Expert Advises How to Become a Servant Leader

Chairman of the Board at the Greenleaf Centre for Servant Leadership in Europe, Ed Voerman, gave a lecture on the qualities of a servant leader at Birzeit University on April 20, 2016. The event was organized by the university’s Alumni and Career Services Office and the Faculty of Business and Economics.Voerman drew upon his experience as a servant leader in his presentation. He offered essential leadership concepts that every successful businessperson should have. “The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to benefit his peers first.”“A servant leader makes sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served,” he continued. “A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people to whom he belongs, and most importantly, he does not consider himself above those he leads. Rather, he sees those he leads as peers to teach and to learn from.”Voerman drew attention to some of the most well-known advocates of servant leadership throughout history including the theoretical physicist and scientist Albert Einstein and Mahatma Gandhi, the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in India.