"Everything you need to know about leadership you already know," said James Hunter to almost roughly 1,000 people at the Viterbo University Fine Arts Center on Wed, Dec. 2. "You spend most of life needing to be reminded, rather than needing to learn."
Hunter, a consultant for Festival Foods and author of the books "The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership," and "The World's Most Powerful Leadership Principle: How to Become a Servant Leader," spoke for two-and-a-half hours on the qualities of servant leadership.
Hunter, a Detroit native, talked about his first experiences with leadership, watching his father work as a supervisor in automobile assembly for Ford. "I thought I had died and gone to Hell," Hunter said. "You got to be supervisor of the day if you could publicly humiliate the most employees in a day and get the most f-bombs in a single sentence."
Hunter said that "This kind of leadership no longer works," Hunter said. "Henry Ford once said, ‘Why is it that I always get the whole person when what I really want is a pair of hands?'" He called this philosophy "neck-down leadership." He said that while this style worked during Ford's lifetime, "Neck-down isn't good enough anymore."
Hunter's message was that servant leadership is the idea that many companies are using. "Thirty five of Fortune Magazine's ‘100 best companies to work for' practice servant leadership," Hunter said.
Hunter gave several examples of servant leaders in the business world, such as Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines.
"When a reporter asked him at a press conference ‘Herb, who would you say is the most important leader in Southwest Airlines?' Herb said ‘I think that's an offensive question,' and the reporter asked why. ‘Well,' Herb said. ‘Here at Southwest Airlines, we're all leaders,'" Hunter said.
He said Kelleher's personable nature translated to better business practices. This was a running theme of his presentation, showing that the leaders of a company can lead best by serving, and when they only serve themselves, the company suffers. "When everyone's looking up trying to serve the king, their butts are to the customers," Hunter said.
Hunter's visit was sponsored by Barb and Dave Skogen, the owners of local company, Festival Foods, and was hosted by the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership. "Dave Skogen approached me and asked if we'd like to host Jim Hunter," said Dr. Richard Kyte, director of the Institute for Ethics in Leadership here at Viterbo. Skogen himself introduced Hunter to the audience. "Viterbo is the only school that offers a Master's Degree in servant leadership," Skogen said, highlighting the significance of Hunter's visit.
"Every year, Hunter speaks on Servant Leadership to over 100 audiences around the world. In addition, he has personally coached over 1,600 executives in developing the Skills of Servant Leadership," according to the official release on Hunter's visit.
"The greatest servant leaders are wimps, but in a different kind of way," Hunter said. "They are relentless huggers and relentless spankers."
This concept of "hugging" and "spanking" was also central to Hunter's presentation. He told the audience that the best servant leaders care about the people they serve, but also push them towards excellence. "Servant leadership is the skill of influencing people to enthusiastically work toward goals identified as being for the common good with character that inspires confidence," Hunter said.
Hunter said that character was very important to servant leadership as well.
"Everything you need to know about leadership, you already know," Hunter said. "It's the Golden Rule. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Would you like to work for you?"
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