Hard and Soft Thoughts

Did you ever hear a provocative line from a speaker and think, "Darn, that's good!" then promptly forget it? Or be amazed at the ideas

that bubble up while you go to sleep, wake up or drive, only to forget them too? I've been making an effort to recall those nuggets on the assumption that they stand out precisely because

I need to remember them. They likely offer wisdom I've been too dumb or too busy to heed.

At the 2005 International Conference on Servant Leadership in Indianapolis, Peter Block said something that continues to haunt me. In speaking about the need of many people to be secure in their settled assumptions and predictable lives, he said, "Servant leadership confronts people with their own freedom." Many do not wish to be so confronted. They'd rather

live with the myth of personal freedom than turn and squarely face its reality and implications.

(I offer myself as Exhibit A.)

Peter's comment reminds me of Greenleaf's lifelong quest for heightened awareness and his line that "awareness is a disturber." It also recalls Nelson Mandela's 1994 inaugural speech:

   Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

   It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

   We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

   Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world.

I've often heard people criticize servant leadership as being "soft." Every time I hear that I wonder two things: (1) Has this person actually read what Greenleaf wrote? and (2) Does calling this approach to living and working "soft" help shield one from the hard and high tasks of full awareness and maturity?

Lest we forget, the subtitle of Greenleaf's book Servant Leadership is: "A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness," to which we might add "and Freedom."