The Path to Servant Leadership

Hypothesis:

As leaders grow and emerge within organizations the will inevitably come to a decision point on which model of leadership they will choose. One of those models they may choose is Servant Leadership. The likelihood of them choosing Servant Leadership is based on two factors: the depth of the leader’s value system and the alignment of their organization to a compelling mission... [read more]

Hypothesis:

As leaders grow and emerge within organizations the will inevitably come to a decision point on which model of leadership they will choose. One of those models they may choose is Servant Leadership. The likelihood of them choosing Servant Leadership is based on two factors: the depth of the leader’s value system and the alignment of their organization to a compelling mission statement. The purpose of this workshop is to present this hypothesis, backed up with referenced materials, and solicit experiences from the attendees on their experiences emerging as Servant Leaders. We will also explore how a lack of a compelling mission statement often results in the lack of Servant Leaders within their organizations.

Background:

I’ve considered myself to be a Servant Leader for several years now but until recently I didn’t know how I became a Servant Leader. It just seemed to happen as I matured in my career of working with teams but I hadn’t been able to explain how it happened or what the path looked like. It wasn’t until I read Leadership Agility by William Joiner and learned about staged development from Michael Hammon that I was able to see the growth progression I went through in becoming a Servant Leader. I found the staged development of leadership described in Leadership Agility mapped perfectly to my career and it showed me where I am currently as a maturing Servant Leader. It also has given me a path forward for my continued growth.

This presentation explores the path to Leadership and highlights where on that path a person chooses to become a Servant Leader. The presentation will also explore how the culture of an organization can effect the fostering of Servant Leaders within the organization. My hypothesis is that an organization requires an engaging mission statement, one that is described as a ‘great purpose’ in The Serving Leader by Ken Jennings. The whole organization must also be highly aligned to that great purpose if the organization is to create a culture that fosters the growth of Servant Leaders. (Non-aligned and weakly purposed organizations may have Servant Leaders in their organization but it is often because these Servant Leaders have found something outside of their organization to bring to their work that provides a greater purpose.)

 

Tom Looy is an Agile Coach with BigVisible. Tom has been a Project Manager and IT Director for the past 15 years of his 21 years of IT experience. For the last eight years Tom has been a full time Lean/Agile Project Manager and Coach for ThoughtWorks, Tacit Knowledge and now with BigVisible. As an Agile Project Manager Tom’s clients have included Allstate Insurance, DestinyUSA, Washington Mutual Bank and Barclays Global Investing. As a Lean/Agile Coach, Tom pioneered the adoption of Agile development and project management practices as Director of Pharmacy Systems at Longs Drugs Stores. He has also coached project teams, programs and entire divisions for companies such as Kodak Gallery, Macys.com, Williams Sonoma, LogLogic and Visa. With BigVisible Tom has worked with Nike and Autodesk.

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