The Subtle Power of Service Leadership
Welcome to the first entry in our new series Foundations. Our foundational values are at the heart of all that we do, but it isn’t enough to share what they are. In this series, we’ll explore why we chose these five pillars and how we teach them to students.
Leadership is our core value; one we share with teacher leaders and staff and steward in students. Our brand of leadership is based on the idea that leaders seek first to improve their own skills and then use them to serve the greater good of their communities. The summits are a place for students to find a leadership style suited to their strengths and practice sought-after skills like communication and problem solving in a team setting.
If you surveyed ten people off the street to define leadership, you’d likely get ten different answers. That’s because leadership is an abstract idea—we know it when we see it, but it can be tough to describe. One exercise I ask students to do during the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens workshop is to draw what leadership looks like.
At first, students are tentative. They glance at their peer’s paper or stare off into the middle distance with furrowed brows. Inevitably, after a little time to brainstorm, I see the tops of dozens of heads as students doodle in their notes. I always invite students to draw their idea of leadership on the board. To date (and I’ve been doing this for awhile), no two drawings have ever been the same.
That being said, themes do tend to emerge. Students understand, for instance, that good leaders help a team gel, motivate their teammates and seek collective success over individual accolades.
Their conception of leadership is frequently at odds with a traditional model which tends to be hierarchical and leader-centered. Imagine a pyramid with one person at the top and people stacked up underneath. When I show students this drawing, they recognize that traditional leadership isn’t ideal. We agree, which is why we teach and model service leadership.
“Do those I serve grow as people? Do they become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to serve others?”
Popularized by Robert K. Greenleaf in the 1970’s, service leadership is a philosophy that suggests a leader should looks to serve others, and indeed, measure their success by how well they’re serving their community. When put into practice not just at a personal level but throughout a team or organization, it transforms the entire dynamic. Rather than consolidate power at the very top, service leadership shares power and looks to help everyone develop and perform at their best.
According to Robert K. Greenleaf, these are the fundamental questions a service leader should always ask: “Do those I serve grow as people? Do they become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to serve others?” And these are the very questions we live by at Ambassador Leaders, which is why when we say, “The people come first,” we mean it.
Imagine tipping the leadership pyramid on its side. Rather than leading from the top, a service leader leads from behind, ensuring no one falls behind and taking cues from those further ahead.
In practice, this makes the Summits student-driven experiences. Our teacher leaders guide their students—asking questions, offering information, providing advice—but ultimately, the behavior expectations set in teams, the subject of their capstone projects, and the delegating of tasks to prepare for final presentations is decided on by the students.
From the very first team meeting, students assess their own strengths and those of their teammates, learning how to maximize their collective success by contributing their individual talents. It’s also a chance to identify areas for personal improvement. After all, only students self-aware enough to know which leadership qualities they need to strengthen are able to learn from teammates already in possession of those attributes.
When we survey our students after their Summit experience, the vast majority (95%+) tell us we helped them accomplish three things: 1. They grew as leaders, 2. They learned to be effective in teams and 3. They became more independent and willing to try new things. These metrics represent a success story for each individual student and for all the student teams. We’re proud of that, but there’s more to it.
It’s also a reflection of the dedication of our teacher leaders who steward and model service leadership. And it’s a testament to what service leadership can accomplish when everyone—from the students, to the teacher leaders and staff, to those of us in the Program Office, to our CEO—all ask ourselves how we can help others succeed, and in so doing, find our paths to success.
By Corie Bales
Corie is the Academic Affairs Manager of Ambassador Leaders. As a lifelong educator and avid traveler, she believes in empowering students and teachers to learn and lead through experiential education.