"Rahul, you don't have to ask, please tell me and it will be done." That was the response from a close friend when I requested for some help. His response kept playing in my mind. How can someone order for help? Soon, my mind was racing back in time. While I was a manager, a senior colleague once told me I cannot be a good leader if I continue to be polite with people. “You have to be very aggressive to be a good leader,” he had said. For the next couple of days, I was trying to transform myself - practicing dialogues and techniques that would change perception of others towards me. It lasted only a few days though. “What’s wrong with you, why are you acting strange?” My wife confronted me and that was the end of my attempt at transformation. Do all good leaders pass orders to get work done? I hit the web for answers. There were many theories and frameworks that helped me put to rest worries, if I can call it so. What was truly motivating was the story of Robert Greenleaf.
He was an obscure sixty-six-year-old former mid-level AT&T executive until he wrote an essay that launched a movement. His work titled “Servant as Leader" turned the reigning philosophies of business and political leadership upside down. Greenleaf argued that the most effective leaders weren’t heroic, take-charge commanders but instead were quieter, humbler types whose animating purpose was to serve those nominally beneath them. Greenleaf called this notion “servant leadership” and explained that the order of those two words held the key to its meaning. “The servant-leader is servant first,” he wrote. “Becoming a servant-leader begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.”
His work might not go well with the managers of today for it is not service to others that is a priority but dominating others in their continuous pursuit for prominence. Well, I am glad there are people and organizations who understand leadership has many facets. I know my way. Do you?
