Servant As Leader

Board Resource Manual

Tools to Build More Successful Boards and Healthier Congregations

Joseph Priestley District

Compiled and adapted by Rev. Dr. Richard Speck District Executive

Fifth Edition 2006

1 Leader As Servant...... 4 The Servant Leader and the Exercise of Forgiveness in the Context of the Organization...... 6 The Servant Leader and the Exercise of Forgiveness in the Context of the Organization - Part II...... 13 The Servant Leader and the Exercise of Forgiveness in the Context of the Organization - Part III...... 20 Thinking “System” is thinking in a unique way...... 27 Basic Ideas of an Emotional System...... 27 The thirteen most common triggers of anxiety in congregations...... 28 Money...... 28 Pastor’s leadership style...... 28 Change Theory...... 29 The Leader As Change Agent...... 33 Evolutionary or homeostatic change...... 33 Planned Change...... 33 Dealing with Feelings...... 34 Planned continuity...... 35 The organization development cycle...... 35 Leadership Styles And Growth...... 37 What a Board as a whole brings to...... 39 Minimum Job Requirements of Board Member...... 39 Different Reasons Individuals Assume Board Roles...... 39 Basic Roles & Responsibilities of a Board...... 40 Board Functions/Tasks...... 40 Board Functions/Tasks...... 40 Board Members Job/Work Description...... 41 Governing Board Models...... 42 The Profound Committee...... 44 A Group Member Expresses Her Needs...... 44 A Group Member Expresses Her Needs...... 44 Debrief Process...... 45 Making the most of each meeting as a learning opportunity...... 45 Volunteer Cartoon...... 46 Group Interaction Continuum...... 47 Process Guide For Task Forces Or Committees...... 48 What To Look For In Groups...... 52 Rules for Board Meetings...... 57 Best Meetings Practice...... 58 Earmarks Of The Effective Group...... 59 Characteristics of Congregations By Size...... 60 Very Small-Sized Congregation...... 60 Small-Sized Congregations...... 60 Middle-Sized Congregations...... 61 Moderately Large-Sized Congregation...... 61 Very Large-Sized Congregation...... 62 How to Minister Effectively in Family, Pastoral, Program, and Corporate Sized Churches...63 Part I: The Theory of Congregational Size...... 63 2 The Patriarchal/Matriarchal Church...... 64 The Pastoral Church...... 66 The Program Church...... 68 The Corporate Church...... 69 Congregational Structure and Size...... 72 Carver Model Roles and Responsibilities of Board Members...... 74 Basic Principles of Policy Governance...... 76 Policy Governance®” for the Temporally-Challenged...... 81 Nine Steps to Implementing Policy Governance...... 84 Basic Resources on the Carver Model of Policy Governance...... 86 Seven Habits of Health-Promoting Leaders...... 87 Definition Of Conflict...... 89 The Symptoms Of A Congregation In Conflict...... 89 Causes of Conflict...... 90 Levels of Conflict...... 91 Covenant of Conduct...... 92 Ground Rules for Good Communication...... 93 Policy on Disruptive Behavior...... 94 Examples of Covenants...... 95 All Souls Unitarian Church...... 95 Unitarian Universalists of Sterling...... 96 UUFR Board Norms, April ,1998...... 96 UUCA Covenant...... 97 Twelve Ground Rules For Working Through Conflict...... 98 Conflict Management Strategies...... 98 Steps in managing resource-based conflicts...... 98 Strategies for Managing Level I and Level II Conflict...... 100 Conflict Management...... 101 Action Steps...... 101 Good and Bad Conflict Management...... 102 Creative Controversy...... 103 Twenty Dynamics of Healthy and Vital Unitarian Universalist Congregations”...... 104 Basic Dynamics...... 104 Heart and Mind Dynamics...... 104 Program Dynamics...... 104 Internal Dynamics...... 104 Outreach Dynamics...... 104 Successful Boards...... 105 How Boards Succeed...... 106 Critical Factors That Can Lead to Poor Board Performance...... 108 Disruptive Board Member Meeting Behavior...... 108 Suggestions to Enhance Your Contributions as a Board Member...... 109 Components That Promote A Positive Board Culture...... 110 More Effective Meetings...... 111 Building Better Boards Begins With Evaluation...... 112 Evaluations: Diagnostic Tools...... 117 A Bibliography for Board Members of Congregations...... 120

3 Leader as Servant

Servant and Leader. This idea is put forth by Robert Greenleaf, a former Director of AT&T, often called the conscience of AT&T for his pioneering work in the business sector stimulating thought and action toward building a better, more caring society.

The concept, Servant Leader, was suggested by the Herman Hesse story, Journey to the East.

A band of men are on a mythical journey. Leo accompanies that party as the servant who does their menial chores, but who also sustains them with his spirit and his song. He is a person of extraordinary presence. All goes well until Leo disappears and the journey is abandoned. They cannot make it without the servant Leo. The narrator, one of the party, after some years of wandering finds Leo and is taken into the Order that sponsored the journey. There he discovers that Leo, whom he had first known as a servant, was in fact the titular head of the Order, its guiding spirit, a great and noble leader. from Journey to the East by Herman Hesse.

The great leader is seen as servant first. It begins with the natural feelings that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That is sharply different from the person who is Leader first, perhaps because of the need for power or for possessions. For such a person will be a later choice to serve, after leadership is established. The leader-first and the servant-first are two extremes. Between them are shadings and blendings that are part of the infinite variety of human nature. If one is servant, either leader or follower, one is always searching, listening, expecting that a better wheel for these times is in the making. It may emerge any day. Any one of us may find it. Albert Camus unrelentingly demanded that each of us confront the exacting terms of one’s own existence, and like Sisyphus, accept the rock and find happiness in dealing with it. Emerson: Every wall is a door. The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that others people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier wiser freer more autonomous more likely themselves to become servants.

And, to take it a further step, only a true natural servant-leader automatically responds to any problem by listening first. It is a long arduous discipline to learn to listen. Even Francis of Assissi’s prayer: Grant that I may not seek so much to be understood as to understand.

TRUE LISTENING BUILDS STRENGTH IN OTHER PEOPLE. Leaders are obligated to provide and maintain momentum, which comes from a clear vision of what the institution ought to be, from a well-though out strategy to achieve that vision, and from carefully conceived and communicated directions and plans which enable everyone to participate and be publicly accountable in achieving those plans.

