The Power of Servant Leadership

During the last decade, we have witnessed an unparalleled explosion of interest in the practice of "servant-leadership," as today's business leaders search for a new leadership model for the 21st century. Based on the seminal work of Robert K. Greenleaf, a former AT& T executive who coined the term almost thirty years ago, servant-leadership emphasizes an emerging approach to leadership--one which puts serving others, including employees, customers, and community, first. In fact, Greenleaf's work, including his bestselling Servant-Leadership, has become increasingly popular since his death in 1990 and continues to inspire a growing movement of people and organizations concerned with issues of leadership, management, service, and spirit.

The Power of Servant-Leadership is a collection of nine of Greenleaf's most compelling essays on servant-leadership. These essays, published together in one volume for the first time, contain many of Greenleaf's best insights into the nature and practice of servant-leadership and show his continual refinement of the servant-as-leader concept. In addition, several of the essays focus on the related issues of spirit, commitment to vision, and wholeness.

The Power of Servant-Leadership also features a foreword by Peter Vaill, author of Learning as a Way of Being, and Managing as a Performing Art; and an Afterword by Jim Shannon, editor of The Corporate Contributions Handbook and retired president of the General Mills Foundation.

About The Authors:

Robert K. Greenleaf (1904 - 1990) was director of management research at AT&T. He held a joint appointment as visiting lecturer of the MIT Sloan School of Management and at the Harvard Business School. As a lifelong student of organization, he distilled his observations in a series of essays, books, and videotapes on the theme of The Servant as Leader, to stimulate thought and action for building a better, more caring society. He is the author of the bestselling classic Servant-Leadership , as well as the newly published The Power of Servant-Leadership.

Larry C. Spears is President of The Spears Center for Servant-Leadership and serves as Servant-Leadership Scholar for Gonzaga University.  He is also Senior Editor of the International Journal of Servant-Leadership.  From 1990-2007, he served as President & CEO of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center. He previously served as executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium, and on the staffs of the Great Lakes Colleges Associationφs Philadelphia Center, and Friends Journal, a Quaker magazine. He is the editor and co-editor of fourteen books, including Insights on Leadership, On Becoming a Servant-Leader, Conversations on Servant-Leadership, and The Power of Servant-Leadership, a collection of essays by Robert K. Greenleaf.