NBC News
updated 2/28/2004 9:37:41 AM ET 2004-02-28T14:37:41




Stone Phillips: “How many corporate bosses in America today are washing the feet of their employees?



Spears: “We have at the Greenleaf Center members and customers who are Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, you name the faith background, and there is somebody who is, in fact, a sincere practicing servant leader. I think what service leadership has done in some ways is to bring a language that's helping to unite what can sometimes be different and difficult relations between different faith backgrounds.”

Greenleaf's original essay, "The Servant as Leader,” written in 1970, has now been translated into nine languages, most recently Arabic.

Spears: “Robert Greenleaf's key message is that one should be as much as possible a servant to others, that that is the fundamental way in which we can improve the quality of caring within society, within organizations and in relationships between people.”

Phillips: “What kind of qualities are you talking about?”

Spears: “They're things like an emphasis on listening to others, getting the ideas of others with whom they work. The use of persuasion within organizations.”

Phillips: “As opposed to bossing people around?”

Spears: “Correct.”

Phillips: “And if you can't persuade everybody?”

Spears: “Well, as you get larger as an organization, it probably becomes less and less likely that you can get everybody on board.”

Phillips: “And what does the servant-leader do in that case?”


Phillips: “So, the medicine goes down a little easier if you've made that attempt?”

Spears: “That's right.”

Phillips: “So, good listening, trying to persuade, as opposed to coerce, when it comes to decision making. What else?”

Spears: “Well, another characteristic is an emphasis on the growth of people.”

Phillips: “To advance not just within the company, but as people?”

Spears: “That's right.”



Phillips: “You can be competitive with this kind of a leadership model?”




Phillips: “The courage not just to be caring, but to be loving.”

Spears: “That's right. The word 'love' is something you rarely hear in the daily workings of most organizations, but in servant-led organizations you, in fact, do hear that.”

Phillips: “Some leaders might be concerned that if they adopt this model, this servant as leader, that they may be perceived as weak.”




Spears: “I'm not even sure how to answer that question.” [laughter]




Spears: “There's a lot of pain involved in that sort of decision for a servant-leader.“


Phillips: “I take it Vince Lombardi would not be an example of a servant-leader. And yet a lot of people would say, ‘I would have loved being on his team, those Green Bay Packers. As tough as he was, now that's a leader.’”

Spears: “What I've read of Lombardi suggests to me that, in fact, he was a very complicated man.  And at some level was, in fact, a true servant-leader.”

Phillips: “Tough, demanding Vince Lombardi? A servant-leader?”

Spears: “The way that I think Vince Lombardi exhibited servant-leadership was a real emphasis on his teams and the people who made up his teams.”

Phillips: “I mean this is a guy who was pretty much a dictator on his team.”

Spears: “I think that's right, by in large, but where servant-leadership I think did come into play was his encouragement of each individual player to be the very best they could be.”

Phillips: “Personal growth.”

Spears: “Personal growth.”

Phillips: “And he cared about them. Tough, but he cared.”

Spears: “I believe he did.”



Phillips: “And some faith?”

Spears: “And some faith.”



Phillips: “Being willing to give his life on the cross… in service of others… kind of the ultimate example of this.”

Spears: “I think it is the ultimate example.”

Phillips: “It sends a powerful, uplifting message to the troops, if you will. What happens when that kind of a message gets sent and received?”

Spears: “While leaders aren't being put upon crosses these days, there are difficult times, difficult problems that almost every organization goes through. And in that sense, certainly there are great challenges and sacrifices that get made in the modern work place. The message and feeling that comes to recipients of that sort of sacrifice is most often one of gratitude and of love.”

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