4 Leaders are responsible for effectiveness. “Efficiency is doing the thing right, but effectiveness is doing the right thing.” Peter Drucker Leaders must take a role in developing, expressing and defending civility and values. Civility: the ability to distinguish what is~ actually healthy and what merely appears to be living, between the living edges and the dying ones. “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

What is it most of us really want from work? -to find the most effective, most productive, most rewarding way of working together. -to know our work process uses all of the appropriate resources: human, physical, financial. -to meet our personal needs for belonging, for contributing, for meaningful work, for the opportunity to make a commitment, for the opportunity to grow end be reasonably in control of our own destinies. -to have someone say “Thank You!” How to turn ideals into reality: Respect people and the diversity of their gifts. Understand that relationships count more than structure. Would you rather work as a part of an outstanding group or be part of a group of outstanding individuals? Nearly everybody in a group at different times and in different ways plays two roles: Creator and Implementer.

from Elinor Artman, May, 1996

5 The Servant Leader and the Exercise of Forgiveness in the Context of the Organization Part I by Dr. Jeffrey D. Yergler

Introduction

In Management and Grace, Dr. Yergler creates a context of a concept and practice of grace and management that holds incredible potential for significantly enhancing morale and performance. What sets the application of grace apart from being yet another management tool is that it fundamentally speaks to and motivates the human heart at the deepest core level.

In Servant Leadership, Justice and Forgiveness, Dr Yergler refines the context and discusses how a servant leader must incorporate forgiveness as a leadership competency.

In this three part series Dr. Jeffrey Yergler continues his exploration of servant leadership and the application of forgiveness in organizations. The emotional, relational and spiritual expectations and deficits which people bring with them into the organization place incredible and often unreasonable pressures on those who lead and manage. It is the servant leader who is in a position to most effectively respond and intervene. (ed.)

The Servant Leader

Deep study of Greenleaf's (1996) definition of servant-leadership convinces me that leaders' discernment of what needs to be released in others is the single greatest catalyst of personal growth, maturity, freedom and autonomy (the latter quality I would call becoming a self- differentiated person). However, Greenleaf's definition sets up a conundrum because most leadership practices today are seldom about discerning what is needed by others but rather about buttressing what is needed to preserve oneself and one's agenda. So often the leader is concerned about style, methodology, data and metrics rather than how to cull and tease the best out of others. I believe that Greenleaf's definition of servant-leadership speaks to the moral responsibilities of the leader and the organization to grow and develop their people.

Leaders who feel that it is their responsibility to ensure the healthy functioning of people (personal growth, maturity, freedom and autonomy) within the organization are rare. Moreover, such altruistic leaders must reckon with the fact that their style, methodology and persuasiveness will never completely override the collective influence of people's negative and destructive behavior in an organization. Greenleaf's observation, when viewed from this perspective, was and continues to be brilliant. The servant-leader is one who understands that if you can grow the capacity of others to be healthy emotionally and relationally, then you will automatically grow the health of the organization.

One oft-unobserved component of becoming healthier emotionally and relationally within (and beyond) the organization is the practice of forgiveness. It is highly unusual to either witness or experience forgiveness in the context of organizational life. It is common to encounter arrogance,

6 dehumanization, personal vendettas, and the withholding of grace. The toxicity of this type of organizational culture can quickly erode character and motivation, destroy esteem and suffocate joy.

Two important dynamics are at work when people who experience performance failure are automatically punished (called the judgment-punishment cycle) or when colleagues in positions of leadership and management become embroiled in episodes of hurt and betrayal, refusing to extend or receive either an olive branch or a fig leaf. First, those who have experienced performance failure without forgiveness are, in essence, denied a critical opportunity for personal transformation and deep growth. Second, leaders and managers who eschew any hint of forgiveness and remain firmly ensconced in their "right positions" fail to provide a fundamental intra-organizational example of servant leadership. Both consequences, though often hidden, are tremendously costly to the human spirit and organizational esprit de corp.

Furthermore, when leaders reject forgiveness as a vehicle for creating positive systemic change, they inadvertently keep the organizational system locked in a state of pervasive and chronic dysfunction. When a leader is unwilling to differentiate herself by choosing to exercise forgiveness, she perpetuates the typical organizational cycle of judgment-punishment. Is it any wonder why so many of our corporate institutions never experience change? Leaders focus on their leading and not on the health of the organizations they lead.

Though leaders are in an optimum position to demonstrate forgiveness, many resist due to ignorance, hubris or fear. This resistance, cumulatively speaking, is profoundly costly to the organization. Batstone (2003) observes that "directors who fail to direct and executives who fail to lead are at the root of what ails the corporate world today" (p. 22). Though directorship and leadership failure comes in many forms, it is particularly deleterious when those in charge fail to model forgiveness in their working relationships- upwardly, downwardly, or horizontally. While individual leaders are responsible for their behaviors regardless of the actions of others or the organizational pressures and expectations placed upon their shoulders, there are multiple reasons why leaders typically avoid and even fear being arbiters of forgiveness in their organizations.

As an organizational leader, I struggle with forgiveness. This resistance is not because I fail to understand the efficacious effects of forgiveness. On a cognitive and personal-experiential level, forgiveness has been a transformational influence in my own life. I understand how forgiveness can lead to freedom, growth, maturity and autonomy. Rather, the issue is that I fear that asking for and granting forgiveness in the context of the organization will undermine my power, competency and legitimacy as a leader, as well as lower the performance level of others. These two fears are typically strong enough to overrule any embryonic desire to exercise forgiveness even though I believe that doing so would ultimately be generative to the recipient and the organization. The perceived diminishment of power, along with the fear of increasing organizational lethargy, slams the door shut. These performance and power drivers can easily trump any tendency to being a leader who practices generative and restorative forgiveness.

Leaders and Barriers to Forgiveness - Asking

Five critical issues create complexity around the issue of leaders and forgiveness asking. First, leaders who ask for forgiveness are choosing to make themselves vulnerable to others - a

7 terrifying proposition indeed! Most leaders with whom I am familiar (including myself) are virtually paralyzed at the mere notion of being so open. Vulnerability, the capacity to reveal one's wounds, weaknesses, fears or susceptibility to failure, is incredibly difficult for any leader, and for some, altogether impossible. Seeking forgiveness allows others to see the leader's soft underbelly. Furthermore, asking for forgiveness is a de facto revelation of a leader's inadequacies, fears, ineffectiveness and lack of competency. Whether with supervisors, peers or direct reports, leaders place a great deal of themselves on the line when they engage in forgiveness-asking.

