“These terms do not fit together-Servant & Leader … It’s just another way poor leaders attempt to elevate themselves above those they ‘serve’… an entirely unhealthy approach for a leader to take… Our need to be led well is far more important than our need to be served. The more correct notion is that of a ‘Serving Leader’ … (with) many ‘masters’ … when Richard Greenleaf coined this phrase … he was talking entirely about how leaders serve, not about leaders being servants.”
~Mark Stanley, from a Harvard Business School article

Sometimes it seems like we live in a world where so many people want to see themselves as Steve Jobs or Sir Richard Branson, strong individuals who chased their own unique vision.  The challenge is that those individuals are few and far between.  Few understand there is only one Steve Jobs and one Richard Branson.   So we create a class of smart people who could otherwise make great leaders but instead allow them to become self-centered micro-managers.

Servant leadership is providing your people the right tools, giving them collaborative coaching and direction, and inspiring them.  It’s not a leadership style or technique as such, rather it’s a way of behaving that you adopt over the long term.

Servant leadership is also about sharing, allowing them the opportunity to participate and giving credit when it’s due.  Those who turn into Steve Jobs clones never understand the joy of helping others succeed, or understand that when your people succeed under your leadership, it reflects back on you.

Sorry to say that most managers will never understand servant leadership, and instead will live a lonely, tug-of-war life of attempting dominance.  Don’t let it be you.

“I’ve tried to make the men around me feel, as I do, that we are embarked as pioneers upon a new science and industry in which our problems are so new and unusual that it behooves no one to dismiss any novel idea with the statement that ‘it can’t be done!’ … Our job is to keep everlastingly at research and experiment, to let no new improvement in flying and flying equipment pass us by.”
~William Boeing, 1929

When Boeing was still located in Seattle, I used to love driving by on I-5 to see what was new.  The latest, and experimental aircraft were always parked out on the north side of Boeing Field, painted in Boeing Colors.  It was a company that had been in their industry early on, and worked to stay ahead of the curve.  Innovation was a part of their DNA.

I moved from Seattle, and then so did they, but I never forgot the lesson of continual innovation. Labor Day Evening I landed in Orlando, on a Boeing 737, to speak at a radio gathering focused on tomorrow.  Boeing’s innovations are still with me.

I’m particularly struck by the leadership example Boeing showed too, full of inspiration and encouragement.  With that example of leadership and innovation, no wonder they accomplished so much change in the airline industry.  I can’t imagine William Boeing telling his people that the propeller motor was just fine, and trying to add motors, rather than exploring the new jet engine, can you?

Radio’s future is grounded in innovation.  Even though we’ve mostly become an industry that wants everyone else to take the chances that come with innovation, we will adapt, innovate, or fail.

Hello future, let’s be friends.