band of men dissolves. By the
end of Hesse’s work we find that Leo is in fact a great leader, leader of an Order of
men, and, Greenleaf asserts, it is his proven service that is the key to his being so.
Underscoring the action of the book, the unnamed narrator undergoes a journey as his
fascination with Leo reaches fever pitch. Leo, according to Greenleaf, was the ideal
servant leader because of his dedicated service. But another lasting lesson, Greenleaf
highlighted, can be found as the narrator undergoes his initiation into the Order of
men of which Leo is head: the servant leader must not only serve, but inspire others to
do the same. As Greenleaf (2002) explained,
His final confrontation at the close of his initiation into the Order is with a small
transparent sculpture: two figures joined together. One is Leo, the other is the
narrator. The narrator notes that a movement of substance is taking place within
the transparent sculpture. ‘I perceived that my image was in the process of adding
14 Proceedings available online
http://www.regent.edu/acad/sls/publications/conference_proceedings/servant_leadership_roundtable/ho
me.htm
15 For a comprehensive list of schools see The Greenleaf Centre for Servant Leadership homepage.
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