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International Journal of Servant-Leadership

Abstract

Robert Greenleaf pioneered the concept of servant-leadership in his work Servant-Leadership in 1970. Since then, various essays, studies, and books have explored different aspects of Greenleaf's ideas. Larry Spears, building on Greenleaf's work, presented his well-known and often used ten characteristics of servant-leadership. Throughout the refinement of the articulation of servant-leadership, difficult questions addressing how servants lead in situations of violence, coercive power, and aggression have arisen. In the book Forgiveness and Power in the Age ofAtrocity: Servant-Leadership as a Way of Life (published by the scholarly press Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington in 2012), Shann Ray Ferch addresses these questions utilizing a multidisciplinary approach. Dr. Ferch uses his experiences as a professor of leadership studies, research psychologist, and leadership consultant and his background as a critically acclaimed poet and writer to synthesize servant-leadership from various angles, penetrating to the core of living a servant-led life. As Ferch summarizes, "the book is a journey into the extreme conditions of human conflict and human evil" (xxii), using dark examples of violence among people to "give the opportunity to embark on a path of discovery, self-responsibility, and commitment to one another" (xxiv). This is the path of servant-leadership. In this book it is explored through three primary types of encounters with human consciousness: disorientation of the spirit, listening, and confirmation of the inherent worth of people.

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