Servant Leadership (Part 1)

"Good leaders must first become good servants.” ~Robert Greenleaf

“From now on, any definition of a successful life must include serving others." ~George Bush

“Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Servant leadership is all about helping others succeed and doing things that benefit them. This is done by focusing on their needs and wants before our own. True leaders serve the people they lead, their peers, and their supervisors. They have the mindset and actions of a servant leader. Over the next few days we will be on a journey to better understand servant leadership and how we can better serve as leaders. We will be discussing 3 points in even more detail, they are:

The mindset of servant leadership.
The act of servant leadership.
The rewards of servant leadership.

Before we begin our journey, I want to share with you about Harriet Tubman a true example of a servant leader. She was also known as the 'Black Moses' and was a freedom fighter for African Americans. Her story and example truly show what servant leadership means.

"In 1849, on hearing that the slaves of the plantation were to be sold, she decided to flee.

In 1850, after Congress adopted the Fugitive Slave Act, making assistance to fugitive slaves illegal, Tubman decided to join the Underground Railroad. Her first expedition to the South in 1851 was a success and she brought back her sister and her children. Six years later, she led her parents to freedom in Auburn, New York, where she made her home.

Between 1851 and the beginning of the American Civil War, Tubman undertook 18 expeditions to the South and assisted approximately 300 slaves. She was never caught and never lost a slave. Her reputation spread rapidly and she soon acquired the nickname of "Moses". The tales of her expeditions reveal her highly spiritual nature, courage and strong determination to protect those that she assisted.

During the Civil War, Tubman served as a nurse, scout and occasionally as a spy for the Union Army, notably in South Carolina. She also took part in a military campaign which lead to the release of some 750 slaves.

After the war, Tubman continued her fight for social justice, including the fight for women’s rights. She died on 10 March 1913, around 93 years of age, in a home for needy blacks that she herself had helped found in Auburn, New York." (Source: http://portal.unesco.org)