In 1802, Bowdoin College President Joseph McKeen made this exhortation:
“It ought always to be remembered, that literary institutions (colleges/universities) are founded and endowed for the common good, and not for the private advantage of those who resort to them for education. It is not that they may be able to pass through life in an easy or reputable manner, but that their mental powers may be cultivated and improved for the benefit of society. If it be true no man should live for himself alone, we may safely assert that every man who has been aided by a public institution to acquire an education and to qualify himself for usefulness, is under peculiar obligations to exert his talents for the public good.”
His belief, and the belief of all educators of that time, was that learned men were both masters and servants of society. All colleges in early nineteenth-century America were committed to social needs rather than to individual preference and self-indulgence. It was not society’s obligation to the students but the students’ obligation to society that took precedence.
As such, as early as the turn of the nineteenth century, masters (or leaders) were exhorted to be servant leaders, though the leadership model was not introduces until much later. Unfortunately, this sense of social obligation was lost to a narcissistic individualism of self-gratification, greed, and pursuit of celebrity.
Not until the 1960’s was this obligation re-birthed during President J.F. Kennedy’s exhortation to Americans when he said, “Ask not what your countrycan do for you but what you can do for your country.” This call ignited youth by the thousands to join service organizations, such as the Peace Corps, in order to bring much needed service to millions.
And, in the mid 1970’s, Robert Greenleaf reintroduced the concept of servant leadership. This birthed the notion that those called to lead are first called to serve. This style/theory of leadership should be expressed at every level of every organization whether situational leadership is employed. Thus, leading by serving requires these attributes: agapao love, humility, altruism, and trust. Service towards others engenders empowerment and an exponential outflow of benefit.
The ideology of the master – worker relationship emulated by most throughout the industrial age (and even today) will never produce the ‘good’ to society that is achieved by leading through service.