Someone recently told me a story about difficulties he had with an underperforming employee. His colleagues encouraged him to engage in a personal conversation with the employee, to which he replied, “I don’t want to get to know them, I want to fire them!” Eventually he gave in to his colleagues’ request. At this point in the story, he looked directly at me and said, “Then the craziest thing happened, the person started to become one of our best employees just because they felt like someone cared about them!” This completely transformed his leadership style into one that focused on relating to and empowering those who worked for him.

Although this person was unaware of the term “servant leadership,” the realization he had aligns directly with the principles of servant leadership. His experience is also not unique. Institutions that employ a servant leadership mindset create better relationships within and outside of the institution. As a result, they are more enjoyable places to work, foster better ties in the community, and tend to be more stable in the long term . The CREATE Institute and the Office of Servant Leadership are dedicated to promoting the servant leadership mindset within MSOE because we believe it is what will best serve our students, our institution, the institutions our students eventually move on to, and the communities we partner with both locally and globally.

If you would like to learn more about what servant leadership is all about, please consider attending the servant leadership roundtables held monthly throughout the academic year. You can see servant leadership in action on the MSOE Servant Leadership Facebook page. Finally, please do not hesitate to reach out to me or any member of the CREATE team with any questions you may have regarding the role of servant leadership at MSOE.  

All the best,
Mike

Michael Sevier, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
(414) 277-2472  |  sevier@msoe.edu