In Praise of Selflessness

Why the best leaders are servants.

1 | 2 NEXT

Who are you doing it for? Asked that question, many entrepreneurs would answer, "me." There's nothing wrong with that. Plenty of great companies were built by people for whom CEO is an imperfect acronym for "He who must be obeyed."

Servant leaders, by contrast, put their people and their organizations before themselves. They don't view employees as a means to an end; rather employees' happiness and satisfaction is the end. A former AT&T (NYSE:T) executive named Robert Greenleaf introduced the concept in 1970 (although the authors of the New Testament had laid the foundation a bit earlier). In the movement's argot, servant leaders "wash others' feet." Some of the most successful entrepreneurial companies--including Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) and Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) --are servant led, buoyed by the contributions of trusted, respected employees.

Servant leadership is enjoying renewed currency now--which makes sense, given the tight labor markets and widespread mistrust of chief executives. (CEOs like Home Depot's (NYSE:HD) Robert Nardelli and Morgan Stanley's (NYSE:MS) Philip Purcell weren't shown the door for excessive humility.) It is also the natural model for the growing number of companies that compete for human capital.

Still, adopting servant leadership is a tough psychological adjustment for many entrepreneurs. Just how tough depends, in part, on the entrepreneur's motivation. People who start companies out of passion for a product or the desire to create opportunities for others adapt well, says Mathew Hayward, a professor at the University of Colorado's Leeds School of Business and author of Ego Check: Why Executive Hubris Is Wrecking Companies and Careers and How to Avoid the Trap. But founders panting to run their own shops make poor foot-washers. In addition, untested leaders may worry about appearing anything other than alpha-ish. "Founders in the early days have a profound need to establish their credentials," says Hayward. "They may look on servant leadership as something to evolve into--later."

Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw understand the challenges better than most. The co-founders of Zingerman's Community of Businesses have built their $30 million food, restaurant, and training company on servant leadership principles. In the process, they've wrestled with three paradoxes. First, the higher you rise, the harder you must work for others; no kicking back in the Barcalounger of success allowed. Second, although you hold formal authority over employees, you must treat them like customers and, when reasonable, do their bidding. Third, when your desires and the needs of your organization conflict, your desires draw the low card. "It's a big change from the way we're socialized to think about success," says Weinzweig. "When you've put so much energy into getting to a leadership position, this is hard."

It was certainly hard for David Wolfskehl. When he launched Action Fast Print at age 24, he believed presiding and deciding were the essence of leadership. "I thought I had to have all the right answers," says Wolfskehl, who built the business to $1.5 million before selling it last year. (His new venture, Business Advisors International, is a consulting firm in Bridgewater, New Jersey.) Wolfskehl recalls years of weekly meetings during which he would stand before his 16 employees and tell them what to do. "I would go in with my agenda," he recalls. "We were talking about my issues, not the employees' issues. I would leave those meetings thinking we had accomplished something. But the employees wouldn't buy into what I said we should do.

"Those meetings stunk," says Wolfskehl. "I thought they stunk because of the employees. But really they stunk because of me."

Wolfskehl's epiphany arrived after he read Change Your Questions, Change Your Life by Marilee G. Adams, who advises leaders to stop telling and start asking. The prospect of upending the dynamic at his company scared him. "I worried that everyone was going to tell me all the things I was doing wrong," he says. But Wolfskehl steeled himself, and at one meeting he opened the floodgates with these words: "Today we're going to start talking about your problems and how I can help you." "Once I started asking how I could help, amazing things started happening in my organization," he says. "In a two-year period, we had a 30-plus percent improvement in productivity. The solution was so obvious. It's just sad that it took me 15 years to get there."

1 | 2 NEXT

Try a RISK-FREE Issue of Inc. Today!

Renew | Contact Us | Current Issue

Select Services