Servant Leadership

The Golden Rule is Alive and Well

/ Ken Blanchard / 4 Comments

I was talking recently with one of my old friends who is not a man of traditional religious faith. I asked him, “What is your comfort? What is a philosophy you live by?” And he said, “I have always tried throughout my life to do the right thing. I think of the Golden Rule as my faith. I only try to do to other people as I would like to have done to me and I always try to take that into consideration. If all the faiths around the world would practice the Golden Rule, the world would be a different place. I believe our role in life is to treat other people as if they were important individuals and treat them as we would want to be treated.”  And I thought that was really powerful.

A large part of being a servant leader and being there for other people is realizing that every human being is important. Even if another person mistreats us, it doesn’t do us any good to lower ourselves to their methods. The concept of turning the other cheek is kind of hard sometimes, but it’s all about not getting hooked into somebody else’s poor behavior. Perhaps it’s easier to just think of it as living by the Golden Rule. I found out from Colleen Barrett that at Southwest Airlines, the Golden Rule is a major part of their company culture and leadership philosophy. Colleen learned that early in her life from her mother, who was a great believer in the Golden Rule.

So this week, as we go out and greet each other and greet customers and family members, just remember: Treat them as if it were you – how would you like to be treated? That’s a pretty great way to live life. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving week.

Servant Leadership

/ Ken Blanchard / 7 Comments

It’s so interesting, chatting with people about what it means to really be a servant leader, and how much that’s needed everywhere. Why do we get off track? I think it gets back to the ego. You know, where you get false pride and you start thinking more of yourself than you should, and you’re kind of pushing and shoving for your own interests. How do people with false pride and that whole “It’s all about me” thing get away with it?  Well, it’s another ego group that permits it to happen. That’s the group of self doubt—the people who fear. They think less of themselves than they should. They’re trying to protect themselves; they don’t want to speak out. What happens in a lot of organizations where you have self-serving leaders is that you get a lot of people who “quit and stay.” You have a whole bunch of people who are afraid to speak up and say something when people seem to be operating all on self interest. So the other self interest is to protect yourself so you can have a job tomorrow. So how do we get people to really lead at a higher level?  You have to constantly look inside yourself. Why are we leading? What are we doing to bring out the magnificence in the people around us? How do we avoid that ego thing that’s there every day to trap us?  Remember that you’re here to serve, not to be served. On a day that honors a very important servant leader, it’s a big, big thing to remember.