Regardless of your occupation, the truth is that everything we do is about providing service. Serving is part of your DNA and is intended to help you become great at living life as the masterpiece you were created to be. Look at Jesus’ words in Mark 10:43: “Whoever wants to be great must become a servant.”At first read His words seem counter intuitive, but consider how you view others. Isn’t it true that you are loyal to those businesses or people who have, through serving your faithfully, proved that they are capable of solving your problems or meeting you needs?
It’s not that Jesus is saying that to be great you must personally fix peoples problems and fulfill their ever need. Rather, that you would be tuned into other’s hopes, fears, needs and concerns. You see you cannot demand loyalty from others, you have to earn it. You cannot earn it simply through authority but rather through the ability to meet a need, that is to say in Jesus’ words to “become a servant”. It’s interesting that in this scripture Jesus didn’t say that you should not aspire to be great. Instead, as an admonishment He said “if you want to be great here is how you do it.”
When you decide that you are going to be a servant leader to those around you, be it your family, friends, those you work with, or your customers, you will move to a much deeper relationship of loyalty with them. They will move from a motivation in their relationship with you that responds out of “obligation” to “desire”. You will spend a lot less energy working to keep things sustained because of the enthusiasm that your servant leadership, your greatness, will have developed in the relationship. If you are in a position of leadership this is especially important for mobilizing those you are leading to live out the mission and vision that you serve together.
Pay The Price
Servant leadership is especially important to leaders who aspire to greatness. Let’s face it, leadership is not for the faint of heart. Especially when you are faced with decisions that you have to make between your personal interest and the interest of the organization or the group you lead. The one thing that will keep you on target during those hard times of sacrifice is a heart for greatness that is being a servant leadership. In leadership, you will have times when you will need to lead the way and pay the price. Those are the moments when you demonstrate whether you are in it for selfish or selfless reasons. Those are the moments that determine if you are going to be great or not. Greatness always has the heart and interest of others as a priority and demonstrates it through serving.