A second reason, directly related to the aforementioned, is that forgiveness-asking can be perceived by leaders to render null and void the balance of power between the leader and the led. Here, forgiveness-asking eliminates the one-up one-down position common in most organizational hierarchies. This single action puts everyone, regardless of title or responsibility, on a level playing field called our shared humanity. It obliterates barriers such as gender, ethnicity, power or position and openly acknowledges that leaders, like the led, often fall prey to selfishness, anger, fear, arrogance, indifference, protecting and concealing. Forgiveness necessitates a rearrangement of the top-down power structure typically found in most organizations.

Thirdly, the leader, in seeking forgiveness, must extend trust to the one petitioned, whether or not that trust can be guaranteed. Forgiveness-asking requires that the leader exercise a willingness to trust (though not blind trust) the recipient with delicate information, trusting that her transparency, along with her professional reputation, will not be misinterpreted, mishandled or pandered as mere conversational fodder in the "corporate public square." This is a gargantuan barrier and high stakes bet for many leaders because forgiveness cannot hinge on guarantees. For me, coming to grips with my lack of control after the fact stops me dead in my tracks, rendering the action of forgiveness-asking, at one and the same time, potentially perilous as well as potentially transformational. However, for many leaders, the risk of being hurt or betrayed is sufficiently intimidating to eliminate forgiveness as a viable option.

Fourth, leaders must embrace humility if they are to become forgiveness-askers. Humility means that leaders see themselves for who they really are and not as others see them (typically as omnipotent and omniscient). Such humility is tantamount to Toto pulling the curtain back to reveal that "the great and powerful Oz" is merely a man who, though knowing how to pull critical levers at critical moments, is no different that anyone else. Humility acknowledges and embraces our strengths and limitations. As Merton (2002) observes, "Our real choice (as leaders) is between being like Job, who knew he was stricken, and Job's friends who did not know they were stricken too - though less obviously than he" (p. 108). Only those leaders who know they are "stricken" like everyone else are capable of seeking forgiveness from others they have wronged.

Finally, forgiveness-asking can be difficult for leaders because of organizational systems that discourage this kind of self-differentiated behavior. Forgiveness-asking is a form of self- definition which can be at odds with organizational expectations of sameness regarding leadership behaviors. When leaders engage in this kind of redemptive behavior they, as Friedman (1999) notes, are shifting their orientation about relationships "from one that focuses on techniques that motivate others to one that focuses on the leader's own presence and being"

8 (p. 3). Greenleaf (2002) supports this sense of personal responsibility on the part of the servant- leader by noting that "the servant views any problem in the world as in here, inside oneself, not out there. And if a flaw in the world is to be remedied, to the servant the process of change starts in here, in the servant, not out there" (p. 57).

Leaders and Barriers to Forgiveness - Giving

Giving or granting forgiveness, like forgiveness-asking, has its own inherent risks and barriers. When a leader forgives another (especially if it is downward forgiveness-giving) it can create the appearance of a management style that is soft, permissive or indulgent. McGregor (2001) sees soft management as leading inexorably to an overemphasis on harmony leading to "indifferent performance" (p. 180), a leader's worst nightmare and greatest fear. The apprehension that forgiveness-giving naturally leads to performance mediocrity is a legitimate, but overly controlling, concern.

A second barrier for leaders is that forgiveness-giving reveals heart and compassion for others. This level of vulnerability is an anathema to the mindset of many leaders. In fact, it is often believed that leadership, if it is to be effective, must be indifferent and impervious to the emotional well-being of others. Drucker (2004) has argued that "loneliness, distance, and formality…are [the executive's] duty" (p. 116). According to this line of reasoning, it is the bottom line that matters, and all feelings and emotions must be sacrificed toward that goal. Effective leaders cannot, must not be bothered with the insignificant issues and challenges of relationship maintenance and the display of care and concern beyond performance and duty obligations. It is not wise for a leader to be self-revealing and transparent toward those he leads.

A third barrier, closely related to the preceding one, is that leadership often means brandishing toughness, indifference and disdain toward weakness. Good leadership and management are associated with strength, firmness and strict accountability. It is believed that effective leaders lead through intimidation and pressure. To forgive others is diametrically opposed to operating from a platform of strength and intimidation. Many leaders would, indeed, ascribe to Machiavelli's famous words, "…it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with" (p. 76).

The Servant Leader and Forgiveness

While the experience of forgiveness between two professional equals is powerful in and of itself, the transformational nature of forgiveness is exponentially increased when it is exercised between the servant-leader and those who are under the influence of that leadership. The intuitive servant-leader understands that "There is something subtle communicated to one who is being served and led if, implicit in the compact between servant-leader and led, is the understanding that the search for wholeness is something they share" (Greenleaf, 2002, p. 50) (italics mine). The servant-leader grants and asks for forgiveness because of what that act produces in both parties and subsequently in the organization itself. When exercised by the servant-leader, the total impact of forgiveness is greater than the sum of its individual parts. Given the potential redemptive power of forgiveness, it is extremely unfortunate that so few leaders and managers understand and trust the deep impact that forgiveness has upon the human

9 heart and its transformative effect within a corporate culture. Refusing to incorporate forgiveness into one's leadership is, in reality, a failure of nerve (Friedman, 1999) and courage.

This paper purports that a servant-leader must incorporate forgiveness as a leadership competency if the benefactors of that leadership are to experience true transformation into servant-leaders themselves. "Failure to forgive," according to Greenleaf (1996), "rankles, distracts, reduces energy, [and] stifles [the spirit]" (p. 97). My thesis is based on three critical assumptions. First, since 9/11, there has been a rising tide of fear and anxiety within western culture. Massive cultural shifts locally and globally are eroding cultural stability and predictability, which then fuels anxiety and a chronic sense of existential foreboding. The feelings of dislocation resulting from this deterioration of long held social, political and global constructs are being manifested through personal insecurity, anger and retaliatory behavior between individuals, within communities and between nations. We are a people who are daily "faced with the conflict between the necessity to conform and the imperative to maintain one's own unique individuality and integrity of personality. The forces that would destroy the integrity of personality are sometimes powerful and pervasive" (Greenleaf, 1986, p. 82). Palmer (2004) calls this cauldron of pressure the "blizzard of the world," which "swirls within us as fear and frenzy, greed and deceit, and indifference to the suffering of others" (p. 1). Friedman (1999) labels this rising tide of anxiety "cultural regression" which sabotages leaders who "try to stand tall against the raging anxiety-storms of our time" (p. 1).

