BENNETT SIMS, BISHOP emeritus of the Diocese of Atlanta, wasn't looking to solve any ethical crisis in business when he founded the Institute for Servant Leadership. He was seeking an alternative to the top-down, authoritarian style of leadership that he saw governing the workplace, civic institutions and the church.
Sims envisioned an alternative model, a collaborative model that would hold up the leader as servant, the model provided by Jesus Christ.
This understanding of the role of leader is changing the ethics and the lives of businesspeople touched by the program and of those who work with them. "We have lived for 5,000 or 6,000 years under the aegis of power as dominance," Sims said. "Power is better understood as partnership or servanthood. It's when you feel powerless that you lie and cheat."
The institute, an independent nonprofit corporation based in Ashville, N.C., is governed by a board of trustees of men and women from the business, nonprofit and church sectors across the country. Sims stepped down as president in 1999 and was replaced by Bill Jamieson.
"The whole purpose of leadership is to get people lined up with their sense of purpose and mission and work," said Sims. "Money and telling lies doesn't mean as much when you're happy. People want something and are afraid the truth won't get it for them. It's fear that makes us cheat, and love that makes us tell the truth."
The less servant leaders fear power, the less they fear people, Sims said. "As the fear factor is reduced, the love factor is increased, and then people relate in personal terms instead of to the role. Moving from fear to love is a tremendous transformation process."
Sims has served on the boards of two corporations. "I have seen changes in both, where leadership moves from fear to care and affiliation, from power over to power with. It takes time, but when it happens it's a wonderful thing to behold."
For more information on the Institute for Servant Leadership, visit http://www.servleader.org/ or e-mail servantldr@ioa.com.
