The dictionary defines leadership as “the action of guiding a group of people or an organization” (“Leadership” n.d.) and service as “the action of helping someone.” (“Service” n.d.). Therefore, combining these terms to define servant leadership would produce: the action of guiding a group of people or an organization by helping them. This is a rather simple definition of servant leadership that has been questioned and analyzed by four authors, making the actual definition of servant leadership more ambiguous because of each author’s different approach to this topic. Robert Greenleaf, James Hunter, Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges have some apparent commonalities in their perspectives of servant leadership, but each author paves a different
…show more content…
In The Servant, Hunter describes servant leadership as love, “the verb”. Using the definition of agape love in First Corinthians as a model, Hunter would agree that patience, kindness, humility, respectfulness, selflessness, forgiveness, honesty, and commitment should be the basis of all relationships. Inverting the old paradigm of leadership, placing the leader at the bottom, models how the role of leader is to serve rather than be served. “…a leader is someone who identifies and meets the legitimate needs of their people, removes all the barriers, so they can serve the customer. Again, to lead you must serve.” (Hunter, 1998, p. 64). Hunter relates this agape love to all aspects of life, such as in relationships with family and friends, and relationships in the workplace. Ultimately, love is …show more content…
He reveals that the love demonstrated in the Bible is synonymous with the type of love that is required to be a good leader. Hunter’s quotation, “Our religion is simply our map, our paradigm, our beliefs that answer the difficult existential questions” (Hunter, 1998, p.93), is the only statement from his book that I would question. I would discuss whether religion a way of life or simply a map like Hunter says. I wonder if Hunter would declare that religion only shapes our beliefs, rather than being something much
In The Servant, Hunter describes servant leadership as love, “the verb”. Using the definition of agape love in First Corinthians as a model, Hunter would agree that patience, kindness, humility, respectfulness, selflessness, forgiveness, honesty, and commitment should be the basis of all relationships. Inverting the old paradigm of leadership, placing the leader at the bottom, models how the role of leader is to serve rather than be served. “…a leader is someone who identifies and meets the legitimate needs of their people, removes all the barriers, so they can serve the customer. Again, to lead you must serve.” (Hunter, 1998, p. 64). Hunter relates this agape love to all aspects of life, such as in relationships with family and friends, and relationships in the workplace. Ultimately, love is …show more content…
He reveals that the love demonstrated in the Bible is synonymous with the type of love that is required to be a good leader. Hunter’s quotation, “Our religion is simply our map, our paradigm, our beliefs that answer the difficult existential questions” (Hunter, 1998, p.93), is the only statement from his book that I would question. I would discuss whether religion a way of life or simply a map like Hunter says. I wonder if Hunter would declare that religion only shapes our beliefs, rather than being something much