How To Practice The Mindset Of The Servant

How to serve your leaders, your team, your customers, and yourself

Before we get into this post, have you heard the exciting news? My new book Leading With Vulnerability is now available for pre-order! If you grab a copy and email my proof or purchase to bonus@thefutureorganization.com (hardcover only!) then I’ll give you access to 5 exclusive CEO interviews I did for the book (American Airlines, GE, Edward Jones, and others), the first 3 chapters of my book, and an invite to exclusive webinar I’m hosting before the book comes out.

Here’s what Patrick Lencioni said about it:

“Jacob takes a wonderfully thorough look at one of the most important – and lacking – qualities in leaders. And he does so with a raw and honest approach that makes his point all the more powerful(!)”

Ok now onto the post!

We keep hearing about servant leadership but what is it and how do you practice it? In my previous book, The Future Leader, I spoke with 140 CEOs to get more clarity on this.

The concept of servant leadership was first coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in his 1970 essay, "The Servant as Leader." Greenleaf was a former AT&T executive and he proposed a radical shift in leadership philosophy, suggesting that leaders should be servants first, putting the needs of their team and organization before their own.

A simple way to think of this is inverting the corporate pyramid. Instead of the team propping up and serving the leader, the leader is the one who is now propping up and serving the team.

What I learned is that servant leadership is only a part of the equation and really what these CEOs were talking about was having a servant mindset which means understanding that as a leader there are four groups you serve.

1. Your leaders if you have them

2. Your customers

3. Your team

4. Yourself

Let’s take a look at these in more depth and go over things you can do to serve each group.