Robert Greenleaf - some leadership stuff

“Awareness is not a giver of solace—it is just the opposite. It is a disturber and an awakener. Able leaders are usually sharply awake and reasonably disturbed. They are not seekers after solace." 

I'm reading an article for class about servant-leadership, the little-known phrase for a much-practiced leadership approach. Larry Spears is the author of The Understanding and Practice of Servant-Leadership and quotes above Robert Greenleaf. Spears (no relation) was at the time of this writing the executive director of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, where I'm doing a fellowship.

My fellowship focuses on improving the Greenleaf Center's membership program -- offering benefits to members, finding new members, and engaging current members more heavily in the leadership conversation and journey. I've sent out a couple of surveys, researched some other groups, tried to understand the field and the organization. And I've got to produce some findings soon.

In the mean time, the quote above reminds me of my time at the Open Door Community on Ponce de Leon Ave here in Atlanta. One of the leaders there insists that too many people are well-adjusted to the wrongs of the world (like homelessness, poverty, and racism). And that our task in life is not to acclimate and accept them but to reject and act to change them. This can take a fierce amount of awareness and radical defiance of cultural norms.

Thoughts welcome.