Individuals are carrying their culture-induced fragility, incongruence and anomie into the organizations in which they work. This silent desperation, so keenly felt in our culture, infects organizations by fueling systemic dysfunction, structurally and relationally, since those who work within an organization expect that it will provide meaning, safety, and predictability from the cultural maelstrom. The emotional, relational and spiritual longings, coupled with the emotional deficits, which people bring with them into the organization place incredible and often unreasonable pressures on those who lead and manage. The position of this paper is that the servant-leader, focused as he is on the person and performance, seems to be in a perfect position to most effectively respond and intervene. Given the cultural regression of our time, servant- leaders are called and compelled to do just that!

As products of western culture, our organizations are filled with people who are inwardly insecure, fearful and highly anxious; they are also reactive, suspicious, and protectionist. Already jaundiced by their cultural, relational and familial frustrations, it is here, within the organization filled with performance pressures, production expectations, competition, and selfishness that any nascent hope for safety, stability and community are often met with disappointment (Mitroff & Denton, 1999). It is this sense of disappointment within the organization that gives rise to acts of injustice, retribution, violence, sabotage, indifference and isolationism. These are the work environments that drain and degrade, rather than give life and instill hope.

Though organizational environments can (and do) destroy lives, they also represent the "field of play" into which servant-leaders are invited to lead and act redemptively. If a servant-leader is responsible to grow people by helping them "become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous and more likely themselves to become servants" (Greenleaf, 1991, p. 7), then exercising forgiveness is the aperture through which servant-leader qualities can be cultivated in the lives of

10 others. The work of forgiveness is most effective when it encounters the "raw materials" of the shattered human spirit: anxiousness, disappointment, shame, fear, anger and resentment.

In responding to Albert Camus' admonition that personal change comes only through encountering, rather than neglecting, barriers to growth, Greenleaf (1991) notes that personal growth results when "one is asked…to accept the human condition, its sufferings and its joys, and to work with its imperfections as the foundation upon which the individual will build his wholeness through adventurous creative achievement" (p. 6). Only as we begin with the reality of our own fractured and divided souls can we begin to move toward the possibility of wholeness (Palmer, 2004).

The critical work of forgiveness necessarily draws a servant-leader into the crucible of vulnerability with those he or she serves and leads. To ignore or fear this opportunity is to significantly limit the growth and effectiveness of the servant-leader, the individuals who surround the servant leader and the organization itself. To put it another way, to neglect this level of involvement is, in reality, a failure of foresight and a failure of courage so necessary for leadership. As servant-leaders, refusing to leverage the work of forgiveness in the lives of others within our organizations constitutes, in the words of Kim (2002), a failure "to understand our organizational complexity, to articulate a compelling vision, and to make the foundational choices to guide…people" (p. 20).

Furthermore, for the servant-leader to neglect so great an opportunity and need is to fail to see the larger theological value of our institutions, their inherent imperfections and yet their potential of experiencing redemption (Specht & Broholm, 2003, p. 16).

References and Readings

Anderson, R. (2001). The Shape of Practical Theology: Empowering Ministry with Theological Praxis. Donners Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press

Batsone, D. (2003). Saving the Corporate Soul & (who knows) Maybe Your Own: Eight principles for creating and preserving integrity and profitability without selling out. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Block, P. (1996). Stewardship: Choosing service over self-interest. San Francisco, CA: Berrett- Koehler Publishers.

Bossiday L. & Charan R. (2002). Execution: The discipline of getting things done. New York, NY: Crown Business.

Covey, S. R. (1990). Principle-centered Leadership. New York, NY: Fireside

Deming, W. (1994). The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education, 2nd Ed. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Drucker, P. & Maciariello, J. A. (2004). The Daily Drucker. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

11 Frankl, V. E. (2000). Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Fraser, S. (1988). My Father's House: A memoir of incest and of healing. New York, NY: Ticknor and Fields.

Friedman, E. H. (1999). A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the age of the quick fix. Bethesda, MD: The Edwin Friedman Trust/Estate.

Greenleaf, R. (2002). Servant Leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power & greatness. New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

Greenleaf, R. (1991). The Servant as Leader. Indianapolis, IN: The Robert K. Greenleaf Center.

Heil, G, Bennis, W., Stephens, D.C. (2000). Douglas McGregor Revisited: Managing the human side of enterprise. New York, NY: Wiley

Hickman, G. H. (1997). KLSP: transforming organizations to transform society (Working Papers (Academy of Leadership Press).

Kim, D. (2002). Foresight as the central ethic of leadership. Indianapolis, IN: The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership.

Machiavelli, N (1992). The Prince. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf Publishing.

McGregor, D. M. (2001). The Human Side of Enterprise. In J. M. Shafritz & J. S. Ott (Eds.), Classics of Organization Theory, 5th Ed. (pp. 179-184). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. (Reprinted from The Human Side of Enterprise by D. M. McGregor in Management Review, November, 1957, New York: American Psychological Association)

Mitroff, I. & Denton, E. (1999). A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America: A hard look at spirituality, religion and values in the workplace. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Merton, T. (2002). Seeds. Boston, MA: Shambhala.

Merton, T. (1958). Thoughts in Solitude. New York, NY:Farrar, Straks and Giroux.

Northouse, P. G. (2004). Leadership Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Novak, M. & Cooper, J. W. (Eds.). (1981). The Corporation: A theological inquiry. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute.

Novak, M. (1990). Toward a Theology of the Corporation. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute.

Palmer, P. (2004). A Hidden Wholeness: The journey toward an undivided life. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

12 Quinn, R. (1996). Deep Change: Discovering the leader within. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Smedes, L. (1984). Forgive and Forget: Healing the hurts we don't deserve. New York, NY: Pocket Books.

Specht, D. & Broholm, R. (2003). Toward a Theology of Institutions. Indianapolis, IN: The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership.

Tutu, D. (1999). No Future Without Forgiveness. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Welch, J. (1986). Fools Crow. New York, NY: Penguin Books

Wiesenthal, S. (1969). The Sunflower: On the possibilities and limits of forgiveness. New York, NY: Schocken Books.

The Servant Leader and the Exercise of Forgiveness in the Context of the Organization - Part II by Dr. Jeffrey D. Yergler

Introduction

In Part I of this series Dr. Yergler discussed how the emotional, relational and spiritual expectations and deficits which people bring with them into the organization place incredible and often unreasonable pressures on those who lead and manage. It is the servant leader who is in a position to most effectively respond and intervene.

