Success Secrets and Stories
To share management leadership concepts that actually work.
You are responsible for your development as a leader. Don't expect the boss to invest the training budget in your career. Consider this podcast as an investment of time in your career, with a bit of management humor added at the same time.
Success Secrets and Stories
Power of Servant Leadership: Lessons from Iconic Figures and Real-Life Stories
Leadership is not for everyone," asserts Doug Williams, sparking a thought-provoking discussion on what it truly means to lead. Join us, John Wandolowski and Greg Powell, as we explore the intricate dynamics of leadership through personal anecdotes and real-life stories. Learn how an unexpected leader emerged at a wedding, proving that leadership transcends business confines. Contrast the faith-based servant leadership at ServiceMaster with the profit-driven ethos at Aramark, and discover how varying leadership styles can profoundly impact employees and customers alike.
In our deeper dive into servant leadership, we draw inspiration from iconic figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Understand how their use of nonviolence and civil disobedience advocated for civil rights and built communities. Reflect on Dr. King's powerful 1963 Birmingham protests and his timeless "I Have a Dream" speech, examining how his leadership was rooted in faith and justice. Through personal stories and Robert K. Greenleaf's definition of servant leadership, we highlight the importance of serving others and prioritizing community well-being. Join us for an enriching episode that will reshape your understanding of what it means to lead.
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
Hello everyone and welcome to our podcast Success Secrets and Stories. I'm your host, john Wendelowski, and I'm here with my co-host and friend, greg Powell, greg.
Speaker 1:Hey everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and today we wanted to come up with a subject about leadership that I thought was kind of interesting and something I saw over the weekend. There was a football player, doug Williams, and Doug Williams was a very famous black quarterback, super Bowl winning quarterback coach. Now he's a business professional and he said this one line that hit me home Leadership is not for everyone. Well, I wrote a book on leadership and I really do think that a lot of people have the skills and the talents to do it. They just need to understand mechanics of what's involved. But what Doug Williams was saying really rang a bell of it couldn't be truer you have to have the interest in being a leader.
Speaker 2:I've talked about my examples in the past, but blindly following poor leadership is not wise and unfortunately sometimes we don't have a lot of options. We have to follow that poor leadership and either help them to get better or find another opportunity. It kind of breaks down to the simplest analogy that I can hear ringing in my ears whenever I was in those kind of situations either lead or follow, or get out of the way. It's just that simple To understand what is good management, what isn't good management. You have an ownership to that and I think a little bit about reading about it. To understand what good leadership looks like helps you also understand when you're in a bad situation. Sometimes you can encourage the individuals to try to improve and sometimes you can't. So there was this wedding that I heard of where there was an example of a poor leader and I know a wedding doesn't make sense that there's a poor leader but it was really more of the presider who was supposed to be conducting the wedding and it was an example where the people that were involved in a wedding were depending on him, as the presider, to be there to conduct the wedding and, like any other wedding a lot of what people are doing nowadays this was an outdoor wedding. So you know your subject. You're, you're putting people in the area where you have hot conditions or rain or whatever is happening in the environment. There. There usually isn't a lot of time that you want to have the people waiting outside and, as it turned out, this presider wasn't showing up and they were making calls and it was getting pretty clear after about 30 minutes that this person wasn't going to come. So someone in the wedding party, kind of like, picked up the ball and had that leadership element of it and said what do I need to do to get this done? And they were able to actually get online, get the paperwork and the online approval to be a presider, and they conducted the wedding. Now I guess the point I wanted to make about Leder is that that person didn't care about who he was impacting. He had something else to do and the wedding was going to be a secondary thought. He didn't really want to spend a lot of time and, at the bottom line, he didn't care. So a leader doesn't necessarily have to be in a business application is what my point is. In a business application is where my point is. And then I actually have another example that is a little bit more closer to the heart.
Speaker 2:In part of my career, I was looking for opportunities to work for a company that I thought would understand my leadership and my leadership goals. The name of the company was so perfect it was called ServiceMaster, and ServiceMaster had a very interesting approach to working with people and working with not only their staff but with their customer, and it was really a faith-based organization and serving others and in their role to serve others. It was just the right kind of approach and in a maintenance world, a lot of people who are in our field aren't really going to be vice presidents, aren't going to be in the sales side or marketing side, and this company had that kind of opportunity for advancement and it was really the opportunity that I wanted to go to as far as where I wanted my career to go. When I finally became part of the organization, they were just in the process of making a change and he said don't worry, it's basically everybody's still in their same positions, but we're we're going to be making a change with the organization itself and they went with a company called Airmark.
Speaker 2:Now the difference between Airmark and ServiceMaster is like night and day. One was based on ServiceMaster's approach to serving others and that whole thing about servant leadership is something we're going to talk about a little bit later. But they were a food organization being Airmark and what they really were interested in is getting the business. That was associated with the food industry and the hospitality industry and they were going to make their best attempts to maintain the maintenance business but it wasn't their core focus.
