
Three Questions for a Diversity-Intelligent Servant-Led Organization
I have recently been following Heather Younger at Employee Fanatix and ordered her book The Art of Caring Leadership, a must-read for Servant-Leaders. In her
When you look at anything or consider anything, look at it as “a whole” as much as you can before you swing on it”
~Robert Greenleaf
James Sipe and Don Frick discuss the seven characteristics of servant leadership in their book, Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership: Practicing the Wisdom of Leading by Serving. Since I am a conceptual thinker most of the time (I took the Emergentics Personality profile with a group of board members), I jumped right to the systems thinker chapter. Servant leaders who thinks systemically:
Servant leaders use tools such as Baldridge National Quality Program, Six Sigma, Appreciative Inquiry, Change Management, and a plethora of other tools designed to see things whole and find the appropriate language to express it. Looking at the whole means to zoom out in order to see the problems in the context of patterns and structures of the entire organization and that organization’s relationship to its environment; its community and country.
System thinkers generally refer to the Systems Pyramid to illustrate the dynamics of systems thinking; Events, Strategies, Culture and Beliefs.
Events – Are at the top of the pyramid and is considered above ground and in conscious view. These are the situations we see and react to.
Strategies – Are below the events and often created in response to events or to a vision of what should happen.
Culture – Can either support or sabotage strategies, but is certainly more powerful than strategy. An organization’s culture is a mash-up of causal connections, relationships, and a history of patterns that are rigid and have become a part of the policies and assumptions of the organization.
Beliefs – Quietly run the entire show in organizations. Beliefs run the individuals to. An organization bent on the bottom line only fosters a radically different culture than an organization that runs its enterprise of the belief that it should contribute to the growth of the people and serve the wider public.
Edward Deming said that workers are only responsible for 15% of the problem while the overall system is responsible for the other 85%. For servant leaders, this is huge. Robert Greenleaf listed four requirement for the Servant-Leaders who wish to think systemically;
Are you willing to stand out as a Servant – Leader Systems Thinker? If so, we know that you are one who goes out ahead to show the way (Servant-Leader) and uses a well-researched method (Systems Thinking) for moving ahead on the journey.
To Leading,
Dr. Crystal
Crystal J Davis is a servant leader, blogger, and researcher. She holds a Doctorate in Management specializing in Organizational Leadership. Dr. Davis is passionately engaged in Servant Leadership and selfless service to the nonprofit and public sectors having served both large and small organizations throughout her career and consulting business. Follow Crystal @DrDavis2126 (Twitter) and, Lead.From.Within. (Facebook).
© Copyright 2015 ~Dr. Crystal J. Davis. All Rights Reserved.
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