nurturing servant leaders in religious education - Scholarly ...

influencing people? For the paradox to work, the servant must be associated in
thought with lowliness, the back-stage presence, the humble entity. When seen
through the eyes of Greenleaf’s test, however, further questions arise that compound
the paradox: Why would those who have become healthier, wiser, freer, more
autonomous want to also become servants? What differentiates a servant leader from
a servile leader? A possible explanation is that the word servant as it is used in
servant-leadership draws on both of two possible connotations: a negative one in
defining and visualising the concept, a positive one in practice and manifestations of
it. Both meanings have continued into modern times, and both are inherent and
celebrated in the literature.
In modern times, the negative connotation of servant has meant definite decreases in
health, wisdom, freedom and autonomy, that which best upholds servant leadership as
a paradox. A servant may only get the worst food, the poorest education, would be
bound to their master, and personal agency and self-determination diminished if not
altogether abolished.
But such meaning was not always the case. Coming through English etymology, the
connotation of servant took a definite ennobled meaning in the 1100s A.D. as it
became associated in England with knights who served the kings and queens of the
day (Wilton, 2005, May 22). Knights were given special privileges for their service,
and held an esteemed place within society, their service viewed as a privilege and
honour. While their service kept them within strict bounds of loyalty, servitude and
knighthood have come to mean almost opposites. The ennobled meaning of servant is
propelled by those who identify others as servant leaders in the literature today
(Grazier, 2005; Griffin, 2004; Lawton, 2004; Crippen, 2004).
Before the split from Germanic, the word knight (or knecht) connoted the lower
servile association, closer to that of the word slave (Wilton, 2005, May 22). The
servile connotation has also continued to today. The image of the servant descending
to lowly tasks, such as in the example of Jesus Christ, is also unmistakably tied up in
the conceptualisation of the servant-leader. Being a servant in this association of the
word is also celebrated in present literature. For example, Sergiovanni (2000) relays
35