Still a Servant
A few weeks ago, Jeff saw someone's computer desktop on YouTube — close to 100 icons scattered across the screen. Apps, programs, screenshots, folders, everything else. No structure. No organization. Just noise.
He admits he's not the neatest person either — on his computer or in general. Which is exactly why he uses an app called Hazel. He sets up the rules, it automatically moves and nests files into directories, and he can find anything he needs based on his priorities at the moment. He bought it because without it, everything on his desktop demanded equal attention — and without structure, his priorities were constantly being set by everyone else.
Sound familiar?
That's what modern servant leadership tells us leading should look like — flat, democratic, door off the hinges, always available. And the problem isn't that we can't prioritize. It's that our priorities are subject to being upended by everyone else's problems, challenges, crises, and agendas. Everything can find us. And the harder we work, the less we accomplish.
The way servant leadership is actually supposed to work is more like an organized computer. Same files — just nested. A root directory at the top. Clear priorities. A structure that makes everything functional.
Which raises the most important question a leader can ask: **Who is the root directory?**
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## Promotion Changes the Assignment. Not the Identity.
When new leaders step into a role, the questions they tend to ask are: *How am I going to lead? Who are the problem children? Who can I trust? Who can I count on?*
Those are the wrong questions. And they put our focus on exactly the wrong thing.
A promotion doesn't change our identity. It only changes our assignment. We're still servants — we've just moved one level closer to the hard drive. The folder gets renamed (Supervisor. Manager. Director. SVP. CEO.) but the same files are still on the hard drive. We're all still there. We're still in the directory.
This matters because the common challenges new leaders face — the resentment from former peers, the friction with people who've been around longer, the age and experience gaps — modern servant leadership would have us fix all of that by focusing on our people's feelings. Making sure they feel empowered, respected, cared for.
That's not wrong. But it completely misses the point.
When we stay focused on who we're actually serving — our boss and the mission — the hierarchy becomes the organizing principle that makes everything function. The chain isn't a burden. It's what gives us clarity on which way to go when our people and our mission pull in different directions.
A Roman centurion understood this. He told Jesus: *"I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to this man, 'Go,' and he goes; and to this one, 'Come,' and he comes."* That wasn't about power. It was about structure. And Jesus marveled at it enough to specifically call it out.
Our subordinates are not our root directory. When they become our root directory, we're not just leading with a cluttered desktop — we're serving the wrong master.
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## The Story That Changed How Jeff Leads
Early in his Naval career, Jeff was on a staff in Japan. He'd been given a difficult problem to tackle and had worked for literally a couple of weeks on a several-page message. He thought he'd done a pretty good job. He sent it up the chain.
A couple of days later, the general sends it out. Those three pages had been boiled down to two paragraphs — basically: *Looking forward to the exercise. Let's all have a good time.*
Jeff was furious. He went to the back office and ranted. Couldn't believe it. All that work, thrown away.
A guy named Milton McKenna — a super guy, Jeff says — leaned against the door jamb and listened. For three or four minutes. Until Jeff wound down and ran out of steam.
Milton looked at him. *"You finished?"*
*"Yes, sir."*
*"Who signed that message?"*
*"Well... the general did."*
*"Yeah. Once it leaves your desk, it's not your message anymore."*
Jeff says that was a big lesson in humility — one he admits he doesn't always remember. But the principle holds: once the decision is made, it's no longer about us. It's about moving the master's mission forward.
That doesn't mean blind obedience. A good servant has an obligation to give their boss their best advice, their best perspective, and to fight hard for their position — until the decision is made. After that, it stops being about us. Our leader sees things we don't see. Has a perspective we don't have. Is considering things that aren't on our radar.
Once it leaves your desk, it's not your message anymore.
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## What Your Team Is Actually Learning
Here's the thing that new leaders miss: our team is watching.
They learn what leadership looks like from us. And what they see is what they become.
Marine officers eat last. People talk about it as inspiration — a visible act of servant leadership. And maybe it is. But that's not why they do it. They do it because it contributes to mission effectiveness. If it didn't, they wouldn't.
