Servant Leadership: A Better Way

Betty Brandt • February 21, 2025

About 55 years ago, a man named Robert Greenleaf wrote an essay titled “The Servant as Leader.” He started an entire movement, which we know today as Servant Leadership. In essence, Servant Leadership is a philosophy and set of principles that enrich the lives of an individual, builds better organizations, and ultimately creates a more just and caring world. Servant leadership flips the traditional model and puts the CEO at the bottom in a supporting, serving role. The Servant Leader is a servant first. This represents departure from a leader-first approach, where leaders may prioritize acquiring power or material possessions.

The basic pillars of Servant Leadership include:

1) LISTENING – You always know when someone is really listening.

2) EMPATHY – Empathy relates to sympathy, but goes deeper into an active sharing of the others' experiences.

3) HEALING – Healing relationships and bringing people together through dialogue and common experiences affects not just the people involved, but also the larger community.

4) AWARENESS – A Servant Leader is aware of their strengths and weaknesses and surrounds themselves with people that will complement those strengths and weaknesses.

5) PERSUASION – Persuasion is based on relationships built over time. A Servant Leader’s words and ideas can be trusted in times when discernment is needed.

6) CONCEPTUALIZATION – Articulating an organization's the lived experience into concise ideas or principles helps those involved move forward together.

7) FORESIGHT – Servant Leaders actively think ahead and consider the potential positive and negative consequences of decisions.

8) STEWARDSHIP – Servant Leaders keep the reputation and integrity of the organization in mind at all times.

9) COMMITMENT TO GROWTH OF PEOPLE – Servant Leaders want staff and volunteers to grow personally as they serve the organization. The goal is to become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous and more likely to become servants.

10) BUILDING COMMUNITY – Building trusting relationships is at the heart of building strong communities. Servant Leaders build trusting relationships.

Listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, stewardship, foresight, commitment to the growth of people and building community. What do you think? Do you know people who possess these characteristics? In a world where the hunger for power is so evident, we must recognize and support those among us who choose a different path. Servant Leaders need your support! Reach out today and let them know they are valued and not alone in their quest for a just and loving world.

---------------------

For more information about Servant Leadership go to www.greenleaf.org.

Find Greenleaf's book, Servant Leadership

on Amazon

on Bookshop.org

< Older Post

Newer Post >

Easter Sunday | Choose to Belong

By Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • March 31, 2026

This Sunday we conclude our Lenten series with a heartfelt message, “Choose to Belong.” We’ll celebrate Easter—both as a remembrance of the resurrection and as a celebration of new beginnings, including welcoming new Gardner members into our inclusive community. Easter's beautiful expression of love and hope represents a tradition that calls us to notice the ways love rises again in our lives, dispelling darkness. Whether you interpret the resurrection story literally or embrace it as a metaphor of love overcoming despair, there is a place for you here. This weekend we’ll explore what it means to belong, and how our faith deepens through our connections with one another and with the sacred. Come experience the joy of community and discover how we can embody the transformative love of Christ together. Join us as we celebrate this meaningful day. Let’s embrace new beginnings and growth as one community. We can’t wait to see you.

Choose to Belong

By Matthew Vire • March 25, 2026

The experience of exclusion tempts us to blame ourselves, to think that we're falling short, that we are somehow wrong, damaged, unacceptable, or unworthy. To fix these perceived shortcomings, we may seek to fit in. There's nothing inherently wrong with fitting in — it can feel great — but it may come at the cost of our authenticity. In Letter to My Daughter , Maya Angelou writes, “You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all.” She does not mean that we are rootless, but speaks of abandoning the chase for approval so we can be free to show up authentically. We do not need to change who we are to belong. Brené Brown eloquently unpacks Angelou's profound statement in this video. May it offer you reassurance, comfort, and courage as we continue exploring what belonging means.

The Labyrinth Called Life

By Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • March 24, 2026

Have you noticed it? If you’ve been with us at The Garden over the past six weeks, you’ve likely walked right over it—the Labyrinth just outside the sanctuary doors. It’s easy to miss when we’re rushing in or out, but it’s there quietly inviting us to slow down, breathe, and pay attention to the path beneath our feet. As we move toward Easter, that invitation feels especially timely. This Sunday is Palm Sunday, the moment in the story when Jesus enters Jerusalem to cheers, branches waving, and a sense of possibility in the air. But that joyful procession is only the threshold of a much deeper journey. In the days that follow, Jesus moves through experiences that are profoundly human—sharing meals with friends, seeking quiet in a garden, wrestling with uncertainty, facing conflict, and ultimately walking a path that leads to the cross. The story does not shy away from suffering or loss, yet it also doesn’t end there. It moves through death into the promise of new life, renewal, and hope. Whether you connect with this story as history, metaphor, or a mirror for your own life, it offers a pattern many of us recognize: how celebration and struggle often sit side by side, how a single week can hold both joy and heaviness, and how transformation sometimes emerges from places we would never choose. As we enter this meaningful week, I invite you to consider your own path. What are you carrying right now? Where are you seeking connection, clarity, or courage? What parts of your journey are asking for attention, and what new life might be waiting just beyond what you can see? Let this be a week to walk with intention—to notice the twists and turns, the companions along the way, and the quiet hope that can rise even in uncertain places.

Be You. (What Does THAT Mean?)

By Matthew Vire • March 17, 2026

"Be you" is common advice. But what does it mean? The exhortation to "be you" is an invitation to relax into yourself and let go of worries that you don't measure up to someone else's idea of who you are or should be. "Be you" means be honest––to yourself first and then with the world––about your thoughts, feelings, insecurities, passions, interests, and inclinations. It means you're more than worthy. It means you are enough. It means you're worth knowing, seeing, and loving. Our resistance to be ourselves comes from fear, judgement, and insecurity. Fear tells us "hide." Judgment says, "you're not good enough, so you better pretend." Insecurity warns, "people won't like you if they really see you." But it can be easy to Be You. You don't have to do anything; you can just be. The only barrier is self-acceptance. Love can break through that. May this week give you space to breathe, to soften, and to trust that who you are is already held in love.

Paths to Belonging

By Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • March 16, 2026

This Sunday, we continue our Lenten journey with the theme of belonging. The National Institutes of Health recognizes belonging as a fundamental human need that shapes our mental, physical, and social well-being. One of the insights from our Greenhouse Challenge was the recognition that many people in the U.S. are experiencing loneliness. In response, The Garden has been exploring what it means to belong—not just socially, but spiritually and communally. During worship, we’ll check in with Scott Semester to hear how our grant initiative may help us create spaces of sanctuary—places where people feel seen, safe, and truly at home. Our Scripture this week, Ecclesiastes 4:12, reminds us that “a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” Belonging is not just about individual strength—it’s about the resilience we find in connection. When we walk together, support one another, and share our lives, we become stronger than we ever could be alone. May we continue to weave lives of compassion, curiosity, and courage—threads that bind us to one another and to the sacred truth that we belong.