At a Chi Alpha conference in St. Louis I just heard Dick Schroeder use an interesting phrase to compliment someone \u2014 \u201che puts \u2018us\u2019 before \u2018me\u2019.\u201d Here are some off-the-cuff and unpolished thoughts inspired by that phrase:<\/p>\n
\u201cUs before me.\u201d What a beautiful phrase to describe servant leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cUs\u201d puts the leadership into servanthood: \u201cus before me\u201d leads to the overall good of the group whereas \u201cyou before me\u201d can lead to the detriment of the group.<\/p>\n
To be clear, the Bible does command us to \u201cin humility consider others better than ourselves\u201d (Philippians 2:3). Doesn\u2019t this lead directly to \u201cyou before me\u201d?<\/p>\n
Yes. It does. But the practical question for me as a leader is how to be self-sacrificial in a way that honors my obligations to those I am serving. And I have learned that there is a healthy way to prioritize others and a destructive way to prioritize others.<\/p>\n
To serve as fully as possible there is a certain amount of self-maintenance that must take place. Boundaries must be established and maintained. Recreation and sabbaticals must be incorporated. Growth and learning have to take place.<\/p>\n
All of these things are self-serving. They require us to say no to others and yes to ourselves. At times, we wind up saying \u201cme before you today because I want to be able to serve you tomorrow\u201d.<\/p>\n
But at the same time, all of these things flow from a mature understanding of \u201cyou before me\u201d \u2014 putting our followers\u2019 long-term good above their short-term desires. For an organization, a leader who says \u201cus before me\u201d builds strength. A leader who naively\/hyperspiritually says \u201cyou before me\u201d leads the organization to implosion (and likely to high leadership turnover).<\/p>\n
Clearly, there is the potential for \u201cus before me\u201d to become a pretext for putting \u201cme before you.\u201d The antidote is to keep expanding our definition of \u201cus\u201d. Whenever we begin to suspect that our \u201cus\u201d is too comfortable, we need to redefine the group we are serving in a larger way, and continue to put \u201cus before me.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so a big thanks to Dick Schroeder for giving me my new favorite phrase: \u201cus before me\u201d. It will probably be my favorite for at least a week. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n