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LESSON 18: Leadership: Lessons On Leadership and Membership From Fables

This document discusses the concept of servant leadership. It begins by outlining Robert Greenleaf's definition of servant leadership as putting serving others as the top priority. The key aspects of servant leadership are ensuring the needs of followers are being met, helping followers grow and develop, and focusing on the success of all stakeholders, not just the organization. The document contrasts servant leadership with traditional leadership approaches that prioritize the leader's power or needs. Overall, servant leadership emphasizes moral and ethical responsibilities to care for others.

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Milover Lovelock
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800 views5 pages

LESSON 18: Leadership: Lessons On Leadership and Membership From Fables

This document discusses the concept of servant leadership. It begins by outlining Robert Greenleaf's definition of servant leadership as putting serving others as the top priority. The key aspects of servant leadership are ensuring the needs of followers are being met, helping followers grow and develop, and focusing on the success of all stakeholders, not just the organization. The document contrasts servant leadership with traditional leadership approaches that prioritize the leader's power or needs. Overall, servant leadership emphasizes moral and ethical responsibilities to care for others.

Uploaded by

Milover Lovelock
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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LESSON 18: Leadership

LESSONS ON LEADERSHIP AND MEMBERSHIP FROM FABLES


Can you identify the lesson being taught by each story?

1. The Farmer and the Stork


A Farmer placed nets on his newly sown plough lands, and caught a quantity of
Cranes, which came to pick up his seed. With them he trapped a Stork also. The
Stork having his leg fractured by the net, earnestly besought the Farmer to spare his
life. “Pray, save me, Master,” he said, “and let me go free this once. My broken limb
should excite your pity. Besides, I am no Crane, I am a Stork, a bird of excellent
character; and see how I love and slave for my father and mother. Look too, at my
feathers, they are not the least like to those of a Crane.” The Farmer laughed aloud,
and said, “It may be all as you say; I only know this, I have taken you with these
robbers, the Cranes, and you must die in their company.”
Source: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/10/17/manvotional-aesops-fables

2. The Hunter and the Woodsman

A hunter, not very bold, was searching for the tracks of a Lion. He asked a man
felling oaks in the forest if he had seen any marks of his footsteps or knew where his
lair was. “I will,” said the man, “at once show you the Lion himself.” The Hunter,
turning very pale and chattering with his teeth from fear, replied, “No, thank you. I
did not ask that; it is his track only I am in search of, not the Lion himself.”
Source: http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_aesop_hunter_woodman.htm

3. Bear and man lying down


Two men were traveling together, when a bear suddenly met them on their path.
One of them climbed up quickly into a tree, and concealed himself in the branches.
The other, seeing that he must be attacked, fell flat on the ground, and when the
Bear came up and felt him with his snout, and smelt him all over, he held his breath,
and feigned the appearance of death as much as he could. The Bear soon left him,
for it is said he will not touch a dead body. When he was quite gone, the other
traveler descended from the tree, and accosting his friend, jocularly inquired “what it
was the Bear had whispered in his ear?” he replied, “He gave me this advice: Never
travel with a friend who deserts you at the approach of danger.”
Source: http://www.moralstories.org/the-bear-and-the-two-friends/
4. Goatherd and the wild goats
A Goatherd, driving his flock from their pasture at eventide, found some Wild Goats
mingled among them, and shut them up together with his own for the night. The
next day it snowed very hard, so that he could not take the herd to their usual
feeding places, but was obliged to keep them in the fold. He gave his own goats just
sufficient food to keep them alive, but fed the strangers more abundantly in the
hope of enticing them to stay with him and of making them his own. When the thaw
set in, he led them all out to feed, and the Wild Goats scampered away as fast as
they could to the mountains. The Goatherd scolded them for their ingratitude in
leaving him, when during the storm he had taken more care of them than of his own
herd. One of them, turning about, said to him: “That is the very reason why we are
so cautious; for if you yesterday treated us better than the Goats you have had so
long, it is plain also that if others came after us, you would in the same manner
prefer them to ourselves.”
Source: http://fablesofaesop.com/the-goatherd-and-the-wild-goats.html

