many small trickles of water feed the mightiest of rivers, the growing number of individuals and organizations practicing servant-leadership has increased into a torrent, one that carries with it a deep current of meaning and passion. Robert K. Greenleaf 's idea of servant-leadership, now in its fourth decade as a concept bearing that name, continues to create a quiet revolution in workplaces around the world. Since the time of the Industrial Revolution, managers have tended to view people as tools, while organizations have considered workers as cogs in a machine. In the past few decades we have witnessed a shift in that long-held view. In countless for-profit and nonprofit organiz... posted on Jun 4 2013 (121,431 reads)

Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today my guest is Jim Hunter. Jim is the author of two internationally bestselling books: The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership, and The World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle: How to Become a Servant Leader.Jim’s books are used in many MBA and other higher education courses, have been translated into two dozen languages, and have sold well over 4 million copies worldwide. With Sounds True, Jim has created an audio program called The Servant Leadership Training Course: Achieving Success Through Character, Bravery, and Influence, where he gives listeners the keys to leading with integrity... posted on Aug 7 2014 (29,683 reads)

an ancient parable, three masons are sitting in a row, all chipping away at large blocks of stone. A woman observing them is curious about what they're up to. She asks the first man what he's doing, to which he responds, "I'm chipping away at this block of stone." Indeed, she thinks. She questions the second man similarly, who says, "I'm working to feed my family." Also true, reflects the woman. Finally, she questions the third mason, who responds, "I'm helping to build a beautiful cathedral." It's a powerful perspective -- holding within it a value for collaboration, agency, creativity, and meaning. What if we all could see ... posted on Jul 31 2012 (21,497 reads)

note: I met José Juan in 2013. I had just returned to Spain from India and was participating in a 21-Day Kindness Challenge. During a 21 day period 5000 people from all over the world performed an act of kindness every day, totalling almost 11,000 transformative actions! The first day of the challenge I decided to buy a cake and gift it to someone random on the street. I wanted it to be anonymous so I needed to enlist a partner in kindness. The first person I met was José Juan! He gave away the cake and since then we have been connected in many adventures of service and generosity, including community experiments like Awakin Circles (which we started in his ... posted on Sep 2 2018 (15,019 reads)

year, hundreds of thousands of new graduates enter the business world, eager to climb the corporate ladder. Their progress on the early rungs of that journey will often be determined by qualities like hard work, determination, knowledge and technical proficiency. But business consultants Alan S. Berson and Richard G. Stieglitz argue that those same qualities prove less helpful at higher rungs on the ladder, and may even be one's downfall if they are not balanced by a very different set of leadership qualities. They sum up the thesis of their new book, Leadership Conversations: Challenging High-Potential Managers to Become Great Leaders, like this: "As you move into upper leade... posted on Jul 2 2013 (36,327 reads)

are lots of ways to lose your voice in this world...”   These words were spoken by Kevin Hancock,  an award-winning author, public speaker, and CEO of  Hancock Lumber, one of America’s oldest and most prestigious family businesses. Kevin is the winner of many distinguished awards including the Habitat for Humanity ‘Spirit of Humanity’ award, and the Boy Scouts of America Distinguished Citizen award.   In 2010, Kevin developed a voice disorder called spasmodic dysphonia.  As his speaking voice became quiet, the voice of his soul became louder. This new voice urged him to connect with the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where h... posted on Nov 6 2018 (5,769 reads)

short of a new level of worldwide leadership and commitment for sustainable and  equitable change will suffice to create a better world today and for future generations. For the first time technologies and resources exist to transform   our   situation and generate lasting results. The choice is ours.   Hundreds  of transformational leaders are producing results in 60 countries on every continent. I currently focus on 40 of these courageous leaders around the world. My journey over 20 years has been profound, walking alongside many courageous and compassionate leaders -— leaders walking different, yet similar, paths! Their profile: women... posted on Jul 20 2012 (17,448 reads)

Karout is a leadership trainer and researcher working at Harvard and across the US and the Middle East, who teaches and coaches based on the principles and practices of adaptive leadership. Her work aims to build the capacity of individuals and communities to hold conflict and navigate complexity across various levels of authority. She holds a Bachelors of Engineering from the American University of Beirut, a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, and is an incoming PhD candidate at UC Berkeley, where she will research the pedagogical and theoretical implications of generative AI. Vartika Sharma is a collage artist and illustrator based in New Delhi, India. Inspire... posted on May 15 2024 (880 reads)

1997 year, Diana Chapman was a stay-at-home mom teaching scrapbooking in Ann Arbor, MI — “as mainstream a life as they come,” she says. Then her brother-in-law, the CEO of Monsanto at the time, gave her a gift that would transform her life: $5,000 to use as she pleased. She had always been interested in personal development and human consciousness, so when he made the suggestion that she use the money to learn from the best coaches he knew, psychologists Gay and Katie Hendricks, she jumped on the opportunity. After studying with the Hendrickses for a decade and taking their work into a business context, Chapman is now one of the world’s foremost experts on ... posted on Feb 13 2019 (8,351 reads)

this year, we had the privilege of hosting a beautiful Awakin Call with Maya Soetoro-Ng, where we heard about her speak about a wide range of topics: from her expansive view of the role each of us can play in building peace, to how the Presidency of her brother, Barack Obama, as well as the divisive aftermath of the past several years, both transformed and reinforced her vision of the work of building peace. By way of brief background, Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng, a peace educator consulting for the Obama Foundation, was director of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Hawaii. Her brother is former US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama... posted on Feb 24 2019 (5,700 reads)