Speaker 2:Well, the difference between the two organizations was obvious and it was a period of time where I decided that I needed to go somewhere else because of how the two organizations worked and to be honest, there's nothing wrong with Aramark Aramark's a very good organization too. But they got what they wanted from the business and the maintenance side wasn't their key industry. How they approached the staff and the customers was far more cut and dry, profit-oriented, and that dollar-for-dollar kind of approach really was a little bit different than the service master's approach. But to Doug's point, not everybody is leaders, no-transcript. I think you can give the best example of servant leader.
Speaker 1:Thanks, John. When I think about my lifetime, I think about Dr Martin Luther King Jr as a true servant leader. Dr King was inspired by his Christian beliefs, but also inspired by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Of course. Mahatma Gandhi was a servant leader in his own right. Both used nonviolence, civil disobedience, to advance civil rights for everyone. Dr King's mission was to ensure dignity, respect and love for all. His leadership, which was grounded in faith and a deep sense of justice, earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. For Dr King, the true reward was in the realization of a society where people would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Speaker 1:Dr King was famous for using persuasion over coercion. He wasn't bending people's arms, he was trying to influence them with his words. In 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama, that was a hotspot for racial tension. When met with violence, including police dogs and fire hoses, King and the protesters did not retaliate with force. Instead, they showcased the stark contrast between the peaceful plea for justice and the violent oppression that they were facing. Dr King wrote something called A Letter from the Birmingham Jail. If you read that, you'll get a strong sense of his belief in nonviolence and the power of persuasion.
Speaker 1:Dr King was also good at building communities. He was a master at mobilizing those communities. One of his most iconic moments in 1963 March in Washington DC was a communal gathering of over 250,000 people who were all unified in the pursuit of justice. During the march, Dr King delivered his famous I have a Dream speech. He didn't speak of a dream, that was his alone, His words. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, emphasized a communal hope and aspiration for all of America. His words exemplify the leadership which focus on bridging divides and pointed to shared goals.
Speaker 1:I've got a quote from Robert K Greenleaf the servant leader is a servant first. It begins with a natural feeling that one wants to serve, as opposed to wanting power, influence, fame or wealth. Let me take you on a little deeper dive on servant leadership. The servant leader is servant first. It's one of those I like to repeat.
Speaker 1:The servant leader is a servant first. It begins with a natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. The leader first and the servant first are two extreme types. Between them are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature. 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.
Speaker 1:The best test, and difficult to administer, is do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And what is the effect on the least privileged individuals in society? Will those folks benefit, or at least not be further deprived? A servant leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the top of the pyramid, servant leadership is different. The servant leader shares power, puts the needs of others pyramid. Servant leadership is different. The servant leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible. John.
Speaker 2:So we've just talked about probably the two best references in my mind on service leadership and words like empathy, understanding, communication. All those words are kind of important in order to make service leadership work. But I really want to make the point from what I wanted to say at the beginning of this podcast Understanding the type of leader you want to be. More importantly, understanding the type of leader you want to follow is really the key that I wanted to try to communicate. In leadership, you can create that environment. You have the skill set and the opportunity to try to make of it what you want it to be, and if it's accumulating wealth, well it's accumulating wealth.
Speaker 2:But I personally think that Dr King was a rich man, even though he passed away with $250,000 net worth and the impact he had across the world. I think if you think of someone who's probably one of the more impressive people as far as being a leader, it would be Dr King. Some of the impressive leaders that I've worked for were the ones that were helping me to take my next step in my career, without getting any kind of monetary reward or praise or taking away any of the spotlight. They were there to try to help me to take that next step, and that is actually the reward that they were looking for, the reward that I found most satisfaction in and, greg, I think you have said the same in your career. That's right, john.
Speaker 1:Some of the best leaders I ever had and I tried to emulate were servant leaders and if you could ask some people that worked for me over the last probably 20 years, they would tell you we know Greg did his best to be a good servant leader.
Speaker 2:So, okay, the two of us are very similar in how we conduct ourselves. I hope this has been some help and, if you like what you've heard in this podcast, my book in the ebook is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites. The podcast is available on what you're listening to, thank you. It's also available in other popular formats like Apple, google and Spotify. A lot of what I talk about is based on my learning, my class time and the teachings that I learned from a gentleman by the name of Dr Durst. He has his books and his MBR program available at successgrowthacademycom. If you want to contact us, my email address is wando75.jw at gmailcom and Greg.
Speaker 1:I can be reached at gpowell374 at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we want to hear from you. Drop us a line, send us an email.
Speaker 1:Send a carrier pigeon?
Speaker 2:No, I'm kidding, okay, well, thanks, greg.
Speaker 1:Thanks, john, as always.
Speaker 2:Next time.