Page 54 - Harnessing the Strengths

Core Qualities ■ 37

term results in the context of the long term. Servant-leaders
know better than anyone that the future of an organization
has more meaning when people have respect for the tradi-
tions of the past.

Looking Forward

Building a company as described here is not a piece of cake.
It requires knowledge, insight, and the ability to anticipate.
The ability to look forward is an absolute requirement. A
servant-leader needs to foresee potential developments in
order to set the right direction. This is not a case of reading
tea leaves or gazing into a crystal ball. It is more about the
ability to learn from mistakes as well as things that went
well, and to build on that into the future. This means that
you should not wait until problems occur, but that you
anticipate them and react proactively, taking steps to pre-
vent events from going that far. This is a question of one
part logic, one part intuition.

7 Combining Internal and External

Finally, another core quality of a servant-leader is the abil-
ity to combine the internal world with the external one and
vice versa. Servant-leaders are not led by the client; rather,
they know that the client is counting on a surprising prod-
uct or service, developed by the company out of view of
the client. Pull is reunited with push. Also, with reference
to the individual’s internal and external worlds, it is often
mentioned that servant-leaders are good listeners. This is
self-explanatory, because servant-leaders are active listen-
ers—passive listening does not take you as far.