Servant Leader Assessment Paper

Do I Know Who I Am as a Leader

Do I know who I am as a leader? Authors like Greenleaf, Horsman, and Spears throw monkey wrenches into any conclusions I may have drawn prior to this course in Servant-Leadership. Merriam-Webster does not place such moral and ethical emphasis on leadership, merely defining leadership as “something that leads.” My answer: Yes! I’m a capable leader. Merriam-Webster goes on to define a leader as “a horse placed in advance of the other horses of a team.” This seems simple enough. The driver tells the lead horse where to go, the others follow. However, this implies blind leadership; in that, the horse’s driver is an outside influence, a lash to the ear of the lead beast.

Still, Greenleaf tells us that “anyone can lead! Anyone can lead who can bring together and hold followers as an effective force” (1998, p.152). By Greenleaf’s definition, again, I know I am a leader. Yet, knowing who I am as a leader requires more than definition. It requires I look deep into myself, into what drives my internal beast to be a leader of man without influence of feather or lash. It requires I define what kind of leader I aspire to be, then, pause to evaluate both my inherent and acquired qualifications. I know: I aspire to be a servant-leader. From here to epitaph, my definition of a leader and who I am as a leader will depend upon the qualifications presented by my teachers and such authors as referenced in this paper.

My Growth as a Leader

Greenleaf makes simple the most definitive requirement of servant-leadership when he tells us, “The servant is servant first…It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first” (2002, p.27). Do I have a natural feeling that I want to serve? I know that I was born with a natural predilection toward service. Growing up, I was also a natural leader. It came easy to me. Both children and adults looked to me to lead, intellectually and/or emotionally. If I were in a group of peers, I was either chosen to lead by peers or placed in the leadership role by teachers and sports team coaches. I realize now that I neither relished in it nor disliked the responsibility. I took my leadership as a service I was rendering. My own expectations demanded that I give, what back then, came naturally to me and somehow seemed to evade others. I fully recognize the arrogance of such a statement; nonetheless, I recall it as the truth. However, even as I type it, I doubt and question my recall. Why? Because, somewhere along the way I lost hope. I am, not sure when or where it happened; but, it happened.

Greenleaf talks about hope and those taking the risk to inspire with a vision. He tells us that “whoever and wherever they are, these teachers will catch the vision and do what they know best to do. First, they will reinforce or build hope” (1998, p.55). In my childhood, my formative years, these risk takers were not within my vision. I did not know until the last few years how sad this really was. I do now know that if you put a child in a leadership role, you must guide them with a vision. Merely, placing or allowing them in positions of power without mentorship is tantamount to setting the tall sail to sea without benefit of sextant or compass. Dead reckoning, subject to cumulative errors, has cast many ships upon the shore.

At seventeen, I joined the Air Force. Again, I was immediately placed, did not volunteer, into positions of power over other airmen of equal and lesser grade. I was always curious why I was picked out of the crowd to lead. Sometimes I thought it was because I showed promise. Other times, I thought it was because I lacked in the leadership skills my Non-Commissioned Officers thought I needed to learn. I do not recall anyone ever discussing it with me.

Losing Hope

As years passed. I proved a good sergeant that took good care of my airmen. I was up for an automatic promotion to Technical Sargent because of my accomplishments. I can recall a night that may have been a defining moment in my life. I was in charge of the midnight crew. We would work the aircraft that needed period weapons systems checks completed and troubleshoot aircraft systems that had in-flight problems the day prior. This night, we had a long list of aircraft requiring full weapons systems checks. It was a tedious process that first required I ground each aircraft from flight status. Upon successful completion I would sign the aircraft back on to flight status.

We were down to the last aircraft when my crew started complaining. They said that I watched them too closely, that I was untrusting and critical. I felt bad; because, I had never looked at my supervisory skills in that way. I was certainly by-the-book, but they made me feel like the kind of sergeant I never wanted to be. They convinced me that they could do all the checks on the aircraft without my constant supervision. I proceeded to accomplish what only I had the authorization to do. From our work van, I completed the paperwork necessary to ground the aircraft.

About an hour had elapsed when my crew returned to the van. I went through my entire crew chief checklist with them to ensure they had accomplished all required tasks. They assured me that they had; and, I signed the aircraft back in to flight status. The night was over. I went home feeling pretty good about the trust I had placed in my crew and earned as a supervisor. Maybe, they would think better of me from now on.

The next morning I awoke to phone call ordering me to return to my duty station. It sounded serious. When I arrived, I was met by my First Sergeant, Senior Master Sergeant, and Commander. I was read my legal rights, then placed under military arrest. Long story short: There were four sets of seals that had to be broken and resealed in order to perform the checks on the aircraft. Each of the seals was stamped with the date of the action. That night, only two of the seals had been broken: None of the four were resealed with a new date stamp. By placing the aircraft back on flight status, I had been derelict in duty, lied on official documents, and essentially placed flight crews in danger.

