The seeds for the contemporary servant leadership movement were planted with Hermann Hesse’s book Journey to the East.

Robert K. Greenleaf, an AT&T executive and student of leadership, after reading about the novel’s interesting central character, a humble servant named Leo, launched the modern day servant leadership movement we know today. Inspired by Leo’s example of leading by serving others first, Greenleaf developed a leadership philosophy that emphasizes listening, empathy, awareness, healing, and stewardship (among other characteristics), thereby putting the needs of followers before self-interest and personal ambition. This approach has since influenced organizations globally, promoting a more ethical, people-centered style of leadership.

Greenleaf described how Leo inspired him to discover the true essence of leadership.

The idea of The Servant as Leader came out of reading Herman Hesse’s Journey to the East. In this story we see a band of men on a mythical journey, probably Hesse’s own journey. The central figure of the story is Leo who accompanies the party as the servant who does their menial chores, but who also sustains them with his spirit and his song. He is a person of extraordinary presence. All goes well until Leo disappears. Then the group falls into disarray and the journey is abandoned. They cannot make it without the servant Leo. The narrator, one of the party, after some years of wandering finds Leo and is taken into the Order that has sponsored the journey. There he discovers that Leo, whom he had first known as servant, was in fact the titular head of the Order, its guiding spirit, a great and noble leader. (1970. p. 1)

As noted in the Sage Encyclopedia of Business and Ethics in Society,

The concept of servant leadership was developed by Robert Greenleaf, who drew from his 40 years directing management research for AT&T to create a business and leadership consulting practice centered on his ideas about leaders as servants. After retiring from AT&T in 1964, Greenleaf launched his second career with the publication of the 1970 essay, “The Servant as Leader,” in which he acknowledged Herman Hesse's Journey to the East with providing the key insight for his theory of servant leadership.

In this story, a group of men embark on a pilgrimage to the East, accompanied by their servant, the spiritual and charismatic character Leo. Deep into the journey, Leo mysteriously disappears and the men are so confused and disorganized without him that they fail to complete their journey. Years later, it is discovered that Leo was actually the head of the organization that had sponsored the pilgrimage. (2007, p. 1896)

Leo symbolized a departure from traditional views of leadership. Instead of occupying the top position in the organizational pyramid, with others carrying out their commands, the servant leader inverts the pyramid, prioritizing the needs of followers and dedicating themselves to their personal development.

Greenleaf stated, “The great leader is seen as servant first, and that simple fact is the key to his greatness” (1970, p. 2).

Servant leadership starts with a desire to serve.

The servant-leader is servant first…It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature. (Greenleaf, 2008, p. 15)

Servant leaders create a profound and enduring influence on the people they serve.

The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived? (2008, p. 15)

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