In Part II of this series Dr. Yergler very skillfully leads us on a very mindful and powerful personal journey of how we can create worth and value first, and then create authentic organizational communities where a legitimate and sustainable desire for performance thrives. (ed.)

Operational Definitions of Forgiveness and Redemption

In the context of this paper, the word forgiveness must be seen from six vantage points. First, forgiveness is the act of releasing others from the guilt, shame, or deserved retribution they have merited through their own intentional or unintentional actions toward another, which have resulted in hurt, anger, animosity and relational polarization. Second, exercising forgiveness is an act of accountability. While forgiveness releases and liberates, it also requires change and invites

13 maturity (self-differentiation or autonomy). Third, forgiveness is a conscious choice that is made toward another who needs to be forgiven, whether or not he is aware of this need. Fourth, forgiveness requires the capacity to contextualize the person in need of forgiveness and the event that created the situation requiring forgiveness.

Smedes (1984) makes it clear that contextual understanding must precede the act of forgiveness and, furthermore, makes forgiveness possible in the first place. Understanding the macro context of the person and circumstances provides insight into what created or led up to the event. Fifth, forgiveness means that the servant-leader must see himself in light of his own humanity, fragility and imperfection. Servant leaders cannot see the humanity of others unless they first see and embrace their own. To put in another way, "differentiation (in others) cannot be implanted from outside; it can only be freed from within…the facts that leaders want to come forth from their followers must first be nurtured within" (Friedman, 1999, p. 31).

Finally, forgiveness is a supreme act of empowerment of another. To forgive is to intentionally choose to raise-up another from the quagmire of personal failure and alienation from self… something which Tutu (1999) understands with acute clarity when he observes that our dehumanization of others "inexorably means that one is dehumanized as well" (p. 35). To forgive is nothing less than a heroic and virtuous act of re-humanization or re-empowerment.

Within the organization forgiveness is truly counter-cultural because it contradicts typical organizational behavior that demands sameness and conforming. In the world of the servant leader, to forgive defies all human constructs requiring punishment and negates the mechanistic employment of any rubric based on the belief of lex talionis. While forgiveness practiced in the context of the organization may not negate the necessary consequences resulting from destructive behavior, forgiveness nonetheless remains a bold contradiction of the commonly held social-organizational laws of fairness and justice.

Forgiveness is also redemptive; it seeks to restore another to an original (positive and healthy) form and/or function which have been altered and maligned by the introduction of pain and hurt. The act of forgiveness which seeks to absolve is, at the same time, redemptive in that it seeks to restore. Yet while both are important, there is a logical order. A servant- leader cannot create an environment of redemption unless there is first the exercise of forgiveness within relationships.

While this redeeming effect of forgiveness applies to the individual, it applies in particular to the larger relational and structural components of the field/system affected by the actions of another. When a servant-leader employs appropriate and responsible acts of forgiveness through individual relationships, a larger systemic impact is released within the organization. This effect could be called the collateral impact of forgiveness. Servant-leaders indirectly create changes to organizational process, policies and systems through their own forgiveness-based actions.

The Brokenness We Each Bring to the Organization

Forgiveness responds to a fundamental reality that lives somewhere within every human: we know ourselves to be imperfect and flawed, insecure and vulnerable regardless of organizational, social, ethnic, gender or economic differences. In the organization we tend to fabricate barriers and walls that keep others from discovering our vulnerabilities. These barriers also keep us

14 locked inside. We use every ounce of energy possible to keep those barriers impenetrable. Not only do attempts to hide our weaknesses keep us imprisoned, they also create an amorphous, yet pervasive, feeling of internal fear - fear that we will be found-out or revealed for "who and what we are." Servant- leadership's exercise of forgiveness, borrowing from Deming's (1994) parlance, actually drives fear (and anxiety) out of the workplace by acknowledging our flawed and imperfect humanity and encouraging risk-taking, self-valuing and the building of trust.

Forgiveness sends a message that the organization is a safe place, while at the same time it expects results and high performance levels. Forgiveness responds to failures not as ends in themselves but as a means to a much greater end of adding value to the person, the business community and beyond. In the exchange of forgiveness between the servant-leader and the one served, something of great value is given away for the benefit of the person, first and for the organization, second.

Forgiveness creates a foundation for the growth of worth and esteem. Forgiveness must, first and foremost, be given and/or received for the sake of the person rather than for the sake of improving performance. While forgiveness seeks a positive response through changed/healed relationships, it can never be reduced to merely a leveraged transaction between the servant- leader and the follower. Ultimately, the giving of forgiveness sets loose a deeper, more profound, even transcendent, work within the person. Servant-leaders can have a monumental impact on the brokering or midwifery of this transcendent awareness as they live out the reality of forgiveness in their lives and through their leadership.

Why Forgiveness is Crucial for the Servant-Leader

Sustainable organizational change rarely begins with the organization itself. The real problem of organizational dysfunction, according to Quinn (1996) "is located where we least expect to find it, inside ourselves. Culture change starts with personal change. We become change agents by first altering our own maps" (p. 103). One of the reasons that the praxis of forgiveness in the organization is critical to the servant leader is because it requires the servant leader to experience forgiveness before he or she seeks to apply forgiveness in the lives of others. One cannot give away what one does not possess. The servant leader must understand that forgiveness, when personally experienced and rightly practiced in the context of the organization, creates an environment where people seek to thrive, improve and excel. This is an axiom of the praxis of forgiveness that is absolutely, positively counter-intuitive and therefore easily missed by most leaders.

By and large, people in any organization want to contribute and create value. Yet it is a fundamental truth that for people to contribute and add value to the organization, they must first value themselves and know they are valued. This should come as no surprise to any leader. The surprise lies in the fact of how value is communicated most effectively in the organization. There is no leadership or management practice that creates value in the human soul and psyche as effectively as the experience of authentic forgiveness.

Forgiveness has a marvelous and virtually unparalleled sustaining power precisely because it speaks to the intrinsic worth of the person. It speaks worth to the soul, the wellspring of hope and promise. It addresses core values of esteem, dignity and worth which are often called into

15 question in the face of one's own individual and communal failures. It is the most powerful (and perhaps the most ethical) means of incentivizing available to the servant-leader. The best way to increase the value of a worker's contribution is for the worker to be valued and then invited to live into his fullest sense of self. This is where the value-added of forgiveness begins. When the servant-leader accesses and affects the intrinsic source of motivation within a person, there is an inevitable impact on performance. Perhaps more importantly, relationships are strengthened and the organization, as community, becomes more just, humane and redemptive. Without question, the servant-leader is a powerful catalyst when it comes to shaping (healing, restoring and empowering) the person and, in the process, strengthening organizational identity.