I listened as the charges were read against me. I immediately realized what my crew had done, yet, never said a word in my own defense. I knew that it was my duty, my responsibility, to have checked on my crew’s progress and results. However, I was told that because of my prior exemplary service the worst they would do to me was to give me a Letter of Reprimand, which for me was demoralizing enough. I also knew that if I reported what had actually happened, my crew would all receive Article 15 Court Martials and likely be removed from the Air Force. I was summarily stripped of my ability to place aircraft on or remove aircraft from flight status, relieved of my lead position on mid-shift, and lost my promotion. The following year, my tour of duty was up; and, I chose to leave the military.

On my last day, all I had left was to have one more signature on my out-processing paperwork. It was the Senior Master Sergeant’s that had been my supervisor at the time of my “lapse in judgment” (take that as you will). He was sitting in an office with three other high-ranking non-commissioned officers when I arrived. He refused to sign my paperwork until I answered one question: Why? Why would I ever have done something like what I described above? I told him that I would answer him if he and the other three would swear never to take further action against the airmen. They agreed. While he looked on confused and obviously very hurt, I left his office to round up my old crew.

My crew told those four sergeants the whole story. It was a true story. Until that day, I had ordered them never to tell. However, I must admit there were times when I wished they had refused that order. As they recounted that night, I was amazed by the relief on each of their faces. They were dismissed from the room. I was not. It seems he had another question: Why? Why would you not tell us what really happened? The answer, to me, was simple, yet, to him, irreconcilable to common sense. My answer: Their lying was something that was done to me. As their supervisor, it was for me to deal with. My failure to be a good sergeant and superior to these young men was something I had to take responsibility for.

My tough Senior Master Sergeant started crying - not like a baby, but tears flowed. In front of the other men, he told me that I was the best sergeant he had ever known. He offered to have my record wiped clean, give me my promotion, and would work to get me the station of my choice if I would only sign on the dotted line and re-up for another term of duty. He said, “You are what this Air Force needs.” I shook his hand and said goodbye.

Sipe & Frick (2009) liken a person’s “calling” or “daimon” to an acorn growing to a mighty oak tree (p.32). For me, the ground had become far too spoiled to sustain my growth. It was time to move on, time to find my true daimon. But, perhaps it was the wrong season for uprooting; because, growth did not come easy. In reminiscence, I wonder: Is this where I lost hope? For sure, hope was waning. For sure, I and my managers had never heard of Robert K. Greenleaf or servant-leadership. However, Thompson, when writing about learning and the acceptance of failure, does tell us “that a learning orientation is critical to career success” (2000, p.160) – something to look forward to.

The question has not been answered. Do I Know Who I Am as a Leader? Throughout the years, I have retold this story, hoping someone would bring light to my actions. The collective reaction to my retelling is: You’re stupid! I would have told on those guys in a heartbeat! Notwithstanding, up till now, I cannot answer the question concerning who I am as a leader. Since, stupid or not, I still feel the same way about my decision to remain silent. I know what this means to me, but not what it means to others as a leader.

Thompson also conveys that “sometimes our “failure” is simply the tugging of our reigns to move us back to our authentic path, back to where our deepest intention is to be” (2000, p.161). The quandary is in whether we recognize the pull of the reigns as the tug of a driver or the gentle prompting of a guide. Optimism versus pessimism, I suppose. As Greenleaf so aptly states, “One can make too optimistic assumptions and suffer endless frustration or too pessimistic ones and curb one’s aspirations. Yet one must err on the side of optimism and accept frustration” (2002, p.105). For the acorn to ever become the mighty oak, one must err on the side of optimism.

At Fifty

Now, at fifty, the oak has taken deep root; though, “mighty” certainly would not describe me well as a leader. Using the acorn/oak analogy, I would say that I now possess the healthy optimism and hope to allow-in what nourishment the fertile ground allows. I owe this renewed outlook in great part to the Organizational Leadership program at Gonzaga University and its outstanding staff of professors.

When contrasting and comparing my leadership characteristics to those listed by Burkhardt and Spears as the ten characteristics considered central to the development of servant leaders (Spears, 2002, p.226-227), I find in myself great promise in my continuing to develop within the servant-leader concept. Sipe & Frick (2009, p.182) provide this Marcel Post quote:

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Implementing a roadmap such as presented in Sipe’s & Frick’s Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership will provide new direction and the awareness to see when concept meets fruition. I look forward to both journey and successes.

It is interesting for me to note that my girlfriend, the Executive Director of a local community-based organization, edited this paper, for spelling more than content, and strongly disagrees with my self-assessment - that I have yet to attain servant-leader status. I would venture to guess my coworkers and managers might say the same. Yet, this paper serves to assess who I think I am as a leader. I would fairly call myself…a work in progress.

References

Greenleaf, R. K. (2002). In L. C. Spears (Ed.). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness, pp. #-#. (25th Anniversary ed.). New York: Paulist Press.

Greenleaf, R. K. (1998). Servant: Retrospect and prospect. In L. C. Spears (Ed.), The power of servant-leadership: Essays, (pp. 17-59). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Sipe, J. W. & Frick, D. M. (2009). Seven pillars of servant leadership: Practicing the wisdom of leading by serving. New York: Paulist Press.

Spears, L. C., & Lawrence, M. (2002). Focus on leadership: Servant-leadership for the twenty-first century. New York: J. Wiley & Sons.

Thompson, M. C. (2000). The congruent life: Following the inward path to fulfilling work and inspired leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.