Robert K. Greenleaf : a life of servant-leadership / Don M. Frick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Frick, Don M., 1946-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Greenleaf, Robert K.

Executives--United States--Biography.

Executives.

Business consultants.

United States.

Business consultants--United States--Biography.

Leadership.

Management.

Organizational effectiveness.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xxi, 432 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Servant-leadership

Place of Publication:

San Francisco, CA : Berrett-Koehler, [2004]

Summary:

Meet the man whose work influenced some of the world's most prominent business leaders and spawned a worldwide movement that is still gaining strength today. Robert Greenleaf's landmark 1970 essay, The Servant as Leader, introduced the now common term "servant leadership" to the world. His work has been cited by leading writers and business people including Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Peter Senge, Margaret Wheatley, and Peter Block, and led to the development of Centers for Servant Leadership around the world.

This long-awaited biography of Robert Greenleaf, authorized by his surviving children, finally tells his story. Drawn from Greenleaf's personal papers, correspondence, and interviews with family and friends, it provides a fascinating look at the sources of Greenleaf's thought, his friendships with some of the most influential men and women of the twentieth century -- including Eleanor Roosevelt, Peter Drucker, the Menninger brothers, Reinhold Niebuhr, Aldous Huxley, Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson, and many others -- and how he influenced business history well before his first book was published at the age of seventy-three.

At a time when leadership and management fads substitute as wisdom, Robert Greenleaf's life stories provide clues for how each person can make a difference in the workplace, no matter what position he or she holds.

Robert Greenleaf lived his own life as a servant-leader before he ever defined the term in a series of brilliant and influential essays that have spawned a worldwide movement. Greenleaf was known as AT&T's "kept revolutionary" during his years as a top official with the telephone giant. He presided over numerous unusual initiatives: a novel program that taught executive decision making through great literature, the first corporate assessment center using knowledge gleaned from the OSS's approach to training civilian spies during World War II, courses in listening, and a program that paired leading philosophers and theologians in conversation with AT&T executives. Early in his career, Greenleaf proclaimed, "The work exists for the person as much as the person exists for the work."

After a period of soul searching and some surprising experiments in consciousness, Greenleaf retired from AT&T and began to develop the concept of servant leadership, the then-heretical notion that leaders lead best by serving their followers rather than "commanding" them. He continued to promote the idea through writing, teaching, and consulting. Along the way he influenced a score of important movements such as The Center for Creative Leadership, Yokefellow Institute, experiments in higher education, and trustee development.

Here is an American original who lived by fundamentals of spirit, not formulas. Always, Greenleaf was a seeker opening himself up to novel experiences and astonishing people. He was a complex person -- an introvert who served in public roles, a wise man who refused to give others "The Answer," a brilliant thinker and researcher who often declared, "I am not a scholar." His tombstone carries the epitaph he wrote for himself: "Potentially a good plumber; ruined by a sophisticated education."

Contents:

Part I Servant: 1904-1926 11

Chapter 1 Breakthrough to a Paradox 13

Chapter 2 First Light 17

Chapter 3 George Greenleaf: Community Steward 27

Chapter 4 Religious and Hoosier Heritages 40

Chapter 5 Awe of the Stars 55

Chapter 6 A Willingness to Venture 65

Part II Seeker: 1926-1964 81

Chapter 7 Adventure in Spirit 83

Chapter 8 Crash and Rush 94

Chapter 9 A Passion for Learning 109

Chapter 10 Openings and Convincement: The Quaker Way 125

Chapter 11 Quaker at War 140

Chapter 12 Researcher and Teacher 150

Chapter 13 Meetings With Remarkable People 172

Chapter 14 Crisis of Questions 203

Chapter 15 Husband and Father 218

Chapter 16 Breakout From AT&T 229

Part III Leader: 1964-1990 249

Chapter 17 New Skin for New Wine 251

Chapter 18 The Servant Series 272

Chapter 19 Back to Spirit 297

Chapter 20 Twilight 310.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 403-415) and index.

ISBN:

1576752763

OCLC:

53972033