Why Servant-Leadership and Forgiveness is Critical at the Senior Level

The coupling of forgiveness and servant leadership must be a core value among senior leadership if it is to have any impact, credibility and utility within the organizational culture. Senior level management cannot establish forgiveness as a core-value within the culture if they do not value and understand the work of forgiveness within themselves. If senior leadership chooses to exclude or significantly undervalue forgiveness as a core-value in all down-line management relationships, it will be impossible for forgiveness to be embedded into the organizational culture. This very point is made in Friedman's studies of leadership influence and organizational change (Friedman, 1999).

The "yes" to forgiveness as a corporate value has a better chance of emerging when the level of pain, frustration, sabotage and professional stifling within the culture begins to show itself. As systemic acrimony and disillusionment become apparent, along with growing concern about the rising tide of organizational dissonance and the manner in which this dissonance infects corporate identity, morale and performance, servant-leaders will be among the fist to ask difficult questions about the fundamental nature of corporate-wide management beliefs and practices.

However, not only is it difficult evaluating management philosophies that buttress toxic and corrosive management practices in a given culture, it is equally difficult identifying management attitudes, such as the absence of or indifference toward forgiveness, that are inimical to organizational health and destructive to personal esteem and worth. An organization which lacks the presence and practice of forgiveness within its senior leadership core makes it prey to the emotional instability and regression of the larger culture.

As Palmer (2004) wisely notes, when leaders maintain divided and disconnected lives, they make the ground around them unstable for others. Conversely, when senior level leaders become servant-leaders and embrace forgiveness as a component in their exercise of leadership, this action becomes the "tipping point" where the tectonic plates of organizational systems begin their arduous, but redemptive, process of shifting. This is where we find the true servant-leader: at work in the trenches, seeking to become a more holistic leader for the sake of self, the sake of others and the for the sake of the good of the organization.

Why Forgiveness is Decisive for the Employee

We are prone in western culture to operate with an excessively individualistic orientation toward others. We easily cut ourselves off from the relational requirements of community and, as a 16 result, cut ourselves off from the relational lubricant and salve of forgiveness and grace. It logically follows, then, that when we find ourselves in an organizational community by economic necessity, we may not possess the requisite relational tools to make community work. The good news is that what one does not learn in a culture of anonymity can be learned within an organization where servant-leaders model forgiveness and invite others to experience personal growth, maturity, freedom and autonomy.

Healthy organizations, created by courageous servant-leaders, build communities out of which emerge authentic relationships, an appreciation for organizational stewardship and a concern for justice and grace. When servant-leaders understand the intrinsic worth of people and the value of building empowering relationships and communities within organizations, the organizations themselves become redemptive environments. Desmond Tutu (1999) provides an excellent description of the relational richness that so profoundly characterizes the dynamics at work within redemptive communities:

"A person is a person through other persons." It is not, "I think therefore I am." It says rather: "I am human because I belong. I participate, I share." [This] person is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are (p. 31).

Frankl (2000) expresses the same thought about relationships and community, but in a slightly nuanced form, when he observes that "On the human level, I do not use another human being but I encounter him, which means that I fully recognize his humanness; and if I take another step by fully recognizing, beyond his humanness as a human being, his uniqueness as a person, it is even more than an encounter - what takes place is love" (p. 93). I would further add to Frankl's thoughts that what takes place in this unique encounter is nothing less than authentic change.

It is a fact that the human person ultimately longs to be known, valued and esteemed. Much of what we do in life is motivated by this deep inner drive to discover who we are, why we are here and to experience unconditional love along the way. We do this by attempting to gain a sense of our transcendent worth and existential purpose (a personal teleology) and direction in the immediate and long-term contexts of our lives. Leaders can either assist in that journey or become impediments by ignoring or suppressing the transcendent pursuit within the heart. Such leader behavior can be maximally deleterious. Frankl (2000) affirms that the emergence of neurosis is often the result of a repressed search for a relationship with transcendence. "Repressed transcendence," notes Frankl, "shows up and makes itself noticeable as an "unrest of the heart"" (p. 73). Palmer (2004) calls the depression which results from oppressing or ignoring one's own truth "the uprising of the soul" (p. 36).

Only as we come to terms with the transcendent presence within can we successfully function and live, value others and thrive within community. Again, Frankl (2000) states that "The more [man] forgets himself - giving himself to a cause or another person - the more human he is. And the more he is immersed and absorbed in something or someone other than himself the more he really becomes himself" (p. 85).

17 Servant-leaders are those who comprehend that performance, whether life or work related, is maximized not through external drivers such as organizational environment, money, or positional status alone but especially through self-valuing and relational connectivity, both of which communicate a profound sense of contribution, partnership and belonging to the person. Create worth and value first, and you create authentic organizational communities where a legitimate and sustainable desire for performance thrives.

References and Readings

Anderson, R. (2001). The Shape of Practical Theology: Empowering Ministry with Theological Praxis. Donners Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press

Block, P. (1996). Stewardship: Choosing service over self-interest. San Francisco, CA: Berrett- Koehler Publishers.

Bossiday L. & Charan R. (2002). Execution: The discipline of getting things done. New York, NY: Crown Business.

Covey, S. R. (1990). Principle-centered Leadership. New York, NY: Fireside

Deming, W. (1994). The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education, 2nd Ed. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Drucker, P. & Maciariello, J. A. (2004). The Daily Drucker. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Frankl, V. E. (2000). Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Fraser, S. (1988). My Father's House: A memoir of incest and of healing. New York, NY: Ticknor and Fields.

Friedman, E. H. (1999). A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the age of the quick fix. Bethesda, MD: The Edwin Friedman Trust/Estate.

Greenleaf, R. (2002). Servant Leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power & greatness. New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

Greenleaf, R. (1991). The Servant as Leader. Indianapolis, IN: The Robert K. Greenleaf Center.

Heil, G, Bennis, W., Stephens, D.C. (2000). Douglas McGregor Revisited: Managing the human side of enterprise. New York, NY: Wiley

Hickman, G. H. (1997). KLSP: transforming organizations to transform society (Working Papers (Academy of Leadership Press). 18 Kim, D. (2002). Foresight as the central ethic of leadership. Indianapolis, IN: The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership.

