Navigation:

Scripture references can be seen by hovering your cursor over the reference. A pop up box will appear with the scripture text.

Green text indicates an activity, exercise or notes for you to work through.

Red text indicates additional information such as glossary or commentary. A pop up box with the information will appear when you hover your cursor over the redtext.

Bold black underlined text indicate My Notes, Action Plan or other documents you can download one time, save to your computer, and continually enter information when doing activities and exercises throughout the course.

Bold Blue underlined text indicates links to pages in the study and other internet links.

 “Your Journey Toward Servant Leadership”

A Leadership Thesis–is set in place for this and the other courses on servant leadership:

“Practicing servant leadership in Christian ministry is self-giving service with others after the pattern of Christ through example and persuasion in order to achieve extraordinary commitment and contributions toward mutually shared Kingdom goals. ”
                                                                                                                                            Lloyd Elder – 1995 and since

1.0 Series Introduction

Series Objective and Learning Goals:

The objective of “your journey toward servant leadership” is to empower today’s Christian lay and staff ministers/leaders to practice servant leadership by exploring the biblical patterns lived and taught by Christ, along with a powerful contemporary movement pioneered by Robert K. Greenleaf. At the close of the courses in this series, you should be able:

• To evaluate the concepts and practices of servant leadership, always focusing on servant first;

• To understand the basic choices you have among the various styles and models of leadership;

• To apply servant leadership to the many functions of Christian ministry;

• To map out your own journey for leadership development;

• To reach back into this material as a “tool box” for as-needed help;

• To guide others in the consistent development and practice of servant leadership.

SERVANT LEADERSHIP

Greenleaf’s Servant Thesis:

“A new moral principle is emerging which holds that the only authority deserving one’s allegiance is that which is freely and knowingly granted by the led to the leader in response to, and in proportion to, the clearly evident servant stature of the leader. … Rather, they will freely respond only to individuals who are chosen as leader because they are proven and trusted as servants. ”
                                                                                                from Servant Leadership, Robert K. Greenleaf, p. 10

The servant leadership graphic below intends to portray the practice of servant leadership as five windows of opportunity–of light and fresh air. The largest window, encompassing all else, is empowering leadership and the smallest, supporting all else, is efficiency. All five practices working together reflect a synergy that is true to the essence of the servant as leader. Developing and practicing servant leadership is self-directed by continuous choices and practices in following the pattern of Christ.

Servant Leadership Learning Tools

The SkillTrack® curriculum builds upon many kinds of tools useful both for knowledge/awareness and for putting your training to work in your own daily life and ministry. Consider some of the following paragraphs presenting such tools. Reflection: What tools are you now using?

Building Your Own Case Study

Case studies are often used as effective ways for the interactive teaching/learning process. Concrete situations and actions — real or invented — are described in such a way that a person or a team can propose options, actions, lessons, and corrections for handling such future situations. How can you do this for these courses?

• Describe briefly a life or leadership situation that you handled, giving only a sketch of the essential details.

• Reflect on the situation, the outcome, and your performance at that time.

• Now, in view of these servant leadership concepts, what are the lessons that could be learned and what actions taken?

• Write them down and add to them for future or immediate reference.

• Use concepts and suggested actions to develop a specific plan for the next time.

Leadership Self-Assessment

A good starting place on the journey of leadership improvement or development is to assess your current level of knowledge and practice. This may be done throughout the specific content of the courses or by using leadership assessment tools.

SkillTrack® courses like those in the Servant Leadership series address the importance of self-assessment with a number of activities and surveys that ask you first and foremost to think about your own leadership practices: recognizing patterns and responses from the past and mapping/planning your leadership journey into the future!

Gifted for Leadership–Romans 12:6-8

“We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.”

This Servant Leadership three-course series provides basic and advanced study materials. You may want to focus only on selected units and courses, or study the entire comprehensive curriculum. The series contains three courses with 24 study units for oral instruction/learning time of 15 to 20 hours for the series.

For advanced study, Support Materials are available to provide dozens of up-to-date links to articles, research reports, and case studies available on the Internet and supplemental online reading material. Scripture, commentary, glossary and references helps are provided to deepen your study even further

Your work station is a classroom, your course is a lesson on servant leadership, and your task and situation is a laboratory.

Leadership Theory–A Journey

Just how does “servant leadership” fit into the larger journey of leadership theory? Volumes have been written about leadership, although the term has come to its “loftiest use” — if not overuse — in our generation. Since much of this body of material is about leadership theory, selected theories are briefly summarized here:

• Succession Theory: Leadership is given by divine right, by the succession of one sovereign in a royal line. Some truth here, but it doesn’t apply to many of us.

• Natural Theory: Some are born and destined for leadership; they are natural leaders, and others simply are not. Natural characteristics may help, but there is more.

• Great Event Theory: Leadership arises with an occasion, an event in history, when one rises to do what must be done. But then again, many simply do not.

• Position Theory: Leadership is linked to a position (prophet, priest, judge, president, chairman, pastor, deacon, etc.). A leadership position may provide the opportunity, but not the vision, skill or performance demanded.

• Trait Theory: Leadership is vested in a particular set of personal qualities, talents, and skills; but as you know, leadership traits may not always be transformed into reality.

• Servant Leadership: Although there may be some truth in each one of the above theories, or a combination of them, this SkillTrack® series of courses on servant leadership is based on biblical and more contemporary principles and practices–on your character and behavior. So keep this in mind and add your own insights as you build upon our efforts!

Signposts on My Journey

As the instructor/author of these courses, perhaps it would be helpful to state some of my commitments to and findings about servant leadership. This is also a good place for you to complete a self-assessment activity of your own! Some of these thoughts are clearly drawn from others, but they are pulled together here as my own in support of all three courses.

ACTIVITY

• Reflect on each of the following truths concerning servant leadership.

• Pick 3 or 4 that may have particular significance for your life and leadership situations.

• Record your thoughts for later reflection.

1. Jesus is the one ideal pattern of servant leadership, although many others may practice this approach to life and leadership.

2. The Bible reports a great diversity in styles and models of leadership that do express servant leadership.

3. Servant leadership is always in that order–servant first, then leadership; or as Robert Greenleaf put it, “servant as leader.”

4. Servant leadership is a way of life and is expressed appropriately in many settings and relationships: the church, family, school, business, society, government, etc.

5. Servant leadership is a relationship, not a solo act practiced in a vacuum.

6. Even if servant leadership cannot be taught by another, it can be learned and improved; you learn by practicing it as you travel the journey.

7. Servant leadership is a journey, not a short trip. That is the dominant concept in this series of courses. You seldom get there; it is a process, not one point in time or an event completed.

8. Servant leadership will be dealing with kindred realities: calling, choices, processes, persuasion, example, influences, situations, abilities, capacities, energy, passion, relationship, direction, vision, inspiration, hard work.

9. Servant leadership takes all of you–your spiritual gifts, innate abilities, acquired skills, circle of acquaintances, situations, and life of choices.

Lloyd Elder