"We're not interested in style points"

In a NewYork Times profile today, Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin talks about his belief in the concept of "servant-leadership", saying, "Every day when I go to work, I don’t think about things I have to do, I think about the things I can do to make my men successful."

In the spirit of his philosophy, he gives full credit to his former boss at Indianapolis, Tony Dungy, as the inspiration for his approach to being a head coach.

The flip side of Tomlin's approach is to have high expectations for each player on the 45-man roster: "We don’t grade on a curve. If I give any of these guys a helmet on Sunday, I expect them to potentially put themselves in position to be the reason why they win. I think there is not a man in our locker room who doesn’t embrace that. We’re not interested in style points.”

The man who coined the phrase "servant-leadership" was Professor Robert K. Greenleaf of Indiana State University back in 1970, a year in which Americans had serious questions about the character of their leaders in politics, education and industry.  He wrote that the true servant-leader's attitude:

"... manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?"

By the way, there is a Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership today at Indiana State. The CEO of the Center, Dr. Kent M. Keith has written a number of articles on the subject, including this one on "The Key Practices of Servant-Leaders."