Machiavelli, N (1992). The Prince. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf Publishing.

Mitroff, I. & Denton, E. (1999). A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America: A hard look at spirituality, religion and values in the workplace. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Merton, T. (2002). Seeds. Boston, MA: Shambhala.

Merton, T. (1958). Thoughts in Solitude. New York, NY:Farrar, Straks and Giroux.

Northouse, P. G. (2004). Leadership Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Novak, M. & Cooper, J. W. (Eds.). (1981). The Corporation: A theological inquiry. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute.

Novak, M. (1990). Toward a Theology of the Corporation. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute.

Palmer, P. (2004). A Hidden Wholeness: The journey toward an undivided life. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Quinn, R. (1996). Deep Change: Discovering the leader within. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Smedes, L. (1984). Forgive and Forget: Healing the hurts we don't deserve. New York, NY: Pocket Books.

Specht, D. & Broholm, R. (2003). Toward a Theology of Institutions. Indianapolis, IN: The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership.

Tutu, D. (1999). No Future Without Forgiveness. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Welch, J. (1986). Fools Crow. New York, NY: Penguin Books

Wiesenthal, S. (1969). The Sunflower: On the possibilities and limits of forgiveness. New York, NY: Schocken Books.

19 The Servant Leader and the Exercise of Forgiveness in the Context of the Organization - Part III by Dr. Jeffrey D. Yergler

Introduction

In Part II of this series Dr. Yergler very skillfully led us on a very mindful and powerful personal journey of how we can create worth and value first, and then create authentic organizational communities where a legitimate and sustainable desire for performance thrives.

In Part III Dr. Yergler discusses the servant leader and accountability, the transforming organization and a personal leadership style that is restorative and empowering. Being a servant- leader who intentionally incorporates the work of forgiveness into the total milieu of relationships and organizations, represents a holistic or complete response to the overall responsibility of leadership.

The Servant Leader, Forgiveness and Accountability

The organization, besides being a just and redemptive community, must also be a place of performance accountability and proper stewardship of organizational resources and finances. There are three dimensions of the servant-leader and forgiveness that must be seen from the perspective of organizational stewardship.

First, forgiveness helps servant-leaders hold employees accountable for the stewardship of the organization in terms of production quality and the return on the investment of assets. Though forgiveness must consistently be applied regardless of the person or performance, servant- leaders should always expect a return on the action of forgiveness (ROForgiveness).

Greenleaf (2002) held forgiveness and accountability in balance when he noted that "The servant-leader always empathizes, always accepts the person but sometimes refuses to accept some of the person's effort on performance as good enough" (p. 33-34). If forgiveness within the organization is not connected to personal and/or performance change, its application can be destructive to the employee, the servant-leader and the organization. Anderson (2001) points out that when forgiveness is used only as a "quick fix" and does not lead to personal and social renewal, it has essentially failed. Smedes (1984) agrees by saying that "there is no real forgiving unless there is first relentless exposure and honest judgment" (p. 127). Without accountability, the application of forgiveness can realize McGregor's (2001) archetypical description of soft management results. In an organization, the work of forgiveness should always result in a changed attitude and improved performance. In this sense, forgiveness is considered costly because it expects a response from the recipient. If forgiveness does not bring about changed behavior and performance, it becomes an expression of cheap forgiveness; while it is gladly received, there is no intent on the part of the recipient to change behavior patterns or 20 performance levels. In this case, from the perspective of the servant leader's responsibility toward the person and organizational stewardship, the employee puts himself or herself in a very tenuous position.

Second, forgiveness keeps the servant-leader accountable for his or her own mistakes and errant behaviors. When a servant-leaders seek reconciliation because of their own actions, they are choosing to sacrifice self-interest for the sake of service to the greater organizational community. In so doing they broaden and deepen the capacity of the organization to be a place where self- sacrificing service is not only accepted, but highly valued. In no way is this a small or easy step to take for the servant-leader. On the contrary, it is exceedingly difficult. When servant leaders pursue forgiveness, they are clearly, as Block (1996 ) notes, "...willing to be deeply accountable without choosing to control the world…[this] requires a level of trust that we are not used to holding" (p. 6).

Third, to be more specific about accountability, there are two primary areas where forgiveness and accountability come into play within the organization: the violation of core values and organizational processes. The core values of an organization are the organization's essential and enduring tenets. Often these core values include relational boundaries and expectations, how the work involves respect and justice between human beings whether they are internal colleagues or external vendors, clients or customers. When there is a serious infringement upon core values, when someone has failed to honor the injunction to provide respect and justice to people, the servant-leader must be especially insightful about the best course of action. Whether or not forgiveness is requested or granted, the servant-leader must determine if the employee is capable of more virtuous and morally-grounded behavior. To retain a toxic employee, under the rubric of forgiveness, is foolish, dangerous and irresponsible.

Forgiveness and organizational processes involve the financial benefit or cost of the employee to the organization. Performance mistakes resulting in financial loss for the organization can be exorbitant. Though forgiveness is given when a mistake is made regardless of the cost to the organization, the servant- leader must assess the ongoing liability involved in retaining the employee. Forgiveness, though it as an act of personal and organizational stewardship, must also "pass the test of the marketplace. It must be practical and economic" (Block, 1996, p. XXII). In the case of costly mistakes, forgiveness must also include an evaluation of individual competencies and organizational fit. Unintended mistakes, though always forgivable, are in some cases not worth the risk of a repeated failure. Even in reassignment or termination, forgiveness by the servant-leader remains an act of grace and can foster new beginnings for the person and the organization.

Because forgiveness is profoundly restorative, empowering and generative of the human spirit, it must be considered an unparalleled worth-and-esteem creating action that transforms the person at the deepest levels of self-identity, regardless of whether or not they stay with an organization. Those experiences where I have grown most have always resulted from personal crises and pain meeting up with justice and forgiveness. When it comes to our failures, what most of us know is the punitive nature of the law when, in actuality, what causes the greatest growth is truth coupled with grace.

The Servant-Leader and the Transforming Organization

21 We have affirmed up to this point the importance of forgiveness as a core leadership component in the life of the servant-leader. Two final questions, more macro in nature, must be asked and answered: How do servant-leaders help create transformed organizations, and, how does the sustained and consistent work of forgiveness, when included in the repertoire of servant- leadership, create organizations that impact the global community? I would offer three answers in response.

