The pattern of Superperforming CEO is a pattern of Servant Leadership. This may well be the best-kept secret of our business generation. Robert Greenleaf is credited with being the founder of the modern servant leadership movement.

In describing the origin of his inspiration he wrote: “The idea of the servant as leader came out of reading Herman Hesse’s Journey to the East. In this story, we see a band of men on a mythical journey… The central figure of the story is Leo, who accompanies the party as the servant who does their menial chores, but who also sustains them with his spirit and his song. He is a person of extraordinary presence. All goes well until Leo disappears. Then the group falls into disarray and the journey is abandoned. They cannot make it without the servant Leo. The narrator, one of the party, after some years of wandering, finds Leo and is taken into the Order that had sponsored the journey. There he discovers that Leo, whom he had known first as servant, was in fact the titular head of the Order, its guiding spirit, a great and noble leader.”

While Robert Greenleaf was the progenitor of the modern servant leadership movement, this understanding has been with us for thousands of years.  Servant leadership is a frequent theme throughout all of history and is common to most religious or cultural movements. There are numerous references to being a servant in the Hebrew texts of the Bible, in the Koran and in the writings of Buddha. Certainly the teachings of Christ are a classic reference.

It seems important to notice that the very last object lesson Jesus taught his disciples was an obvious illustration of servant leadership, in the washing of the feet: “When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” John 13:12-13:15

Lao Tzu, father of Taoism and author of the Tao Te Ching, which gave us the Chinese complementarity philosophy of Yin-Yang, wrote: “The highest type of ruler is one of whose existence the people are barely aware. Next comes one whom they love and praise. Next comes one whom they fear. Next comes one whom they despise and defy. When you are lacking in faith, Others will be unfaithful to you. The Sage is self-effacing and scanty of words. When his task is accomplished and things have been completed, All the people say, ‘We ourselves have achieved it!”

Many great contemporary leaders, from Mother Teresa to Gandhi to Martin Luther King to Geroge Washington to Sir Ernest Shackleton qualify as Servant Leaders.

What is the contrast to Servant Leadership? In these words Greenleaf distinguishes Servant Leadership from its antithesis,“Selfish Leadership”: “The servant-leader is servant first… Becoming a servant-leader begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possession. The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and the most difficult to administer, is this: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?”

Jesus also pointed to this elemental contrast, “You know how leadership is done in the world around you. The leaders lord it over others and use their authority against them and then they call themselves ‘Benefactors.’  Don’t do it that way!  Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant…” Matthew 20:25-26