The Developmental Journey of a Servant Leader Rise to Serve, Sacrifice to Lead

The writings of Robert Greenleaf (1970, 1972, 1977, 1998) and the examples of ancients (Green, 2023), have inspired a number of research efforts on the efficacy of a leader as servant approach to modern leadership. Greenleaf’s core principles included the desire to serve first, the ability to help grow others into healthy servant leaders themselves, and the potential to impact a broader society. His unique and insightful essays also imply the preexistence of a leader who is willing to serve. This article presents a possible servant leader developmental model to accomplish such objectives. The model highlights how anyone, should they choose, can step up towards a larger purpose, and then step aside to serve others in attaining that purpose. It is based on a leader-follower dyad that has been used by the author in organizational development settings, and emphasizes a path of learning, partnering and leading towards a larger goal, and then reflectively teaching, partnering and coaching the next generation towards that same goal.