The Servant – A Simple Story about the True Essence of Leadership

I lecture (in a kind and loving way of course) our clients constantly about the importance of blogging, and here I am, not blogging.  In my defense it has been a crazy few weeks for us, but that is no excuse.  So I apologize, and to make up for my delay I am going to write a little about the fantastic topic of leadership; more specifically servant leadership.

The Servant – A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership

Take a moment to close your eyes and think about someone who you feel has been a great leader in your life.  Are you doing it?  Seriously, close your eyes and play along for a second.  Ok, now that you have thought of that influential leader in your life tell me what attributes make them a great leader.  I actually want you to tell me by leaving a comment.  Leadership is arguably the most important element in running a successful business, coaching a team, or having a successful marriage and I want to know what you feel the attributes of a great leader are.

Did you comment yet?  I’ll just assume you have and move on.  I have had many people in my life who are good leaders, but a great leader that comes to mind is a man named Bill who I recently met and actually haven’t spent that much time with.  How is this possible that I know he is a great leader?  Well, after only knowing him for two days I trusted his leadership and decision making abilities to the point where I literally road my bicycle on a freeway (I’ll get back to that).  I was in Canada for a week-long bicycle adventure and Bill was our appointed leader.  His passion for cycling, knowledge of the sport, understanding of the area, and natural leadership skills made him the ideal person to follow. 

The first day I met him I was instantly captured by the sparkle in his eye and his belief that no matter how old, how fit, or in my case how experienced a person is, they can always be striving to be the best.  I had only been cycling for a couple months and Bill had been cycling for a couple decades, and therefor I was constantly pushing myself to keep up with him.  Not only that, I would find myself always trying to listen in on conversations he was having with others from the group hoping I could glean some insider knowledge to cycling that he possessed.

Now back to my freeway story.  In Canada, you can bicycle on the shoulder of a freeway (one more reason to believe that Canadians are nuts), but that wasn’t our original planned course.  Our group had a planned route we would take from one town to the next which was roughly 30 miles.  After a few hours of biking, Bill took the faster group ahead which consisted of myself, his wife, and my brother and sister-in-law.  The five of us were happily peddling along and stopped to wait for the rest of the group which we figured it would take the slower riders no more than 10 minutes to catch up.  10 minutes went by, then 15 minutes, then 20 minutes, and we realized as it was getting later (and darker) that we had to make a decision – keep heading toward the camp we were staying at for the night or wait for the others not knowing if they took another route or not.  Of course, no one wanted to make the decision and we naturally looked to Bill for the final verdict.  Bill decided it was best for us to press on, get to the campsite, and re-evaluate from there.  He also decided that if we took a short cut we would possibly get to the campsite faster and be able to check in with the campground host to see if they had heard from our slower group members (remember, we couldn’t use our cell phones without being charge a fortune since we were in Canada so we had no way of knowing if the slower group had changed their minds and gone a different route).

As the sun started dipping down, we started peddling along with our 30 lb panniers (bike bags) up steep hills and quaint neighborhoods.  Bill, without making a big deal about the fading light, decides we need to exit the bike path and head on a more direct route to get to the campsite before dark.  Without much discussion, the four of us follow Bill like little ducklings following their mom through a pond from the safety of our bike path to the raging Canadian freeway system.  I’m not kidding, the wind resistance from the cars was so great that I had to struggle to peddle downhill.  It was loud, chaotic, and at times so windy that I thought my bike was going to be blown into traffic.  But I wasn’t scared.  Even when we crossed two lanes of busy freeway traffic I didn’t even bat an eye because in my mind I knew that Bill would never put us in a position where we weren’t safe.  You may think that we weren’t safe, but everything Bill did was calculated, cautions, and necessary to achieve the group’s needs which was to make it to the campsite before it was pitch black and we were really in danger of getting run over.

So that’s my story about Bill.  We did make it to the campsite before dark and our group arrived shortly after we did (they had stopped to take a long break along the trail).  I have many more stories from that week where Bill showed his leadership skills, but that riding my bicyle on the freeway is one that clearly stands out in my mind.

Calm, rational, kind, patient, met the needs of others, sought after the greater good of the group, evaluated the group’s opinions before making a final decision, thoughtful, and pushed each member of the group to do better and more than they thought they could do.  Those are all things I feel make a great leader and attributes that Bill showed over the course of the week.  Now your turn, tell me who has been a leader in your life and what qualities they possess that make them a good leader.  Then, go and get a copy of The Servant Leader by James C. Hunter and learn about servant leadership and how you can become the kind of leader that others look to for guidance.