The Servant's Conundrum

​Colleagues,
 
This is another message inspired by Tuesday’s APEx webinar.
 
One premise of being a strategic leader is that you spend more of your time doing the things that only you can do and less of your time doing what others can do. 
 
For servant leaders, this presents a conundrum. One way to show appreciation and value for your people is to take stuff off of their plates. For example, as a principal I may need some information from each teacher in my building. Instead of asking each person to provide that information, I choose to look it up myself. That takes me a lot more time, but it allows each teacher more time to plan lessons and provide feedback to students, and it shows that I value their time.
 
However, spending a couple of hours looking up information that others could do more efficiently isn’t a great use of a leader’s time.
 
Part of the challenge is how we interpret the concept of servant leadership. If we overemphasize servant, then we can become too focused on doing things for other people. Servant leadership is a two-word concept – servant and leadership.
 
Servant leadership is not about leading others by serving them, it is about serving others by leading them.
 
The benefit of servant leadership comes when you lead in ways that help others grow. More on that tomorrow.
 
Do good and be well,
 
Frederick