The Cup of Leadership
by John Keyser
At a recent church service I was struck by the term, “cup of life,” mentioned in the readings. The idea is that we are given the gift of life and we are meant to contemplate how we are using this gift.
So I wondered, how is leadership “a cup of life”?
Leadership is a gift. It is meant to inspire others towards greater performance and to positively influence them so they are fulfilled by their work.
Are we living and leading as we are called to, which is to live and lead with compassion and service for others?
Helping others brings satisfaction and happiness not only to us; it impacts the spirit of those around us as well. Certainly knowing what inspires each of our team members – and it is different for each person – is the foundation for our effectiveness as a leader. This is servant leadership. Leading with humility and personal attention will significantly improve the morale and the quality of the work of our team.
We must also explore and be open to possible barriers to our effectiveness as a leader. Some questions we may ask others and ourselves: “Are we being critical of others, judging and making assumptions? Have we become self-absorbed, wanting to be in the spotlight? Are we micro-managing? Are we not actively helping others to get ahead?” Quite frankly, these behaviors drain us -and those around us.
The most effective leaders are givers, not takers!
Leaders focus on people. We achieve positive influence and success by downplaying our own personal achievements and gains for those of the team.
We achieve our company goals by helping the people who are working for (with) us. We do this by encouraging, teaching, mentoring and by offering timely, honest and helpful feedback.
True leadership comes from the heart. We must earn the trust and respect of our team members by genuinely caring about them, being humble and authentic, and letting them know we want to help them succeed.
This is “the cup of leadership,” the gift that we have been given.
Rachel Naomi Remen, clinical professor of family and community medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, in a talk given at the “Open Heart, Open Mind” conference in San Diego, California, in July 1995, made an observation about the caregiving relationship that applies equally to leading. She said, “Serving is different from helping. Helping is based on inequality; it is not a relationship between equals . . . . Helping incurs debt. When you help someone they owe you one. But serving, like healing, is mutual. There is no debt. I am as served as the person I am serving. When I help I have a feeling of satisfaction. When I serve I have a feeling of gratitude. These are very different things.” Remen went on to say, “Serving is also different from fixing. When I fix a person, I perceive them as broken. There is distance be¬tween ourselves and whatever or whomever we are fixing [and] we cannot serve at a distance.”
Love this perspective. So on point. Thank you
Thank you Hal for that comment. There is much wisdom in your words.
Robert Greenleaf wrote about servant leadership in his compelling book by the same name. Among others,he was inspired, in part, by Herman Hesse’s Siddartha. Greenleaf’s book is a must read for an in-depth exploration of servant leadership.
Agreed! A very good read.
Leaders are givers and should help others by leading by example that we as managers have been taught to do so during our training processes.
If your consider in religious terms Jesus Christ was a leader of his disciples and told them to take his teachings forward to the peoples of the many lands.
They revered him because they say the good that he did and saw him as someone they truly respected and the good deeds he did.
If you then fast forward into modern life and equate JC as a CEO or something similar and getting their line managers to take forward the mission of the company to do good things on their behalf for the clients/customers then the mission can be considered as accomplished.