live in a time of massive institutional failure, collectively creating results that nobody wants. Climate change. AIDS. Hunger. Poverty. Violence. Terrorism. The foundations of our social, economic, ecological, and spiritual wellbeing are in peril. Why do our attempts to deal with the challenges of our time so often fail? The cause of our collective failure is that we are blind to the deeper dimension of leadership and transformational change. This “blind spot” exists not only in our collective leadership but also in our everyday social interactions. We are blind to the source dimension from which effective leadership and social actio... posted on Jul 9 2013 (87,288 reads)

leaders can find lessons even from unlikely sources such as mountain guides, who follow principles that apply in business settings, says Christopher I. Maxwell. He is a senior fellow at the Wharton Center for Leadership and Change Management and an adjunct professor at the school. Maxwell, an avid mountain climber, found that guides display six leadership traits — such as social intelligence and adaptability — that empower other climbers. He distilled these lessons in a new book, Lead Like a Guide: How World-Class Mountain Guides Inspire Us to Be Better Leaders. He discussed the main takeaways of his book on the Knowledge@Wharton show on Wharton Business Radio ... posted on May 5 2017 (12,647 reads)

I wrote that leaders should be readers. Reading has a host of benefits for those who wish to occupy positions of leadership and develop into more relaxed, empathetic, and well-rounded people. One of the most common follow-up questions was, "Ok, so what should I read?" That's a tough question. There are a number of wonderful reading lists out there. For those interested in engaging classic literature, Wikipedia has a list of "The 100 Best Books of All Time,"and Modern Library has picks for novels and nonfiction. Those interested in leadership might consult the syllabus for David Gergen's leadership course (PDF) at... posted on Dec 19 2012 (54,934 reads)

do Michelle Obama, Bruce Springsteen and Sheryl Sandberg have in common? According to a new book by Stewart D. Friedman, founding director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project and a practice professor of management, each has developed the skills to integrate their life and work successfully. In Leading the Life You Want, Friedman profiles six people who he says embody these necessary skills – being real, being whole, and being innovative – and helps readers to begin to apply these skills and strategies in their own lives. Recently, Jeffrey Klein, executive director of the Wharton Leadership Program, sat down with Friedman to discuss why the phrase “work-life... posted on Dec 23 2014 (24,816 reads)

address to the graduates of the 2009–2010 Center for Ecoliteracy Schooling for Sustainability Leadership Academy. Over the spring break, we hosted a student-organized class on food systems from a prestigious university. The students, among the nation's best and brightest, crowded into our meeting room to discuss their research about our participation in the Food Systems Project, Berkeley School Lunch Initiative, and Rethinking School Lunch. We spoke to them about creating models of schooling for sustainability, and then they peppered us with questions. We were increasingly incredulous in that virtually every question they posed posited a false dichotomy. They want... posted on Nov 17 2014 (16,873 reads)

The title, and only the title, was inspired by the poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” by Wallace Stevens (see www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174503). The subtitle was inspired by late-night TV infomercials. I. Whether we know it or not, like it or not, honor it or not, we are embedded in community. Whether we think of ourselves as biological creatures or spiritual beings or both, the truth remains: we were created in and for a complex ecology of relatedness, and without it we wither and die. This simple fact has critical implications: community is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received. When we treat community as a product tha... posted on Aug 29 2016 (28,112 reads)

Do You Choose to Be? An Invitation to the Nobility of Leadership Margaret Wheatley  in Leader to Leader Magazine © June 2017 Several years ago, in the face of irreversible global problems and the devolution of leadership, I began to challenge every leader I met with these questions: Who do you choose to be for this time? Are you willing to use whatever power and influence you have to create islands of sanity that evoke and rely on our best human qualities to create, relate, and persevere? Will you consciously and bravely choose to reclaim leadership as a noble profession, one that creates possibility and humaneness in the midst of increasing fear and turmoil? We live i... posted on Dec 8 2017 (23,534 reads)

The title, and only the title, was inspired by the poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” by Wallace Stevens (see www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174503). The subtitle was inspired by late-night TV infomercials. I. Whether we know it or not, like it or not, honor it or not, we are embedded in community. Whether we think of ourselves as biological creatures or spiritual beings or both, the truth remains: we were created in and for a complex ecology of relatedness, and without it we wither and die. This simple fact has critical implications: community is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received. When we treat community as a product that we... posted on Feb 21 2019 (17,494 reads)

there is a defining conceit at the heart of the way so many of us think about leadership, it is that of the no-nonsense, hard-charging, often-wrong-but-never-in-doubt boss who enjoys the glories (and bears the burdens) of success all alone. That’s what makes executive life (in theory) so glamorous: Who isn’t eager to match wits with brilliant rivals and stay one step ahead of a complex world? Of course, that’s also what makes executive life (in reality) so exhausting: What happens when rivals come at you from more directions than ever, when markets change faster than ever, when problems loom larger than ever? As a business culture, we’ve made the lure of exe... posted on Jun 17 2013 (26,099 reads)

is one of humankind’s greatest illusions. Let’s face it—even with all the information available and expansive educational preparation—unexpected events often interfere with our plans and our best efforts to control an outcome or an event (and even ourselves!). And what happens to us, to those around us, and to the teams and organizations we lead when things get disrupted? For many of us, it depends on the day. There are times when we run into an obstacle and see it as an opportunity for creativity, a challenge that excites us. Then there are times when an obstacle throws us off balance, creates confusion and stress, and ‘leaks’ out in action... posted on Aug 9 2013 (34,522 reads)