When enlisted Marines see their officers making sure the troops are fed before they eat, it reinforces loyalty to the Corps and to their fellow Marines. The Marines have an ethos — a code by which they live and fight. And when the enlisted troops see their officers modeling what it takes to be a Marine, they replicate what it takes to be a Marine.
The unit mirrors its leader.
We think that only happens in the military. It doesn't.
By modeling what it looks like to be a good servant — to our boss, to the mission — we train our team to do the same. Which makes leadership easier. After all, isn't it simpler to lead people who know how to follow? We're often told that to be a good leader, you first have to be a good follower. But no one tells us how. When we demonstrate it, we extend followership through replication.
The posture we model becomes the culture we lead.
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## The Chain of Command Isn't the Problem
In Jeff's time in the Navy, he saw a lot of pushback against hierarchy and chain of command. What he noticed was that when the chain was enforced properly, everything ran more smoothly.
He told his people: *"I don't see everything. I don't know everything. If you think there's a better way to do something, bring it up — just go through the chain. Because if it's something we've already tried, someone in that chain can tell you. If it makes it to me and it makes sense, I'm happy to give it a shot."*
What he found: problems got handled at the right level, as they should have been. Things worked more smoothly.
Every organization has a chain of command — formal or not. The chain isn't a bad idea. When it fails, it's usually because it isn't taught or practiced properly.
Our job as servant leaders is to model the posture and establish the structure. Our reward is getting to lead people who know how to follow — a team with a shared orientation, working toward a shared mission, not competing for the leader's attention.
Imagine if every level of an organization focused on making sure their boss was successful. Problems get resolved before they reach the top. Trust flows in both directions. People can be entrusted with real responsibility.
That's what an organized system produces. Not a system that runs itself — but one that runs more smoothly. Where everyone knows their folder, knows their lane, knows what the chain is. And where the leader gets to steer instead of arbitrate.
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## One More Level Up (For the Christian Leader)
Everything above applies to any leader. Faith isn't required.
But for followers of Christ, the folder structure goes one level higher.
Our root directory here has a root directory up there. Jesus sits above our boss. The Great Commission is the primary folder. And so when Paul writes in Ephesians 6:7 — *"Serve wholeheartedly, as if serving the Lord, not people"* — for the Christian leader, that's not a metaphor. That's the operating system.
John 13:15. First Corinthians 11:1. It's nested modeling. Jesus showed it. Paul modeled it. The chain replicates it.
And leading with excellence becomes witness. When we lead well — when we make the hard call without being harsh, when we develop people genuinely, when we serve the boss faithfully even when no one is watching — people notice. They can't quite explain it, but they want to lead like that.
The Great Commission doesn't get executed by preaching at our teams. It gets executed by being the leader they can't explain.
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## The Question to Sit With
Not *"Am I being a servant leader?"* That question is too easy to say yes to.
The real question is: **Who is my root directory?**
Am I focused on my boss's success — on the mission — or am I focused on the cluttered desktop? On keeping all the apps and files and folders open, everything accessible, no clear priorities?
If it's the desktop, any priorities we do set will be upended. Guaranteed. By some other crisis, challenge, or competing perspective.
If it's the mission, we have structure. And from structure, we can build something worth building.
And for the Christian leader: **Does the Root Directory know that I'm serving Him?**
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## What's Next
In the next episode, we go deeper into empowerment — how do we set people up to be successful servant leaders? How do we create the conditions for others to succeed the way we're learning to succeed?
We can't empower what we haven't modeled. So we start there.
Serve greatly.
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## Connect & Subscribe
If this episode landed, share it with a leader who needs to hear it. Like and subscribe on Spotify — and if you've been following this series and want to go deeper, this is exactly what the **Servant Leader OS** is built around.
Book a free 20-minute conversation: [bookme.name/JeffCockrell/lite/20minutes](https://bookme.name/JeffCockrell/lite/20minutes)
Or send a DM — Jeff reads them.
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*The Right Call: Wisdom Simply Applied is a podcast for Christian and secular business leaders navigating the gap between how they lead and how they're called to lead. Season 1 is a complete series on servant leadership — not as a feel-good philosophy, but as a working operating system.*