First, forgiveness eradicates impersonal and dehumanizing treatment of people for which organizations are known. Because the act of forgiveness communicates value and honor, it connects the organization's vision and mission with the manner in which people are treated in the organization. Like nothing else can, the work of forgiveness bridges any gap between what is stated in theory and what is practiced in actuality. The employment of forgiveness within the organization implicitly and explicitly declares that people matter, their growth matters and their role as trustees of the public, national and global sectors (social brokers of forgiveness) matters as well. Wise and mature organizations understand the "contagious nature," the external social and global impact, of organizational forgiveness.

Second, the practice of forgiveness in servant-leadership can lead to just and fair human resource structures and processes. Because forgiveness places a high value on the inherent worth and well being of people, it leads to the establishment of internal processes, policies and training which recognize and honor that worth and well being. It is a contradiction, and perhaps even an impossibility, to vaunt the exercise of forgiveness within and through servant-leaders, yet maintain destructive and demeaning organizational policies which have the net effect of dismantling the human spirit.

Third, because of the potential size and global location of an organization, the practice of forgiveness can potentially exemplify the politics and practice of redemption, hope and alternative moral models to the larger international community (Novak, 1981, 1990). In the case where an organization which values forgiveness is a multinational corporation, owning other corporations and subsidiaries throughout the world, the impact can be significant if it is willing to value the practice of forgiveness as a shared institutional and global value and then engage in the critical work of translating the language and behavior of forgiveness into the lingua franka and praxis of the local community. If forgiveness is practiced within an organization whose workforce is drawn primarily from the indigenous population, it is highly likely that the practice of forgiveness, in some measure, would be imported into the local communities and cultures.

A Personal Leadership Style that is Restorative and Empowering

Because I aspire to be a servant-leader, becoming a practitioner of forgiveness rather than merely a theologian who knows about forgiveness is a non-negotiable. However, the reality is that leading as a servant-leader and understanding how to exercise forgiveness is no simple task. Not only is this work complex, my own effectiveness as a servant leader who demonstrates forgiveness will always require personal depth and self-awareness. My capacity to authentically restore, redeem and empower others and to be vulnerable enough to allow others to restore me is contingent upon my own experience of restoration, redemption and empowerment. There is simply no other way. There is a difference between leaders who possess knowledge alone and those who possess knowledge coupled with the courage to execute by taking what they know and

22 translating that knowledge into actionable behaviors which create change (Bossidy & Charan, 2002). From my perspective, this ability to "translate" knowledge into actionable behaviors requires three competencies which, when applied consistently to my role as a servant-leader, will create a restorative and empowering leadership style.

First, I must always base my capacity to model forgiveness on remembering my own propensity toward hubris, arrogance, jealousy and selfishness. Leaders who do the most damage to those they lead lack self-awareness and deny their own broken humanity. The reality is that no leader can ignore her flawed humanity and continue to mature into a servant-leader. It is a Faustian myth for leaders to believe that they can conceal their humanity in order to leverage immediate and longer-term results when, in actuality, the suppression of their own humanity increases the chance that damaging consequences to people and the organization will be the eventual result. Greenleaf (1996) affirms this danger of focusing only on personal aggrandizement when he notes that "One may be conspicuously successful and at the same time may be destroying oneself and everything that is personally important" (p. 83). We do violence to ourselves, others and the organizations we serve when, as Merton (1958) describes, we choose to live in a world of unreality, blinded to our own identity, selfish ambition and success at any price.

Second, I will adhere to the belief that the exercise of forgiveness as a servant- leader releases individuals from the lethal, debilitating and immobilizing effects of their own anger, failure and shame. One of the greatest contributions I can make to an individual is to try to liberate him from the weight and baggage created by the effects of his own failures. Extending or inviting forgiveness, whether for a wrong suffered by the servant-leader or for wrongs suffered by another within or without of the organization, is a mandate for the servant-leader. The transformational impact of such liberation is powerful precisely because it asserts that, despite biased self-talk, the onerous opinions of others and costly errors of judgment, one is always worthy of love and hope and the possibility of new beginnings. As Kushner (Wiesenthal, 1969) observes, forgiveness, "…[frees] us from the shame of the past so that we can be different people, choosing and acting differently in the future" (p. 184). Servant-leaders always search for the beauty through the tarnished image. Covey (1990) affirms this thought by observing that principle-centered leadership discerns the difference between actual observed behavior and the "unseen potential" (p. 34).

Third, I will seek to exercise forgiveness in order to release individuals to the redemptive actions that restore people and organizations and which seek justice in the larger global community. In other words, servant-leaders who live and model forgiveness release others from self fragmentation and ridicule so that they themselves can be released to works of liberation and redemption on a relational and organizational level. In this sense, the act of forgiveness ultimately extends beyond individuals to the organization, the community and the global community.

As an aspiring servant-leader who fully embraces the power of forgiveness to restore and transform people and institutions, the spiritual dimension of forgiveness should not be overlooked. Given the precipitous potential for increasing chaos and hostility within our culture and world, all creation, it seems, is crying-out for forgiveness, redemption and meaning. Whether we are in concert with the words of Ambush Chief (Welch, 1986), "Give us peace and allow us to live in peace. Sun Chief, bless our children and allow them long lives. May we walk straight

23 and treat our fellow creatures in a merciful way" (p. 113) or agree with Viktor Frankl's (2000) assessment that "survival is dependent on direction…unless life points to something beyond itself, survival is pointless and meaningless. It is not even possible…Only those who [are] oriented toward the future, toward a goal in the future, toward a meaning to fulfill in the future, [are] likely to survive" (p. 134-135), the act of forgiveness is both a spiritual work and a spiritual calling that, of its own accord, seeks to move the created order toward a unifying and life-giving goal.

I am convinced that being a servant-leader who intentionally incorporates the work of forgiveness into the total milieu of relationships and organizations, both locally and globally, represents a holistic or complete response to the overall responsibility of leadership. From a more mystical vantage point, I see the work of forgiveness, when it is authentically lived in the life of a servant-leader, as an undoing or unraveling of the insidious and unrelenting damage caused by selfish human nature. To use the powerful metaphor of Sylvia Fraser (1988), "All of us are born into the second act of a tragedy-in-progress, then spend the rest of our lives trying to figure out what went wrong in the first act" (p. 241). I believe that servant-leaders, when they speak the words of forgiveness, begin to reverse the devastation in the human soul and heart set- loose somewhere in "the first act."