The Serving Leader: Five Powerful Actions That Will Transform Your Team, Your Business, and Your Community

The book reads beautifully, and the story moved me to tears. What I most appreciate is the fact that Dr. Jennings and Dr. Stahl-Wert are practitioners of what they preach. This book rings true from start to finish. These men know what they're talking about. I'm working to become more of the kind of serving leader in my work and at home this book so clearly teaches. They're working at it, too. All of this is very encouraging!

Reviewer: WC Emeka Obiozor....Journalist/Author/Special EducatorKen Jennings and John Stahl-Wert's Serving Leader is an amazing and unique testimony of powerful actions and skills every person in a leadership position desires to acquire and utilize in transforming his team; be it business enterprise or non-profit community organization. The book presented valuable leadership traits and standards using heart-warming tales of an estranged son, his dying father and unique landmarks of innovative leaders in different businesses and community-oriented organizations to illustrate the dynamic five principles of a serving leader. The authors painstakingly gave us insights into different environments - offices, schools, homes, industries, and other work areas where authentic leaders chosen by followers are in charge principally to build the team, the business, and the community. Thus, a teachable and learnable instrument is offered that provides practical sense for what leadership and service principles for teams and organizations are based upon. Having come from two distinctive backgrounds, the authors utilized their professional skills in leadership coaching and community building to promote the uplifting of the value of people in organizations and achieving organizational success. Jennings is the founder and managing partner of Venture Works - engages in the areas of leadership development, strategy, and the management of change. Stahl-Wert presides over the Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation (PLF), a 25-year old faith-based intermediary organization in Pittsburgh-Pennsylvania, which specializes in bringing together leaders from the business, government, and social sectors to address human problems.Distinctive information from the Serving Leader deals with the dreams and aspirations of most contemporary leaders to make their organizations work better. The authors packaged this book to provide today's servant leadership experiential opportunities "to see communities restored, lives improving, kids learning to read, prostitutes breaking the drug and economic chains that hold them, neighborhoods gaining local jobs."I admired greatly the paradoxes of effective leadership displayed in the book, especially, how the authors blended passages from the Holy Scriptures to drive home important points and facts. There were significant spotlights the book discussed in the process of pursuing the ideals of innovative leadership, such as - creating a working rapport among staff and management, coaching and mentoring activities that focus on staff strengths and address weaknesses, as well as mending fences and making up in a relationship. Highlights on father's role in giving and sharing love, directing, redirecting and influencing the lives of his child; enforcing school rules - belief in student's capacity for strength and determination, and getting them to rise up to expectations; was another unique aspect of this book. As the authors would say, "They have to stay on

I have read various of these kinds of business books--parables with something to teach--and I usually don't like them. The characters aren't real and the world they live in isn't real. This was a great surprise--I identify with Mike in the story, he could be me, and what takes place has all the feel of life as life is. This book encouraged me so strongly!

The Serving Leader, by Jennings and Stahl-Wert, is a great read for business and not for profit leaders. While it characterizes the stories of amazing serving leaders throughout the country, it also spells out the steps to becoming a servant leader. Professionals who are searching for a deeper meaning to life and work will find this book extremely rewarding. Epitomizing the attributes of serving leaders, it encourages you to continue your work by compiling the stories of others who have battled the same challenges. It is a small book, a quick read but the impact could be huge!

In The Serving Leader, Jennings and Stahl-Wert strike a deep chord of resonance for readers who are quietly serving and leading in the trenches of public, private, and non-profit sectors. There's an instrinsic rallying call in this book to these persons to embrace their destinies as serving leaders, to seek out and team up with like-minded souls in their networks, and then to get on with the work of great purpose to which they are committed. A good read with potentially life-changing ramifications.