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I grew up in the African American Baptist Church. It was there that I would first learn about servant-leadership, although I did not know about Robert Greenleaf or the theory of servant-leadership. What I did know about servant-leadership was from the Holy Bible. Jesus was the ultimate servant-leader, and I saw servant-leadership in action through my Mother. I wrote about my Mother's servantleadership in my book, Bloom Where You Are Planted: Reflections on Servant Leadership when I said,
My mom is a servant-leader. Granted, she didn't know about Robert Greenleaf or the other great scholars of today, such as DePree, Senge, Covey, Wheatley, Autry, and many other popular writers who teach servant leadership. She just worked in the church, in her family, at her job, and in her community as servant-leader. I saw first-hand as a child how she worked first as a cook at our local county jail, preparing food for the inmates. After 30 years and being promoted to the Food Service Director, she showed great care and concern for the preparation of the food for the inmates of the jail. She abhorred people's opinions that prisoners should be glad that they can even eat. She fried her famous chicken and would sneak some to the prisoners; even the jailers would come up to the kitchen and beg for a piece. Although a stern woman, she had a heart of gold, and the prisoners knew it.
They felt it.
It was the same way with her work in the church. I have lost count of the number of church dinners that I helped in cooking and preparing. They knew my mom would present and serve the food to the people with the utmost professionalism, love, and care. And everyone loved my mom's cooking.
I was reminded of this childhood experience as I was reading Juana Bordas' article, Pluralistic Reflections on Servant Leadership (Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, 1998), where she said, "Many women, minorities, and people of color have long traditions of servant leadership in their cultures. Servant leadership has ancient roots in many of the indigenous cultures - cultures that were holistic, cooperative, communal, intuitive, and spiritual. These cultures centered on being guardians of the future and respecting the ancestors who walked...