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Krishna as a Servant-Leader

Servant-Leadership is a practical philosophy which supports people who choose to serve first, and then lead as a way of expanding service to individuals and institutions. Servant-leaders may or may not hold formal leadership positions.
Servant-leadership emphasizes on collaboration, trust, partnership, listening, and the ethical use of power and empowerment.

In the servant-leader model, the goal of leadership is viewed primarily as service. Servant-leaders take into account the interests of those they lead, and go an extra mile to put the interests of their flock above their own. They facilitate the growth and wellness of all employees, encourage community spirit, share power and resources, and provide supplementary support.

Robert Greenleaf, the man who coined the phrase, described servant-leadership in this way.

"The servant-leader is servant first... It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. He or she is sharply different from the person who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. For such it will be a later choice to serve - after leadership is established. The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them, there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature."

"The difference manifest itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived?"

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* Contributed by -
Aarthi Kalyanaraman,
Currently student of PGP-I at BIM, Trichy,
Article published in KRIYA, August'06 Issue, the monthly magazine of the institute.