Still a Servant | The Right Call S1E8

I recently saw someone's computer desktop on YouTube with close to 100 icons scattered across it. I'm not the most organized person either, which is why I bought an app called Hazel. I set the rules, it nests files into directories, and I can find what I need based on my priorities at the moment. When everything sat on my desktop, everything demanded equal attention.

That's a lot like how modern servant leadership teaches us to lead: flat, democratic, always available, door off the hinges. The problem isn't that we can't prioritize. It's that everything can find us. Our priorities get upended by everyone else's crises, and the harder we work, the less we accomplish.

Servant leadership is supposed to work like an organized computer. Same files, just nested, with a root directory at the top. So the biggest question is: who is the root directory?

Promotion changes the assignment, not the identity

New leaders keep asking me how to lead former peers, or people who've been at it longer. Modern servant leadership says focus on their feelings. That feels right. It misses the point.

When we're promoted, we've just moved one level closer to the hard drive. We renamed the folder to supervisor, director, CEO. We're still servants. And when we stay focused on who we serve, our boss and the mission, the hierarchy stops being a burden and becomes the organizing principle. That's what gives us clarity when our people and our mission pull in different directions.

The Roman centurion understood this. He told Jesus, "I myself am a man under authority. I say to this man, go, and he goes." That wasn't about power. It was structure, and Jesus marveled at it. When our subordinates become our root directory, we're serving the wrong master.

"Once it leaves your desk"

That doesn't mean blind obedience. We owe our boss our best advice and we should fight like the dickens for our position until the decision is made. After that, it's not about us.

On a staff in Japan, I spent a couple of weeks on a difficult problem and sent a several-page message up the chain. A few days later the general sent it out, boiled down to two paragraphs: looking forward to the exercise, let's all have a good time. I was furious, ranting in the back office. Milton McKenna leaned on the door jamb and let me run out of steam. "You finished?" "Yes, sir." "Who signed that message?" "The general did." "Yeah. Once it leaves your desk, it's not your message anymore."

That was a big lesson in humility. I'm not sure I always remember it.

Our team is watching

Marine officers eat last. It's inspirational, and that's not why they do it. They do it because it contributes to mission effectiveness. When troops see their officers live the ethos, they replicate it. The unit mirrors its leader, and that doesn't only happen in the military. The posture we model becomes the culture we lead.

In the Navy, I told my people, "I don't see everything. If you've got a better way, bring it up. Just go through the chain." Problems got handled at the level they should have been, and things ran more smoothly. A chain of command usually fails because it isn't taught or practiced properly.

For followers of Christ, the structure goes one level higher. Our root directory here has a root directory up there. Jesus sits above our boss, and the Great Commission is the primary folder. Ephesians 6:7, "Serve wholeheartedly, as if serving the Lord, not people," stops being a metaphor and becomes the operating system. Leading with excellence becomes a witness.

This week

Model being a good servant to the person above us, in plain view. Then teach the chain so our people know how to use it.

A question to sit with

Not "Am I being a servant leader?" That's too easy to say yes to. Who is my root directory? And for the Christian leader: does the Root Directory know that I'm serving Him?

This is Episode 8 of The Right Call: Wisdom Simply Applied.