A New Year’s wish for all of us.
There’s a Special Place to work. One that is exceptionally rare, and often only temporary. It’s a place where the leaders understand that servant leadership is not a badge to show off for the world to know what a great leader they are, but a sacrifice to make, often unheard and unappreciated.
It’s also a place where the team understands that in demanding servant leadership, the goal isn’t that *they* become the masters.
Rather, the leaders become servants of the organisation’s core values, and that in turn gives the team the opportunity to flourish so that collectively all are creating something that contributes positively to the world.
So if you aspire to true servant leadership, and I think we all should, then embrace that some level of sacrifice in order for your team to flourish is absolutely a part of the deal. And accept that your “reward” won’t be in acknowledgement or awards or public eulogies, but in the satisfaction of seeing them flourishing.
And if you’re expecting servant leadership of your boss or the CEO, ask yourself “then what?”. Because if your thinking is that servant leadership just means you’ll get what “it’s your right” to have, then you probably don’t deserve to have it. Having a servant leader as your boss comes with a responsibility. That responsibility is to also not put yourself first, but to try together to build something of purpose, value and meaning which is greater than all of us.
Because in the end, wherever you work and whatever your role, it’s not about you. It’s about creating something bigger, something that has more positive impact, something that leaves the world better for its having existed.
If you don’t work in that place, then do what you can to make where you work that place. And if that’s impossible, then go work somewhere that is that place. And if that’s impossible, then go create that place.
So for the new year, I wish you all that Special Place in 2022 – that you find it, or create it, or nourish it if you’re already there.
And more importantly, I wish you happiness and health to you and your loved ones, and that what we all do means we end 2022 with the world that bit better than when we entered it.
Happy New Year.
Will 2022 be another year of a strategy at best vaguely met? Of being a CEO unable to step back from the day-to-day to do the things your company needs to meet it's ambitions? Of having a purpose and values that don't directly connect to everything you do? We're looking for an intimate beta group of CEOs (10 to 40 employees) to join us on this upcoming webinar to talk through our Build on Purpose framework for making strategy, purpose and values happen.