Details, Details, Details: Leadership Challenges for Servant Leaders

To micromanage or not to micromanage? that is the question. This is an issue that many leaders struggle with. In Details, Details, Details, John Sullivan examines the reasons why some leaders involve themselves directly in the smallest decisions within their organizations. But is this an appropriate behavior for a servant leader? Sullivan argues that a servant leader assumes a position of trust with and toward his followers and works to develop each person to his full capacity. That requires the delegation of tasks and responsibilities, including leadership responsibilities, from the senior leader to subordinate leaders. Leaders who will not or cannot delegate are fundamentally insecure. As a result, the work may get done but subordinate leaders are not developed. Effective delegation, creating metrics to measure progress, and using teams in decision-making result in innovative organizations that grow and thrive while developing new servant leaders.

John J. Sullivan is the director of ServantLeader Ministries whose mission is to educate, encourage and equip leaders in all walks of life who desire to serve rather than be served. He has had a wide variety of career experiences. He has served as a Marine Corps fighter pilot, a squadron and air station commander, senior staff officer, consultant, quality examiner, athletics director, professor, and conference commissioner. He is widely acclaimed as an authority on servant leadership as an author, a teacher and a practitioner. A highly decorated Vietnam veteran, prior to entering academia he served for 28 years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a helicopter gunship pilot, fighter pilot, squadron commander, senior staff officer, base commander, and professor, retiring as a colonel. As a senior staff officer in the Pentagon, he was Program Coordinator for what was then the Department of the Navy’s largest development and acquisition program, the F/A-18 Hornet aircraft. While he was the Commanding Officer, Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, SC, the base was selected in worldwide competition as the best installation in the Marine Corps and received the prestigious Commander-in-Chief’s Award for Installation Excellence. He was the Course Director of Policy Making and Implementation within the National Security Decision Making Department and Professor of Management at the Naval War College, Newport, RI. He taught in the graduate program primarily in leadership education. An American Society for Quality Certified Quality Manager, he was a founder of the Rhode Island Area Coalition for Excellence (RACE), helped design its State quality award, and was its first lead examiner. Following his military career, Sullivan served for nine years as an associate professor of business at Montreat College, Montreat, NC. His teaching focus was in the disciplines of leadership and management. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California, Webster University and the Naval War College.