Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust
Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley
Berrett-Koehler Publishers (February 2022)

How and why “simple truths” are the secret sauce to achieve superior achievements with a values-driven life

Robert K. Greenleaf (1904-1990) is generally credited with formulating the concept of what he characterizes in a seminal essay (in 1970) as “servant leadership.” Here is a brief excerpt:

“The servant-leader is servant first…It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.

“The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”

Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley have selected and then focused on 52 ways to become a servant leader by building trust and respect from those they are privileged to serve. Obviously, there are countless other ways that are also worthy of consideration but the 52 highlighted in this book offer sufficient challenges and opportunities for anyone who is determined to accelerate their personal growth and professional development.

Obviously, simple truths are easy for a leaders (especially in public service) to affirm and expedient to embrace but [begin italics] immensely difficult to manifest in everything we do each day, every day, in their relationships with others [end italics]. As Blanchard and Conley would be among the first to point out, even if a leader were able to do that, transforming an organization  — ANY organization — is essentially impossible without a wide and deep collective effort.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who aspires to become a servant leader.

I also highly recommend this book to servant leaders who are determined (if not obsessed) to help others to become a servant leader.

Whatever their size and nature may be, all organizations need servant leaders at all levels and in all areas of the given enterprise.

They need a call to action, an operations manual, a manifesto to nourish and sustain their efforts.

Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley’s insights will take each reader to what Oliver Wendell Holmes once characterized as “the other side of complexity.”