Page 121 - Harnessing the Strengths

104 ■ Servant-Leadership in the Intercultural Practice

decisions have to be made on incomplete information, and
therefore you can have situations that shortly after need to
be corrected in situ. Harvard Business School’s renowned
“case learning” has been used for quite some time in Brit-
ish and North American law faculties. There is recognition,
however, that every situation is unique and that precedence
might only become clear after the judge or director has made
a decision. Only then is it possible to see if the decision was
good or bad.
Here, we again see how rational thinking is connected
with the playful and the emotional. It is up to the servant-
leader to lead this process.

No-Nonsense Approach Versus Humor

Is the servant-leader so controlled that he or she never cracks
a smile, or is he or she always laughing, the joker who doesn’t
take things too seriously? Obviously, the answer is neither.
You have servant-leaders who are controlled but at crucial
moments know how to let loose. Other servant-leaders are
more jovial, dealing with the world through laughter, but
at crucial and unexpected moments know how to become
very serious.
Comedy writers such as John Cleese (“Monty Python”
and “Fawlty Towers”), John Sullivan (“Only Fools and
Horses”) and Matt Groening (“The Simpsons”) are very
different, but also very complementary. They all have one
thing in common: the functional way they use humor. Just
3
like Arthur Koestler, author of The Act of Creation, they
all believe that humor is closely connected with creativity.
Why? Because humor is a process in which two “seem-
ingly opposing logics” are actually both logical. This is