Book Description
This collection of inspiring essays focuses on the practice of servant-leadership in organizational and business settings. Focus on Leadership addresses how servant-leadership is now increasingly recognized as being on the forefront of emerging leadership thinking. This book features a Foreword by Ken Blanchard as well as writing from: Hamilton Beazley · Julie Beggs · Warren Bennis · Ken Blanchard · John C. Bogle · Rubye Howard Braye · John Burkhardt · John Carver · Stephen R. Covey · Max DePree · K. Brian Dorval · Kent A. Farnsworth · Tamyra L. Freeman · Robert K. Greenleaf · Dee Hock · Scott G. Isaksen · Joseph Jaworski · Michael Jones · Ann McGee-Cooper · Russ S. Moxley · Nancy Larner Ruschman · John P. Schuster · James D. Showkeir · Ruth Mercedes Smith · Larry C. Spears · Duane Trammell · David S. Young · Scott W. Webster · Margaret Wheatley · Judy Wicks · Lea E. Williams · Danah Zohar


Book Info
Provides an inspirational collection of 25 essays on servant-leadership, with a significant focus on the practice of servant-leadership in organizational and business settings.


From the Inside Flap
Robert K. Greenleaf first wrote about a new type of leader, the servant-leader, in 1970, but his idea remains a revolutionary approach to managing an organization. Servant-leadership stresses the importance and benefit leaders gain by serving the welfare of employees, customers, and communities. Traditional leadership modes that concentrate solely on the quest for profit or the attainment of goals at any cost are giving way to a holistic approach to work that promotes a sense of community and the sharing of power in decision-making. Servant-leadership is a long-term, transformational approach to life and work that has the potential for creating positive change throughout society. Focus on Leadership highlights the importance of Greenleaf’s ideas on management theory and their impact across the contemporary business landscape. It offers a selection of writing from some of the leading thinkers on servant-leadership and management culture, including Warren Bennis, Stephen Covey, Margaret Wheatley, and John Bogle. It also includes an excerpt from Greenleaf’s seminal essay "The Servant as Leader" that serves as an excellent introduction to the principles and essentials of servant-leadership. Other highlights include essays on the ideal servant-leader, companies that have put the servant-leadership model to work in their own corporate structures, servant-leadership at work in educational and philanthropic institutions, and servant-leadership in the new economy. The essays here fall into four categories that cover servant-leadership’s relation to the individual, the workplace, the surrounding community, and the world as a whole. These essays present a fundamental understanding and the newest thinking on servant-leadership’s ability to change lives in our communities and in communities around the world. For those already familiar with servant-leadership, Focus on Leadership offers an opportunity to further explore Greenleaf’s revolutionary ideas. For those just discovering servant-leadership, it serves as both a source of inspiration and a call for enlightenment and change.


Back Cover Copy
From FOCUS ON LEADERSHIP . . . Robert K. Greenleaf from "The Servant as Leader" "The servant-leader is servant first. Becoming a servant-leader begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.... The best test is this: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?" Ken Blanchard from "The Heart of Leadership" "I truly believe that servant-leadership has never been more applicable to the world of leadership than it is today. Not only are people looking for a deeper purpose and meaning when they must meet the challenges of todays changing world; they are also looking for principles and philosophies that actually work. Servant-leadership works. Servant-leadership is about getting people to a higher level by leading people at a higher level." Stephen R. Covey from "Servant-Leadership and Community Leadership in the Twenty-First Century" "Anyone can be a servant-leader. Any one of us can take initiative ourself; it doesnt require that we be appointed a leader, but it does require that we operate from moral authority. The spirit of servant-leadership is the spirit of moral authority." Margaret Wheatley from "The Work of the Servant-Leader" "I believe that Greenleaf knew so much, was accessing so much of what I would call ‘eternal wisdom when he said the criterion of successful servant-leadership is that those that we serve are healthier and wiser and freer and more autonomous, and perhaps they even loved our leadership so much that they want to serve others also." Warren Bennis from "Become a Tomorrow Leader""Too many organizations are overmanaged and underled because the people at the top are better at making policies, practices, and procedures than they are at creating a compelling, overarching vision. They are managers, not leaders." FOCUS ON LEADERSHIP CONTRIBUTORSHamilton Beazley Julie Beggs Warren Bennis Ken Blanchard John C. Bogle Rubye Howard Braye John Burkhardt John Carver Stephen R. Covey Max DePree K. Brian Dorval Kent A. Farnsworth Tamyra L. Freeman Robert K. Greenleaf Dee Hock Scott G. Isaksen Joseph Jaworski Michael Jones Ann McGee-Cooper Russ S. Moxley Nancy Larner Ruschman John P. Schuster James D. Showkeir Ruth Mercedes Smith Larry C. Spears Duane Trammell David S. Young Scott W. Webster Margaret Wheatley Judy Wicks Lea E. Williams Danah Zohar


About the Author
LARRY C. SPEARS is the Chief Executive Officer of The Robert K. Greenleaf Center, which was founded in 1969 and originally called the Center for Applied Ethics. The Centers mission is to carry the message of servant-leadership originated by Greenleaf, who was the Director of Management Research at AT&T, where he worked for thirty-eight years. Mr. Spears is also the editor of Insights on Leadership and Reflections on Leadership (both from Wiley). MICHELE LAWRENCE has been with the Greenleaf Center since 1993, working in many programmatic capacities, including directing their annual international conference and editing their quarterly newsletter.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Robert K. Greenleaf first wrote about a new type of leader, the servant-leader, in 1970, but his idea remains a revolutionary approach to managing an organization. Servant-leadership stresses the importance and benefit leaders gain by serving the welfare of employees, customers, and communities. Traditional leadership modes that concentrate solely on the quest for profit or the attainment of goals at any cost are giving way to a holistic approach to work that promotes a sense of community and the sharing of power in decision-making. Servant-leadership is a long-term, transformational approach to life and work that has the potential for creating positive change throughout society.

Focus on Leadership highlights the importance of Greenleaf's ideas on management theory and their impact across the contemporary business landscape. It offers a selection of writing from some of the leading thinkers on servant-leadership and management culture, including Warren Bennis, Stephen Covey, Margaret Wheatley, and John Bogle. It also includes an excerpt from Greenleaf's seminal essay "The Servant as Leader" that serves as an excellent introduction to the principles and essentials of servant-leadership. Other highlights include essays on the ideal servant-leader, companies that have put the servant-leadership model to work in their own corporate structures, servant-leadership at work in educational and philanthropic institutions, and servant-leadership in the new economy.

The essays here fall into four categories that cover servant-leadership's relation to the individual, the workplace, the surrounding community, and the world as a whole. These essays present a fundamental understanding and the newest thinking on servant-leadership's ability to change lives in our communities and in communities around the world.

For those already familiar with servant-leadership, Focus on Leadership offers an opportunity to further explore Green-leaf's revolutionary ideas. For those just discovering servant-leadership, it serves as both a source of inspiration and a call for enlightenment and change.

AUTHOR DESCRIPTION

Larry C. Spears is the Chief Executive Officer of The Robert K. Greenleaf Center, which was founded in 1969 and originally called the Center for Applied Ethics. The Center's mission is to carry the message of servant-leadership originated by Greenleaf, who was the Director of Management Research at AT&T, where he worked for thirty-eight years. Mr. Spears is also the editor of Insights on Leadership and Reflections on Leadership (both from Wiley).