Applied Philosophy & Ethics in Servant Leadership

In his book on Servant Leadership Robert Greenleaf presents a principled call to conscience, an attempt to initiate modern leaders into practical wisdom and help them attain moral authority by learning to lead themselves before others and lead others through an egoless posture of serving. He had observed in his time a lack of contribution to society from companies and organisations that use people instead of building them and consequently fermented the ideal of a leader that would serve first due in part to an ethical imperative. He believed there were those that stood in the side-lines complaining, criticising and expecting others to make things better (ho-hummers) and there are a smaller few who despite perhaps anxious discomfort, are prepared to put themselves forward and look to change the world for the better, from the inside, one effort at a time. It is these few that Greenleaf tried to equip with the perspective and resilience necessary for ethical leadership.

Greenleaf attributes the inspiration of his work to a book by Herman Hesse, Journey to the East. Leo an enigmatic character and leader in disguise as servant presents a rhetorical opportunity to introduce his readers to Servant Leadership concepts and in doing so takes us on the beginning of a journey into the philosophical perspective of the author himself. He projects his knowledge of ancient wisdom and spiritual exercises onto the paradigm of an ideal leader, consequently bringing to life Hadot’s observation that applied philosophy can offer “contemporary mankind a model of life” and enable them to become a “practitioner of the ever-fragile exercise of wisdom” (1).

Whereas Greenleaf started his work on Servant Leadership by proposing Leo as the ideal leader I would suggest another servant for consideration, in fact a slave. Epictetus, living around 55–135 AD was a crippled slave, Stoic philosopher and eventually freedman, he left us two significant pieces of work the Enchiridion and the Discourses. The practical wisdom within these manuals has inspired countless leaders to emerge, some through the most challenging of situations (e.g. Teddy Roosevelt and James Stockdale). It is said that the mark of a great leader is how many they create themselves, these works can be seen influencing ethical leadership thousands of years after they were originally recorded.

There are shared monistic principles between applied philosophies of life and Servant Leadership. The Stoics persevered through great challenges to be forces of good in their societies, much like Greenleaf hoped Servant Leaders would today. They embraced the necessity of “plunging oneself into the totality of the world” (2) and that wisdom, reason and happiness is to be found in the “consciousness turned towards the good; in intentions which have no other object than virtue; in just actions” (3). They felt it their duty to engage philanthropically with society and in ancient Greece and Rome this ethical insistence often ended up with an untimely demise of their existence, something which they met with equanimity.

Through the published Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, (philosopher & Roman Emperor 161–180 AD) we have available to us great insight into how Stoicism has been used much in the way Greenleaf saw Servant Leaders leading themselves and others today. We know from his writings that Marcus practiced an array of thought and spiritual exercises to attain an egoless view of the world and engage in a process of continuous improvement of the self to achieve:

1. Objectivity over present value judgements

2. Living according to justice and in the service of the human community

3. Continuously striving to become aware of our situation as part of the whole and accepting events which remain outside of our control.

To obtain objectivity over judgement a Servant Leader should learn to stay focussed and attentive, an active listener, constantly seeking to understand the perspective of others, like a professional poker player recursively seeing his own hand being played through the eyes of his opponent and his opponents hand being played through his eyes. It is through this state that reasoned leadership can be provided to the served, the attention maintained through every passing moment allows for an ethical decision making process to interpose on our value judgements allowing us to reach a virtuous outcome in any situation which may otherwise have been imperceptible through ego. True servant leaders train to care nothing for being right only for finding the right outcomes.

“If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance” (4)

Being attentive in the moment is not a hereditary trait, although perhaps some are more predisposed. It is a learned skill and in Greek Philosophy is referred to as “Prosoche”, today this could be best likened to spending as much of the day in system 2 thought as possible. Through practice we can improve this ability wasting less of our time to day dreaming and procrastination and improving our ability to think critically.

Just as day dreaming takes us out of a focused state and prevents us from achieving our optimum so to do the effects of anger or desires, philosophers of the past looked to elevate themselves beyond these intuitive day to day responses and saw divinity as being in our intelligence and the differentiator between ourselves and the animal kingdom, as Hadot said (1).

“to maintain oneself on the level of reason, and not allow oneself to be blinded by political passions, anger, resentments, or prejudices. To be sure there is an equilibrium — almost impossible to achieve — between the inner peace bought about by wisdom, and the passions to which the sight of injustices, sufferings, and misery of mankind cannot help but give rise. Wisdom, however, consists in precisely such an equilibrium, and inner peace is indispensable for efficacious action.”

Through reason we achieve the egoless state that Greenleaf himself saw as so important to Servant Leadership, he gives us clear indication to the need of understanding the bias of one’s own perceptions by overtly caveating his writings with the statement “it seems to me”, to the initiated these innocuous words show an understanding that my way is not always the right way and being able to challenge your own assumptions starts with that self-awareness. A Servant Leaders perspective is to see the world “for itself and no longer for ourselves” (1) Epictetus shares with us similar advice in his Enchiridion.

“Setting out, then, from these principles, you will meekly bear a person who reviles you, for you will say upon every occasion, “it seemed so to him” “ (5)

As well as being always attentive, the ability to withdraw into contemplative meditation is a treatment for the day to day stresses of leadership, a stimulus to creative thinking and a means of increasing resilience towards the daily build-up of negative thoughts that pull our mind into the past and push it into the future. Today where the attainment of money is the populist philosophy of life this idea of cultivation of the self is often cynically received. It fulfils nothing for the perceived needs of status, fame and fortune and is perhaps indifferent to these things. However true leadership in itself and for itself needs ethical drive or gumption. Willpower in this context is a finite resource and this is where the practicality of meditation pays dividends.

