Focus on Leadership: Servant-Leadership for the 21st Century [Hardcover]

Larry C. Spears (Author), Michele Lawrence (Author), Ken Blanchard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0471411620 | ISBN-13: 978-0471411628 | Edition: 3rd

This collection of inspiring essays focuses on the practice of servant-leadership in organizational and business settings. Focus on Leadership addresses how servant-leadership is now increasingly recognized as being on the forefront of emerging leadership thinking. This book features a Foreword by Ken Blanchard as well as writing from:

Hamilton Beazley * Julie Beggs * Warren Bennis * Ken Blanchard * John C. Bogle * Rubye Howard Braye * John Burkhardt * John Carver * Stephen R. Covey * Max DePree * K. Brian Dorval * Kent A. Farnsworth * Tamyra L. Freeman * Robert K. Greenleaf * Dee Hock * Scott G. Isaksen * Joseph Jaworski * Michael Jones * Ann McGee-Cooper * Russ S. Moxley * Nancy Larner Ruschman * John P. Schuster * James D. Showkeir * Ruth Mercedes Smith * Larry C. Spears * Duane Trammell * David S. Young * Scott W. Webster * Margaret Wheatley * Judy Wicks * Lea E. Williams * Danah Zohar

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Robert K. Greenleaf first wrote about a new type of leader, the servant-leader, in 1970, but his idea remains a revolutionary approach to managing an organization. Servant-leadership stresses the importance and benefit leaders gain by serving the welfare of employees, customers, and communities. Traditional leadership modes that concentrate solely on the quest for profit or the attainment of goals at any cost are giving way to a holistic approach to work that promotes a sense of community and the sharing of power in decision-making. Servant-leadership is a long-term, transformational approach to life and work that has the potential for creating positive change throughout society.

Focus on Leadership highlights the importance of Greenleaf's ideas on management theory and their impact across the contemporary business landscape. It offers a selection of writing from some of the leading thinkers on servant-leadership and management culture, including Warren Bennis, Stephen Covey, Margaret Wheatley, and John Bogle. It also includes an excerpt from Greenleaf's seminal essay "The Servant as Leader" that serves as an excellent introduction to the principles and essentials of servant-leadership. Other highlights include essays on the ideal servant-leader, companies that have put the servant-leadership model to work in their own corporate structures, servant-leadership at work in educational and philanthropic institutions, and servant-leadership in the new economy.

The essays here fall into four categories that cover servant-leadership's relation to the individual, the workplace, the surrounding community, and the world as a whole. These essays present a fundamental understanding and the newest thinking on servant-leadership's ability to change lives in our communities and in communities around the world.

For those already familiar with servant-leadership, Focus on Leadership offers an opportunity to further explore Greenleaf's revolutionary ideas. For those just discovering servant-leadership, it serves as both a source of inspiration and a call for enlightenment and change.

From the Back Cover

From FOCUS ON LEADERSHIP . . .

Robert K. Greenleaf from "The Servant as Leader"
"The servant-leader is servant first. Becoming a servant-leader begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.... The best test is this: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?"

Ken Blanchard from "The Heart of Leadership"
"I truly believe that servant-leadership has never been more applicable to the world of leadership than it is today. Not only are people looking for a deeper purpose and meaning when they must meet the challenges of today's changing world; they are also looking for principles and philosophies that actually work. Servant-leadership works. Servant-leadership is about getting people to a higher level by leading people at a higher level."

Stephen R. Covey from "Servant-Leadership and Community Leadership in the Twenty-First Century"
"Anyone can be a servant-leader. Any one of us can take initiative ourself; it doesn't require that we be appointed a leader, but it does require that we operate from moral authority. The spirit of servant-leadership is the spirit of moral authority."

Margaret Wheatley from "The Work of the Servant-Leader"
"I believe that Greenleaf knew so much, was accessing so much of what I would call 'eternal wisdom' when he said the criterion of successful servant-leadership is that those that we serve are healthier and wiser and freer and more autonomous, and perhaps they even loved our leadership so much that they want to serve others also."

Warren Bennis from "Become a Tomorrow Leader"
"Too many organizations are overmanaged and underled because the people at the top are better at making policies, practices, and procedures than they are at creating a compelling, overarching vision. They are managers, not leaders."

FOCUS ON LEADERSHIP CONTRIBUTORS
* Hamilton Beazley
* Julie Beggs
* Warren Bennis
* Ken Blanchard
* John C. Bogle
* Rubye Howard Braye
* John Burkhardt
* John Carver
* Stephen R. Covey
* Max DePree
* K. Brian Dorval
* Kent A. Farnsworth
* Tamyra L. Freeman
* Robert K. Greenleaf
* Dee Hock
* Scott G. Isaksen
* Joseph Jaworski
* Michael Jones
* Ann McGee-Cooper
* Russ S. Moxley
* Nancy Larner Ruschman
* John P. Schuster
* James D. Showkeir
* Ruth Mercedes Smith
* Larry C. Spears
* Duane Trammell
* David S. Young
* Scott W. Webster
* Margaret Wheatley
* Judy Wicks
* Lea E. Williams
* Danah Zohar

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons; 3rd edition (November 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471411620
• ISBN-13: 978-0471411628
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #81,898 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Larry C. Spears was born in Virginia. He has lived much of his life in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Indianapolis. Larry is a graduate of DePauw University (Greencastle, Indiana). He began his writing and editing career at the age of fourteen. Larry has edited thirteen books on servant-leadership since 1995; and, he is a contributing author to nineteen books. He is the President of The Larry C. Spears Center for Servant-Leadership (Indianapolis, IN). From 1990-2007 Larry served as President & CEO of The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership (Westfield, IN). Spears is also Servant-Leader Scholar at Gonzaga University School for Professional Studies (Spokane, Washington). He teaches graduate courses in servant-leadership for Gonzaga. Larry also serves as Senior Advisory Editor for the International Journal of Servant-Leadership, a joint project of Gonzaga University and The Spears Center. Hobbies include genealogy, reading, travel, and time spent in Cape May, New Jersey.