Course 2: Becoming a 7 Cups Leader - (Discussion #2) Service Leadership at 7 Cups

1. Why is gossiping bad?

Gossiping takes away the chance of the person being talked about to give their side of the story, relieving them of the blame and malice. It is an unfair situation to be in since the person being talked about can never defend themselves from the blame that they are being put on.

2. List a statement you learned from this video to stop gossiping in the replies!

I don't know the other person's perspective, so I prefer to not discuss what I think they were thinking or feeling in their absence.

@Heather225

Excuse my two posts where I just tagged you without any content!

I think service leadership is great! It's a great way for passionate listeners to increase their overall involvement on 7cups!

I would like to thank the listeners that offer peer support! They're always so attentive and helpful especially when you need it the most, .i.e., after a tough chat

I could become a better servant by being a more attentive listener! :)

@Heather225

Thank you for the interesting information!

I think that service leadership is a great concept as I believe that a leader should be a role model . Therefore, a leader has lots of responsibilities as others look up to them – they need to always remain professional, respectful and they should be able to motivate the team to perform as good as they can and help them to self-develop. Service leadership can be often seen on 7 Cups as it is based on volunteering and the idea of helping people and I think all forms of helping should be appreciated. However, one example is the support that listeners receive from mentors on 7 cups who dedicate their time to guiding listeners and organizing various events for members. I could be a better servant by constantly developing my skills, asking for feedback, and being here for other listeners and members and help them on their path.

Service leadership is definitely a unique aspect of leadership in general. Participating in service leadership is simply giving back to the community through leading and inspiring the people with utter dedication and clear vision.

Every single listener on 7 Cups is a living proof for service leadership. We vonluntarily giving up our time to help and support anyone in need on 7 Cups without complaining or feeling discouraged.

In order to become a better "servant," I want to be a good listener and actively participate in discussions as well as chatrooms.

I think the idea of service leadership is fantastic. Communities, workplaces, and basically anything with a leader would be seriously improved by a "servant leader". You can really tell the differences between "servant leaders" and "traditional leaders" and the impact they make on their community. Everything just goes so much better if you have a leader whose intentions are to do all they can to be a good leader. One example of service leadership/a "servant" leader that I've seen on 7cups is GlenM. Can I say GlenM? Is that too obvious? Honestly I just really admire how much he seems to care for our community. It seems like he puts most of his life as a whole into 7cups. He's always looking for ways to improve it and he does improve it constantly. This leadership program and his story of how he thought it up is a great example. He's pretty much a perfect example of service leadership. I think I could be a better "servant" to our community by being a little less selfish. Of course it's important to not put yourself in harmful situations and take care of yourself but I also think I should work harder for the community than I currently am.

Service Leadership

Service leadership is a 2000 + year old concept and is based on a ritual begun by JC, described in John 13, where He demanded to wash the feet of all His disciples just before the Last Supper, and also commanded that they do the same for their followers and for each other - This led to a ritual which is still practised in many Christian churches, shortly before Easter, where the pastor, chaplain or minister literally washes the feet of all the members of the parish that he leads. Service leadership is not about being a servant to the community, but about doing service to every individual member of the team you lead, as well as to the individual members of the chain of command in which you are responsible for a leadership role - you wash everybody's feet, and everybody else also washes your feet. The individual is thus always acknowledged and deeply valued in service leadership and the concept of service leadership has certainly never been about anybody becoming a mere "servant to the community" at all.

The concept of service leadership is supposed to require that the leader thinks of his role as simply an occupation within an organisation, rather than an elevation of personal status above the others whom it is his role adn responsiblity to lead effectively.

Service leadership is strictly required in the Engineer corps of the Australian Army, even to the extent that the queue for dinner is in order of rank, with the lowest ranking recruit at the start of the line and the commanding officer right at the end. (This way, for instance, a remedy occurs far more quickly if the food ever runs out!). Engineers have only one mess (bar for drinking together), so if a service leader has failed to respect his team during the working day, then that poor leader ends up drinking all by themselves; their peers and superior officers witness that and their promotion chances become drastically reduced.

Service leadership involves a requirement for leaders to be loyal to the safety, needs and morale of those individual members of their team in subordinate roles, and results in a reciprocation of that loyalty from the team which could never be inspired to the same extent by rules or rewards or by acknowledgements, promotions or incentives.

One example of service leadership that has impressed me on 7 Cups was a forum group leader who took the time out of their day and contacted me to welcome me to their forum group and chat with me. Not because I was particularly special - just because I was a new member. There was never a hint at any stage during our chat that this very effective leader could have even considered for one moment that I was "beneath" them, merely because of an anonymous role in a volunteer organisation. . . the sort of leader who didn't care who washed everybody's feet, as long as everybody's feet got cleaned.

