James C. Hunter - The Worlds Most Powerful Leadership Principle: How to Become a Servant Leader

Contents

To the One who first taught me that to lead is to serve.

PRAISE FOR

The Worlds Most Powerful Leadership Principle

A must-read for existing and prospective leaders!

Dennis Bakke, CEO emeritus and cofounder, AES Corporation, The Global Power Company

This book has the power to transform both hearts and minds.

John Baltes, director, Silver Dollar City Foundation

Synovus is committed to developing servant leaders, and this great work will be a helpful tool. It is a true gift to individuals, companies, and our world.

James Blanchard, chairman and CEO, Synovus Financial Corporation, #1 on Fortunes 100 Best Companies to Work For

This book poignantly reaffirms two fundamental principles that fuel the engines of continuously flourishing businesses: Leadership emanates from character and humility instead of a rsum, and an ounce of action is worth a ton of textbook knowledge.

Russell Ebeid, president, Glass Group, Guardian Industries Corporation

This book takes the concepts presented in The Servant and gives the leader the tools needed for hardwiring. This book will leave you better than it found you.

Brian Jones, director of people development,
Baptist Health Care, #10 on Fortunes
100 Best Companies to Work For, and recipient
of the 2003 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award

I am a huge fan of Jims first book, The Servant; I give it to all of our managers. I particularly enjoyed the emphasis on application in this work.

Joy Flora, president, Merry Maids, a division of ServiceMaster

I really like this book. Servant leadership is for people of action, and this book is a practical guide to actionable servant leadership.

Jack Lowe Jr., CEO, TDIndustries, #2 on Fortunes 100 Best Companies to Work For, and Board Chair, Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership

Our company has profited globally from these servant-leadership principles. This book provides the road map, making it easier to realize these benefits at all levels.

Devin McCarthy, CEO, Franklynn Industries

This is a great book and a commonsense approach to leadership. It is time for leaders to realize it is morphing timetime to be the leader their people need and deserve.

Dale Moore, chairman and CEO, Moores Electrical & Mechanical Construction

This book is the most practical and useful book I have read on servant leadership.

James Moore Jr., CEO, Catamount Energy Corporation

It is refreshing to read a concise book that tells you how to implement ideas rather than just talking theory.

Kenney Moore, chairman, CEO, and founder, Andys Cheesesteaks & Cheeseburgers

Other leadership books pale in comparison. Our company made Jim Hunters first book, The Servant, required reading. This book is another home run!

Dave Skogen, CEO, Festival Foods

A must-read! This book not only describes what a servant leader looks like but it also provides us with a guide to move ourselves toward becoming that leader.

Craig Smith, senior manager of human resources, Gordon Food Service

The principles set forth in this book are timeless. They are part of the eternal laws written into the very nature of mankind.

Malcolm R. Sullivan Jr., president, Pate-Dawson Company

This book is a home run! The first read is for a review of servant leadership and to learn the map of implementation. The second and subsequent reads are for a benchmark to ones commitment to change.

James Sexton, president and CEO, Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital

A gift from a servant leader. Clear, comprehensive. It will guide you on your journey toward servant leadership.

Robert Thomas, executive director, Georgia Servant Leadership Alliance

Excellent! This book is right on target in offering practical ways to grow servant leaders.

Bill Turner, chairman, executive committee, Synovus Financial Corporation, #1 on Fortunes
100 Best Companies to Work For

This practical book provides everything you need to know to begin improving your servant leadership effectiveness, today.

John Vella, vice president of marketing, Nestl Purina PetCare Company

This book captures the critical element of value creation for any organization: servant leaders at every level. This book teaches us the practical application of the principles of servant leadership.

Joe Weller, chairman and CEO, Nestl USA, Fortunes #1 Most Admired Food Company

Prologue

Another Leadership Book?

People need to be reminded
more often than they need to be instructed.

Samuel Johnson

These are not the best of times for leaders in corporate America.

I write this at a time when CEO has become a four-letter word in many circles. We are in the midst of corporate scandals involving the likes of Adelphia, Arthur Andersen, Enron, Global Crossing, Tyco, and WorldCom. Just today I read a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll stating that seven in ten Americans say they distrust CEOs of large corporations. Fully eight in ten believe top executives of large companies will take improper actions to help themselves at the expense of their companies. Credibility for business leaders may well be at an all-time low.

These corporate scandals leave me feeling ambivalent. On the one hand, I am pleased that corporate crooks are getting what they have coming and that the system is, at least in part, working. On the other hand, I feel sad for the many, many good, hardworking, and honest CEOs who are being painted with the same broad brush. Indeed, I have met far more honest CEOs than dishonest ones. As one pundit put it, saying all CEOs are crooks is like saying all priests are pedophiles.

Where Are All the Leaders?

As an avid student and educator on the topic of leadership and specifically servant leadership, I often wonder if there is anything left to be said on the topic.

A search on Amazon.com reveals more than 280,000 titles on leadership and management! Tens of thousands of pages are written about leadership in magazines and journals each year.

Three-quarters of American corporations send people off to leadership classes each year and spend an estimated $15 billion on training and consulting for those on their leadership teams. Yet more than 90 percent of the leadership training and development courses organizations are spending billions on each year are a waste of time and money. Yes, the managers will receive information about leadership; they will probably leave the training feeling excited, warm, and fuzzy; yet less than 10 percent will actually change their behavior as a result of the training.

We have roughly 2.5 million graduated M.B.A.s in America today, and we will graduate another 110,000 M.B.A.s this year. Sadly, I have observed many hotshot M.B.A.s entering organizations fresh off our nations best campuses trying to impress everyone with how much they know, seemingly oblivious to the simple truth that people do not care what you know until they know that you care. I have met far too many M.B.A.s who are fit to manage but unfit to lead.

Recent studies conducted by the Gallup organization show that better than two-thirds of people who leave their jobs resign because of an ineffective or incompetent manager. Put another way, the significant majority of people who leave their organization do not quit their company, they quit their