Peer to Peer Magazine

56 PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | WINTER 2017 by John Alber I am speaking of the "peer-to-peer" ethos upon which ILTA was founded. That peer-to-peer intention, and all the selflessness and service that it implies, models the principles of servant leadership, one of the most effective leadership paradigms in business history. The same principles that informed ILTA's founding can also serve as a practical and durable template for your own growth as a leader. ILTA's volunteer-based structure gives you the ideal laboratory in which to perfect the principles of servant leadership so you can take them back into your organizations. The Servant-Leader Model Robert Greenleaf wrote "The Servant as Leader" in 1970, ten years before ILTA was founded, and in that essay he coined the phrase "servant leadership." Greenleaf defined a servant-leader as follows: The servant-leader is servant first. . . It begins with the natural feeling that one wants. . . to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. Contrast Greenleaf 's description of the servant- leader with common conceptions of leadership found in the business press and society at large. As we oen imagine them, leaders are named, authorized and privileged. When someone aspires to leadership, the first thing he or she wants is a title. Next the person asks for authority because without it there can be no power. And of course the leader must have the right to do certain things, to be in certain places. We oen hear the desire for privilege expressed as the need to have "a seat at the table." Greenleaf dismisses all such thinking. Leadership, he says, emanates from service, not power; without service, titles and authority and privilege do not maer. They are empty vessels. A true leader serves first, thus rendering aspirations for power pointless. ILTA As a Model for Servant Leadership ILTA As a Model for Servant Leadership FROM THE FUTURIST Anyone who has examined the curriculum at ILTA's annual conference or any other ILTA-sponsored event understands that this organization places a premium on leadership training. Often overlooked, however, is that ILTA was originally constituted to embody powerful leadership principles and to confer upon its members opportunities to practice them.

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