Next weekend I will be flying to Idaho where I am facilitating a Leadership retreat for the American Baptist women of the state.

As a Christian organization, we are concerned with Biblical leadership guidance, as well as the usual habits of effective leaders.

Leadership, from a Christian perspective, relies heavily on the verse in the book of John describing Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet [John 13:12-15].

This is the basis for Servant Leadership.

In the process of preparing my presentations, I came across a whole raft of articles referring to servant leadership, from a business or purely secular perspective.

While giving a nod to unspecified “ancient philosophies,” one article gave credit for coining the phrase, “servant leader” and for explaining the concept in detail, to a man named Robert Greenleaf. He was quoted as saying, “Servant-leaders differ from other persons of good will because they act on what they believe.”

The other quotes and articles went on to make such claims as, “Servant leadership is key to surviving and thriving in the 21st century”, “the very top people of truly great organizations are servant-leaders,” and “the true heroes of the new millennium will be servant leaders.”

It is gratifying to see the business community recognize the value of Christ’s teachings, but wouldn’t it be nice to see Him given the credit?