7

Servant Leadership: Intro-Chapter 3

After focusing on what makes teams work, we're shifting gears to look at one the individual leaders need to do to run an awesome team.  Interestingly enough, the book talks about continuous improvement cycles and feedback, but instead of focusing on the product you're building, it is about you personally.  Do your best to get over the touchy-feely nature of the book since it focuses on the attributes that nearly every major company lists as their top priorities when hiring.  To quote the author, "these are not soft skills -- these are the hard skills".  The first three chapters define leaders, discuss influence and authority, and introduces the idea of a servant leader.

Copy and paste the most interesting five questions below into a new blog post (the intro and at least one per chapter).  As you read the second three chapters, write your response to each question below the question.  At the bottom of the post, summarize what you learned.  Tag the post with "SL1".  During the commenting days, write a comment on two other people's posts.

• *Intro: Skip to the last page of the intro.  There are three questions.  The author suggests that if your answer is no to the questions, continuing is a waste of time.  If your answer is yes to each, please also explain WHY you are willing to go through this pain, because it will be painful if you want to truly be a better leader.
• Chapter 1: Explain the differences between leaders and managers.  Would product owners and scrum masters be leaders, managers, both, or neither?
• Chapter 1: Hunter says that leadership is a skill, not something many are born with.  Do you actually believe this?  Have you always believed this?  What evidence have you seen in your life to back up your response?
• Chapter 1: The word "influence" comes up dozens of times in the first chapter.  Why does Hunter keep talking about it?
• Chapter 1: The chapter ends stating that those at the highest levels of leadership of an organization should provide the mission, values, standards, and accountability.  How much clarity have you observed in these areas?  Where are you looking for more direction?  How involved do you personally think you should be in helping to further clarify these?
• Chapter 2: In what places in your life have you earned authority?  How did you get it?
• Chapter 2: What is a legitimate use of power by the leaders of a FRC team?  How often should this be used?
• Chapter 3: Hunter lists a number of history's greatest servant leaders: Jesus, Ghandi, MLK, and many more.  Name one person who has earned authority over you because of their service in your life.  Give a few concrete examples of what they do that earns them authority over you.
• Chapter 3: Hunter says that serving others is a choice.  Share a time where you made the choice to serve yourself as a leader and a time where you chose to serve others in your leadership role.  How did each work out?  How did each feel?
• End with a summary of what you learned.