5. The Gnat and the Bull


A Gnat settled on the horn of a Bull, and sat there a long time. Just as he was about
to fly off, he made a buzzing noise, and inquired of the Bull if he would like him to
go. The Bull replied, “I did not know you had come, and I shall not miss you when
you go away.”
Source: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/10/17/manvotional-aesops-fables/

6. The Man and the Little Cat


One day, an old man was having a stroll in the forest when he suddenly saw a little
cat stuck in a hole. The poor animal was struggling to get out. So, he gave him his
hand to get him out. But the cat scratched his hand with fear. The man pulled his
hand screaming with pain. But he did not stop; he tried to give a hand to the cat
again and again. Another man was watching the scene, screamed with surprise,
“Stop helping this cat! He’s going to get himself out of there”. The other man did not
care about him, he just continued saving that animal until he finally succeeded, And
then he walked to that man and said , “Son, it is cat’s Instincts that makes him
scratch and to hurt, and it is my job to love and care”.
Source: http://www.moralstories.org/the-man-and-the-little-cat/

SERVANT LEADERSHIP
While the idea of servant leadership goes back at least two thousand
years, the modern servant leadership movement was launched by Robert K.
Greenleaf in 1970 with the publication of his classic essay, The Servant as
Leader. It was in that essay that he coined the words "servant-leader" and
"servant leadership." Greenleaf defined the servant-leader as follows:
"The servant-leader is servant first... It begins with the natural feeling that
one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire
to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps
because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire
material possessions...The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme
types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the
infinite variety of human nature."
"The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to
make sure that other people's highest priority needs are being served. The
best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do
they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous,
more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the
least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further
deprived?
Robert Greenleaf's concept of the servant-leader was stimulated by his
reading of Journey to the East by Herman Hesse. It is the story of a group of
travelers who were served by Leo, who did their menial chores and lifted
them with his spirit and song. All went well until Leo disappeared one day.
The travelers fell into disarray and could go no farther. The journey was over.
Years later, one of the travelers saw Leo again—as the revered head of the
Order that sponsored the journey. Leo, who had been their servant, was the
titular head of the Order, a great and noble leader.
In The Servant as Leader, Greenleaf said: ...this story clearly says—the
great leader is seen as servant first, and that simple fact is the key to his
greatness. Leo was actually the leader all of the time, but he was servant first
because that was what he was, deep down inside. Leadership was bestowed
upon a man who was by nature a servant. It was something given, or
assumed, that could be taken away. His servant nature was the real man, not
bestowed, not assumed, and not to be taken away. He was servant first.
If there is a single characteristic of the servant-leader that stands out in
Greenleaf's essay, it is the desire to serve. A walk through The Servant as
Leader provides a fairly long list of additional characteristics that Greenleaf
considered important. They include listening and understanding; acceptance
and empathy; foresight; awareness and perception; persuasion;
conceptualization; self-healing; and rebuilding community. Greenleaf
describes servant-leaders as people who initiate action, are goal-oriented, are
dreamers of great dreams, are good communicators, are able to withdraw
and re-orient themselves,
and are dependable,
trusted, creative,
intuitive, and situational.
Greenleaf described a
philosophy, not a theory.
However, based on the
views of a number of scholars, the elements that are most unique to servant
leadership compared with other theories are:
(1) the moral component, not only in terms of the personal morality and
integrity of the servant-leader, but also in terms of the way in which a
servant-leader encourages enhanced moral reasoning among his or her
followers, who can therefore test the moral basis of the servant-leader's
visions and organizational goals;
(2) the focus on serving followers for their own good, not just the good of
the organization, and forming long-term relationships with followers,
encouraging their growth and development so that over time they may reach
their fullest potential;
(3) concern with the success of all stakeholders, broadly defined—
employees, customers, business partners, communities, and society as a
whole—including those who are the least privileged; and
(4) self-reflection, as a counter to the leader's hubris
Source: http://toservefirst.com/definition-of-servant-leadership.html

Source: http://thorstenconsulting.com/serendipity/uploads/servantleadershipthorstenconsulting.jpg

SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Servant leadership is not about “I”,
nor is it about “we”.
It is about “THEM”.

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