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The Servant : A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership

The Servant : A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership

List Price: $20.00
Your Price: $13.60
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Must Read for those in Leadership Roles
Review: James Hunter wrote an exquisite book. The key to servant leadership is no secret. One only needs to look at the most important servant leader in our time -- Jesus Christ. The book, however, expands on how Christ's leadership style can and should be used in the world today. A very readable book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: You Simply Must Read This Book!!!
Review: Never has a book on leadership done such a masterful job of grasping the essential componets of successful leadership. I have read literally hundreds of books on leadership (including the classics) but never one that brought it all together for me. If you are a supervisor, parent, teacher, coach, spouse, etc., do yourself a huge favor and buy this book!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What an incredible treasure and blessing for the reader.
Review: Simply Great. Absolutely True. Having lived the life of the main character and come to the same conclusion at great personal cost I am applying the principles found in Hunter's excellent story, and am enjoying contentment and results I would not have imagined possible. Oh what a different life it would have been to have had this available 20 years ago. But what a better time than now with our national leadership crisis. I looked and looked to find the address of the monastery - I want to go!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must-read for everyone 8 to 80 that isn't already perfect.
Review: The Servant -- A Review

Everyone serves. Some more than others. It is impossible to not serve either yourself, someone else or something else. The Servant - written by James C. Hunter, simply illustrates this fundamental of successful living in an easy-to-read, hard-to-put-down allegory about leadership through servanthood. These 187 pages are super-saturated with wisdom that can be absorbed by a grade-schooler. In fact, most of us have already learned the principles contained in this book, from our schoolteachers, our religious faith, our family and our friends. We need not to be taught so much as to be reminded.

Simeon, a monk whose chief role is to teach through servant leadership, achieves this task (as supporting protagonist) by gaining authority through altruism. Although told through the experiences of a fictitious "once-successful" businessman, John Daily, the story is about each one of our own natural inclinations, natures and choices. A cast of other supporting characters designed to symbolize a wide demographic variety proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the only villain in this story is self.

If you're interested in reading this book or giving it as a gift to either your staff, peers, family or friend, it will make an impression. If you're interested in improving relationships, this book is a must-read. You could spend a great deal more than $14.95(US) to get this kind of direction from other sources.

Donald Davis Business Development Manager Franklynn Industries, Inc.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Valuable messages in a moribund, underdeveloped story
Review: The Servant follows a burned-out businessman at the end of his rope, John Daily, who has alienated his colleagues, underlings, and family through his selfishness, laziness and lack of tact at work and at home. He goes to a monastery to reinvigorate himself personally and to acquire leadership skills under the tutelage of a formerly famous giant of industrial accomplishment, turned into a monk. Our hero participates in this effort with several other characters, including a loudmouthed, militaristic sergeant who is the book's only source of humor. Many of the leadership principles espoused here are matters of simple common sense, reminding us about how to be leaders by essentially following the Golden Rule. It's that simple, really. This book's message about servant leadership should not be necessary; however, sadly enough, it is. My professional experiences are in a government bureaucracy in which the good manager exists but is a diamond amidst a sea of sewage. By in large it is an agency riddled with incompetent technocrats and yes-men promoted for their ability to mindlessly tout the company line. The Servant wisely counsels independent thinking within the framework of team cooperation. It might benefit a good many managers in my agency and many others, despite its considerable flaws of character and story development.

Therein lies my problem with this book -- not in the concepts advocated, but in its delivery. The characters are oversimplified, shallow, [typical], one-dimensional, and poorly developed, with all the spice and complexity of a glass of water. Daily's simpering hero-worship of the monk, about whom he heard great things in business circles, pervades the storyline. The tale is so predictable, unimaginative and moribund that it tarnishes the message behind the story. If one is seeking a compelling storyline with depth and unexpected turns, this book should be avoided at all costs. I read it in under two hours on a plane; and it wasn't worth that time.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Thought Provoking Insights on Leadership
Review: The Servant is a fable. The author sends his depressed and frustrated manager to a monastary for enlightenment by a CEO turned Monk. Along with other cardboard characters (the cynic, the coach, the teacher) our hero learns the true meaning of leadership.

While this story approach can be off-putting and even annoying, the reality is the reader will learn a great deal about leadership. The key, at least for me, is to get past the genre (story as business lesson) and to the substance of what Hunter offers. And Hunter offers a lot. He's thought a great deal about leadership and it shows. He offers thought provoking insights and a worthwhile perspective on what it means to be a leader, what commitment is required to lead and what challenges a leader must face.

This book is a good buy for a plane trip or as a gift for a new manager. It is an easy read, but is likely to spark some serious self-appraisal.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must read for every Leader heading into the millenium
Review: The Servant is an incredibly simple and gentle story that reveals wisdom above and beyond the leadership training that is going on in boardrooms across North America today. Business is changing, and with it the needed characteristics of our leaders must change also. Gone are the days when the dictator...or the technical manager could drive a company forward to success. What it takes now is someone who can serve in a very powerful and affirming way. James C. Hunter reveals such a leader in the reverant atmosphere of a monastary...and in the capable hands of a humble monk with a passion for God and people. James' story calls out the servant within all of us. It will change how you think...and more importantly...how you lead.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must-read for all those in a leadership role...or not
Review: The Servant is great reading for anyone who deals with people, in or out of the workplace. Our company is purchasing them and passing them out as gifts to our leadership, as well as our sales professionals. Thank you for this insightful, quick read!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: All the content, and entertaining as well!
Review: This book delivers many of the same principles you will find in other leadership oriented books, and even refers to some of them (synergy, from Covey's 7 Habits, for example). However, this book is unique, and well worth reading for what it does differently than other books on the same subject: it tells a story to illustrate the principles it espouses.

The plot revolves around a glass plant manager who is having difficulty in his marriage as well as his career. He agrees to spend a week at a monastery to appease his psychologist wife, and there he enrolls in a week-long leadership course taught by a wealthy businessman turned monk named Simeon. Also in his class are five other people: a nurse, a drill sergeant, a basketball coach, a preacher, and a principal, who serve the purpose of providing realistic perspectives from a variety of backgrounds. The lessons they learn together and the interactions they have in the class comprise the majority of the leadership teaching of the book.

As evidenced by the title, the premise of leadership professed here is servant leadership, based most significantly on the model of Jesus Christ. That having been said, however, the author makes many references to the findings and theories of psychology, and the he takes care to justify his position by having Simeon answer the questions posed by skeptical members of the class when the Christian element of things is brought into the conversation. All of this is done very artfully within the fabric of the story; so well, in fact, that it is almost as if the story stands by itself, and the tenets about leadership are gleaned almost in passing.

Overall, this book accomplishes what other books like "The One Minute Manager" and "Who Moved My Cheese?" have done to a lesser extent: it takes important facets of a given topic (leadership) and presents them in an entertaining and easy to understand story, rather than the traditional didactic approach. I have read numerous books on leadership, and this is one of the best I have encountered-highly recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: To lead you must serve
Review: This book explains the servant leadership model in a nice way. A good storytelling combined with the excellent explanation of leadership skills and principles makes it easy to read and understand.


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