
Only Servant-Led Institutions Will Survive - smalter
http://blog.idonethis.com/post/17318994683/the-servant-leader-and-the-social-enterprise
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rubidium
"a servant’s natural inclination is service to others — not coercion — for the
purpose of others’ growth, health, wisdom, freedom, autonomy, and benefit, and
for that reason, in the future, 'the only truly viable institutions will be
those that are predominantly servant-led.'"

One problem. The current education system is entirely based on coercion, and
the result of K-12 education is a mass of people that don't know any other
system.

Even with a servant-led organization, it takes a lot of effort to lead
employees in how to be achieving their "growth, health, wisdom, freedom,
autonomy, and benefit". It's possible, but I think the reason the great bulk
of the population is not demanding a better work relations and environment is
that they've never experienced anything different.

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stfu
Leadership theory is such a notoriously vague subject. Academics are still
fighting over if it is possible to even "teach" leadership or not. In my view
it still comes down to do what works best for you and your company on a case-
by-case level. Sure, there are universal truisms, but you can't "lead" some
military operation the same way you lead a charity fundriser. In my opinion
"Servant Leadership" is just another marketing phrase that follows others such
as transformational leadership, transactional leadership, participative
leadership and so on.

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mattgreenrocks
It also ignores the fact that leaders need to employ different attitudes with
different people. Some people are needy and not comfortable with the vagueness
of autonomy. Others need a more hands-off approach for best results. Servant
leadership strikes me as optimizing for the latter.

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ilaksh
This philosophy is definitely a step in the right direction.

However, I think we really need even more fundamental reforms to our
institutions and belief systems.

The enterprise or corporation predates the widescale use of wages for labor.
Originally the labor was motivated and organized by whips and shackles.

Maybe I just watched too many Jordan Maxwell videos, but I actually think that
the words "enterprise", "prise" and "prison" share common roots.

Enter - _prise_ :

"From Middle English prise, from Old French prise (“a taking, capture, a
seizure, a thing seized, a prize, booty, also hold, purchase”), from French
prise, from pris, past participle of prendre (“to take, to capture”), from
Latin prendere (“to take, seize”); see prehend. Compare prison, apprise,
comprise, enterprise, purprise, reprisal, suprise, etc."

<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prize#Etymology_1>

It is time to prise open the irons.

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kylemaxwell
One of my favorite comments in this:

>"A setback, however minor, can have a greater negative impact on inner work
life than progress can have in the positive direction."

While I'm not necessarily a fan of the terminology like "servant-led", that's
probably due to some specific connotations I personally have associated with
it. But non-hierarchical organizations intuitively seem more useful and
efficient than old-style, top-down organizations. Perhaps the best example of
such a thing would be an adhocracy[1], and the description in the article
could represent a step along that transition.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhocracy>

