A dedicated servant leader will neither hijack a colleague’s vision nor co-opt it unquestioningly, no matter the direction of one’s personal enthusiasm. While a leader may prod and provoke, she never takes over the client’s vision nor inserts her own alternative vision. As a servant leader, the value we bring is to encourage ongoing reflection on the part of our colleague regarding whether or not this is the best direction to take—as guided by our shared commitment to a specific vision and set of values. We repeatedly participate with other members of our community in the process of spiritual discernment—determining if the internal and external evidence that seems to be pointing us (collectively) in a certain direction comes from a place that is compatible with the long-term welfare and growth of other members of our community and ourselves.

There is perhaps no more important role to play as a masterful servant leader than to help one’s colleague make the tough choices between the very obvious and the not so obvious, between the short-term and the long-term, and, in particular, between the expedient way of life and the way of personal integrity.  Clearly, this is not the “usual” form of leadership that is written about in most contemporary textbooks—even those that focus on postmodern organizations. It is a “quiet” form of leadership. It is a form of leadership that is often associated with soulfulness. Servant leadership requires a shift from the proclivity to look upward and forward to attending downward and inward. This means a shift from visual to tactile modes of experience. We touch rather than look.

Like the protective father in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, we embrace the people we lead and hold them safe from the storm. Soulful movement downward is a journey through embarrassment, narcissistic wounds and loneliness. This contrasts with the journey of the spirit that is filled with inspiration, uplifting motives and great public adventures. We retreat to do soul work rather than leaping up to do spiritual work. In moving to soul work, we take on latrine duty or clean pots. As servant leaders we might even engage in the corporate equivalent to Greenleaf’s cleaning of pots and latrines, namely, filling in the details, cleaning up after an event or handling a messy employee problem. When we are doing soulful servant-oriented leadership our role shifts from master to servant.

Leadership Practice Four: Differences and Community

While all men and women have been created equal—as proclaimed in many spiritual texts and governmental pronouncements—they certainly have not been created the same. And that is a very good thing. A world where everyone looks, talks, and acts the same would surely be a boring place, not to mention hugely unproductive and evolutionarily unsound. Deviance in gene pools is essential to the ongoing adaptation of humankind to a shifting global environment (Bergquist, 2012). A quick glance around our world enables us to appreciate and delight in the diversity and differences among people living in different societies and cultures. We might very well find in this delight a pathway to our own spirituality.

Unfortunately, in our fallen world, man has skewed these differences into separators and distinguishers for judgment. Mankind has placed arbitrary value on looks, skills, education, wealth, position, power, body shape, size and color, sexual orientation, and perceived handicaps – to name just a few. We sadly limit our exposure and our collaboration as a whole based on these false values – whatever our spiritual or religious label.

Sandstrom and Smith (2005) offer the following challenging question: Can you imagine what could accomplish in this world if there were no dividing lines of thought? If we truly advocated for the differences to be found in each person. What if we were united together with one purpose and one passion? It is a staggering and sobering thought. To accomplish this work in this world, we are equipped with the propensity to appreciate differences. This is a critical assumption that serves as one of the foundations of any form of effective leadership. We are social animals (Aronson, 2018) who are designed to come together as a whole – one body functioning with all parts.