Greenleaf also alludes to a practice reminiscent of the “view from above” something practiced in both Stoicism and Epicureanism:

“Required is that one live a sort of schizoid life. One is always at two levels of consciousness. One is in the real world — concerned, responsible, effective, value oriented. One is also detached riding above it, seeing todays events and seeing oneself … in the perspective of a long sweep of history”.

The idea behind this exercise is that through the contemplation of rising above our day to day troubles, floating up over the rooftops, into the clouds and looking down on the world below we can imagine the thousands of others going through the same stressful problems we are and within a universal context appreciate the tedium of the day to day challenges we face, especially when those same challenges are ascribed onto others.

We can again look to the meditations of Marcus Aurelius and see how he too lived this exercise:

“you have the power to strip off many superfluous things that are obstacles to you, and that depend entirely upon your value-judgements; you will openup for yousrself a vast space by embracing the whole universe in your thoughts, by considering unending certainty, and by reflecting on the rapid changes of each particular thing; think of how short is the span between birth and dissolution, and how vast the chasm of time before your birth, and how the span after your dissolution will likewise be infinite”

Whilst focusing on the here and now, using meditative practices as an escape from anxiety and an opportunity for thriving in complexity, so should a Servant Leader “have a sense for the unknowable and be able to foresee the unforeseeable “. Superficially this may seem like risk management or planning in the complicated domain, there is however a depth of practice here lost in the anti-thought enterprise. The practice of visualisation is a contemplative exercise intended to pre-empt events of the future, as Seneca once remarked “the man who has anticipated the coming of troubles takes away their power when they arrive”. Thanks to the workings of our brains we can vividly play out an infinite number of potential scenarios and accustom our responses in advance of the event occurring. This can be effective at a strategic or tactical level, meditation on significantly complex problems or simply running through a presentation a priori to help control nerves.

It’s a consistent theme in applying a philosophy of life to encourage looking up to role models, the best of which would be considered a Sage, an elucidation of perfection. Whilst a Sage may represent an unobtainable state the idea of keeping close to mind and body those that you look up to is a consistent theme throughout philosophy. As Epictetus said: “The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best”.

In addition, the first book of Meditations from Marcus is entirely dedicated to those in his life that he respects and why he aspires to achieve their strengths. As you conduct your daily affairs if you have in mind the judgement of others and the consideration of how those you would look up to would react in the same situation then it may be that your private and public selves become much more closely aligned and ethical.

As Kathleen Vohs’s research has shown money affects our behaviours in selfish ways. When one considers the recent financial scandals the cultures that fermented those behaviours could only exist in an environment where no one individual stands forth as an example to follow, the example being set between colleagues is a corrupt one, influenced by corrupt leadership. When bringing the 21st century economy to its knees and causing suffering on a global scale what role models were ever present at the forefront of their minds?

One area where I diverge from Greenleaf’s vision of an ethical leader is in the art of persuasion, the psychology and art of manipulative rhetoric is available to us through the works of Cicero and Jay Heinrichs, to manipulate you must deceive and deceit in itself is fundamentally unethical therefore rhetoric would only seem ethical when it is practiced within knowing circles even when being used for profoundly ethical purposes. Instead, an ethical leader should champion a reasoned opinion with supporting facts to educate rather than trying to change something outside of one’s own sphere of control, lead horses to water but don’t trick them into feeding.

The knowledge we have at our finger tips today is the accrual of thousands of years of thought. The retrospective for example is a practice that is well known within the Agile community, the earliest example of this practice I find is in the Golden Verses of Pythagoras (circa 300 BC). Stoicism picked up the baton from there and created a daily inspect and adapt cycle where the practitioner would visualise the events that are likely to unfold over the course of the day and establish achievable goals. At days end a further review is undertaken to see what was left undone, what errors were made and what should be commended. Unlike the activities we see in Scrum, the subject matter in this instance is ethics, the improvement of wisdom, courage, temperance and justice, by keeping the feedback loops tight ethics become rehearsed and intuitive. The similarities with the modern retrospective and agile philosophy in general are compelling, both were born of the same ideals, finding our way through complexity.

Through the practice of an applied philosophy I believe it is possible to bring back to the future the essence of Servant Leadership and perhaps with a dose of epistemology take the practice beyond where it is today. In ancient Greece “philosophy was first and foremost a way of life” (1). Some would argue that it has over time become too academic and that “university philosophy is mere fencing in front of a mirror” Schopernhauer. However, if like the philosophers of antiquity you believe that making contributions to society is more important than treating the world as a means to satisfy your own desires, then learning to lead yourself before others should be a task undertaken with some urgency.

In the final analysis when we are close to giving back everything we have borrowed and with the understanding that the odds of us ever having come into existence are so minute what achievements will you be most proud of? The accumulation of a meaningless number, the imitation of degenerate political and celebrity role models scrambling for a respect attained through fear or fortune or will you strive to guide yourself through the complexity of life living to a more virtuous and resilient principle?

As Marcus told himself…

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be, be one”

1. Hadot, Pierre. Philosophy as a way of life.
2. Seneca. Letter 46, 6
3. -. Letter 23, 6.
4. Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations.
5. Epictetus. Enchiridion, 42.