Peer to Peer Magazine

58 PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | WINTER 2017 Even your participation as an ILTA session audience member can be informed by servant-leadership principles. Oen we sit in sessions hoping that we come away with something valuable. But what if you aspire instead to help others come away with something valuable as well? That aitude alters how you prepare for a session — even one in which you are "merely" an audience member. It influences how you participate in the session. The telling question during a session is the one that helps everyone understand session content beer; servant leaders ask those kinds of questions. Servant leadership also determines what you do aer the session is over, whether you help evaluate it and suggest ways to improve it. It is a small step from active session participation to actually volunteering and helping improve the quality of ILTA's events. If a particular subject interests you, write about it for an ILTA publication or on an ILTA forum. Link to other ILTA content when you use social media. As your confidence grows, volunteer to speak at ILTA events. Thoughtful participation on a panel can enhance the experiences of other panel members and session aendees. When you have done that enough, you may consider helping to organize sessions or even entire events. Servant Leadership in Your Life The test in all of this is your intention, just as Greenleaf says. Are you helping others grow, or merely aempting to empower yourself ? That question, asked over and over, is the best teacher when it comes to servant leadership. Notice the qualities that make others effective leaders. You will find many of those among ILTA's cadre of volunteers. The best leaders enliven and empower those they lead. They always strive to improve the lives of those with whom they work. And notice that when you are in the presence of a servant-leader, you always work "with" that leader, never "for." The best leaders can even add depth and humanity to the worst experiences in an employment seing. Next time you or someone you know is fired, look closely for the humanity in the process. Done as a power maneuver, it is an ugly affair; done out of servant leadership, you may even find beauty in such an ending. When you begin applying servant-leadership principles in your own life, others will notice. They may not notice you — that is not the point — but they will notice the improvement in their own lives. It may be that you have just removed an obstacle or a frustration in their daily work. That gets noticed and tends to propagate itself because the goodwill that service engenders is self-perpetuating. The best servant-led organizations are therefore the happiest, and that happiness can percolate up from any place in the organization. It is wonderful if the top of an organization views its highest function as making things easier for everyone else, but you do not have to wait for your Great Leader to change. You can begin to serve today. P2P Are you helping others grow, or merely attempting to empower yourself? That question, asked over and over, is the best teacher when it comes to servant leadership. ILTA as a Model for Servant Leadership FROM THE FUTURIST

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