This year, with the recession impacting our lives in many ways, I have often been asked whether my own business has suffered. This is not the case. In fact, as I tell the questioners, this year Speaking Solutions has had more company training assignments and speaking engagements than ever before. I don’t think the reasons for this are tied to the recession at all, although some companies clearly recognise that well-trained employees have competitive advantages. No, I think this success has to do with a factor that leaders sometimes forget, and that is service. We are a thoroughly service-oriented company, and our extra efforts on behalf of our clients have paid off right from the start.

The same holds true for leadership. Leaders need to remember that part of their job description is to serve: serve their company, serve their constituency, serve their employees or followers. Service is a component of any type of leadership. One of the Latin titles given to the Pope, for instance, is ‘servus servorum’, which means ‘the servant of servants’. The role of a leader, no matter what type of leadership authority is involved, is to lead by helping or enabling others. This is service. Unfortunately, sometimes an unrealistic assessment of their own importance can deflect leaders from the service path. When that happens, leaders often start to lose contact with their followers and with the realities of their role.

Today, leaders are being asked increasingly to work as ‘Service Leaders’, and to provide service leadership. Service leadership requires the capacity to lead both with a focus on service to those benefitting from the end result and to those who do the work in achieving the objective. This is the type of leadership in which I am personally involved in projects in developing countries, and it is immensely satisfying. However, service leadership is not a platform for those who regard leadership as a power tool, as personal power and ego satisfaction can be huge obstacles to this type of leadership. I learned this in my first service leadership project in Fiji, when I satisfied MY ego needs by taking in computers to a youth education project which was nowhere near ready to have such things imposed on it. Only when I put my ego aside, and started to really listen to my local partners in the project, did I start to learn the real meaning of service leadership.

Of course, you can practice service leadership without having to leave your own community. There is a huge need in every community for people who are prepared to take the responsibility for leading local projects, and who are ready to give some of their time and energy to do so. Please feel free to contact me if you want to know more about opportunities for service leadership. A warning, though: service leadership can be life changing!