Another example was a chat mentor who I privately messaged after they had made an ambiguous comment during a chat room session which might have been misinterpreted as offensive to one of the vulnerable members in the room and thereby could have been harmful if that sort of comment became a habit - The mentor messaged me back and asked me to explain the ambiguity (which had been caused by a comment containing a double negative. Double negatives can easily be interpreted as sarcasm, epecially in written communications, because text has no intonation to distinguish between a benign comment and a deliberate insult. That is why leadership communication techniques courses teach leaders to use only positive directions, statements and feedback). When I explained that communications technique, there was no angry reaction or huffy offensive remarks and better still, there was no excuses or "explanations" or petty arguments - the mentor replied with a service leadership response - they thanked me for helping them and told me that they would avoid using double negatives in future and that they now understood that positive statements are less ambiguous and more appropriate for feedback in live forums (Military leadership communication training techniques like this became public knowledge in the 1980s, just like SMART goals and several other "new age" business and corporate training techniques, after the statute of limitations forbidding that the training was released to the public had expired). Most importantly there was no demeaning talking down, as if an anonymous volunteer role (or any role, for that matter) somehow made them a better person than me or more entitled to "respect" - Respect actually (literally) means taking steps to avoid either deliberate or accidental harm or offense, and has nothing to do with respectability (which means a higher status in a community and an entitlement to deference, like a knight or a governor). Many untrained and beginner leaders can confuse respect with respectability, and think that they or others need to "earn" "their respect" or that respect is due to them personally because of their role, rather than a universal obligation regarding monitoring their own behaviour. In service leadership, respect is a self discipline which is demanded of every single person in an organisation.

Service leadership is a good way of weeding out the sort of people who seek volunteer leadership roles in order to wield some sort of fake "power" that they would otherwise never be in a position to be responsible to administer. Service leaders and their teams don't obey people, they follow procedural processes and established organisational mission statements, codes of conduct and other written and quotable rules. In fact the only legislation that allows any volunteer in any organisation to give any sort of "command" that someone can be punished for failing to obey is emergency services law which e.g. allows for a volunteer fire officer to order personnel to evacuate a burning building. A service leader who needs to inflict punishment - i.e. an Australian commissioned or non-commissioned officer who applies to bring up a soldier of subordinate rank on a military charge is deemed to have failed and a black mark goes on their own record (not just on the record of the soldier they have charged), and massively decreases their own chances of promotion (not just the soldier's). Volunteer leaders need to learn to inspire team members to volunteer participation or contribution to tasks or projects rather than merely "throwing their weight around," giving orders or making demands as if other volunteers have less right to voice and choice: Any "orders" that they give can simply, after all, be met with the reply "I need to take a self-care break," especially if the person who they may have using their role to bully into tasks they didn't offer to help with, or who they may have been ignoring, overcriticising or otherwise disrespecting, becomes sick of being bullied or ordered around. The best example of service leadership I have ever seen was a plant company owner, director and manager who ran his company during the week and then regularly swapped roles with a plant operator who worked for him but on weekends and bivouacs became the commanding officer of the Army Reserves volunteer plant squadron where they both volunteered.

I can be an adequate service leader by making sure that any team members who I am responsible to lead will know that they are able to approach me with any question and I will either answer it or find out the right answer and will never invent an answer to pacify them; will know they are able to approach me with any personal or work issue and I will work with them to resolve it together; will know that if I do something that obstructs or offends them they can tell me and I will fix that error without getting angry or making a fuss or making "explanations" or excuses; will know that if they tell me that they have been hurt while working on my team that I will respond and make sure that they are offered and have access to any available assistance which I can find; will know that if they are behind in their work or having difficulty fulfilling a commitment that they can tell me and I will thank them for keeping me informed and make arrangements for them to get useful help; will know that if I pay them a compliment that it will be sincere and earned; will know that if they make effort that they will get credit and acknowledgement for that contribution; will know that I care about their welfare and safety far above their productivity; will know that I value their company and association, and will know that if there is an opportunity for feedback, advancement or reward for which they are eligible that I will ensure that they are made aware of and are able to access that opportunity equally and at the same time as others.

@Heather225

Questions: What do you think of the idea of service leadership? Service leadership creates a happier, more effective and productive team and as a result, performance improves accordingly. Also by putting others need in first, everyone will feel appreciate and instead of focus on the problem, the leader is the one who finds the solution.

Can you list one example of service leadership you have seen on 7 Cups?
Sharing circle or listener support help others member and listener feel like they're heard and a platform to express their need.

To become a better servant to my community, I need to come back to my volunteer role ( when this COVID blow over), become a better listener here and make a change when I can.

@Heather225

To me, service leadership is first of all to have a sense of relationship and the (sincere) will to be at the disposal of those who need it.

One example of service leadership on 7 Cups are the Listeners.They were my first contact on 7 cups and their sense of service convinced me that I will find what I need on 7 cups.

I can become a better "servant' to our community by learning from others and contributing, it will allow me to know what I am doing right and correct what is wrong.

@Heather225

A. Service leadership.

I think Service Leadership, instead of inflating the ego and emphasizing the Power of the

@Heather225
(continuation f my previous post)

C. I can become a better "servant' to our community by improving my skills, cultivating compassion and loving-kindness, and working with focus and dedication in any position I might serve in 7Cups.