by Bernie Bacosa

For our fraternity, the Greek letters of our name Beta Sigma stand for Brotherhood of Scholars. Through the times the fraternity has existed and will exist, must this meaning evolve? Is being a scholar - i.e. researcher, intellectual, a learned person, especially an academic specialist in one area of knowledge - what all of us have been and still aspire to be? The fact that the Beta Sigma fraternity is the most widespread fraternity in the Philippines gives reasonable doubt to the scholarly status of its members who had to leave the University of the Philippines but provides an undeniable proof of how its members have cascaded the leadership principles of the fraternity to the youth in our country’s other universities.

Thus, with all due respect to those among us who were and still are scholars, I propose that Beta Sigma cannot just mean to be the Brotherhood of Scholars. I propose that in these times and for the future, Beta Sigma also stands for the Brotherhood of Servant-Leaders.

Servant–leader? What is that oxymoron? How can that be me? Future batches of resident brothers who are servant-leaders?

Consider these:

“The greatest leader forgets himself and attends to the development of others. Good leaders support excellent workers. Great leaders support the bottom ten percent.” ~The Chinese sage Lao Tzu

"The king [leader] shall consider as good, not what pleases himself but what pleases his subjects [followers]. The king [leader] is a paid servant and enjoys the resources of the state together with the people". ~ Chanakya or Kautilya, the famous strategic thinker from ancient India, wrote in his 4th century B.C. book Arthashastra:

"You will find yourself in service to your fellow man, your country, and your God." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

"Life is a place of service. Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness." ~ Leo Tolstoy

"You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." ~ Mark 10:42-45

“Serve the people” – Mao Zedong

"Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Evidently, the concept of the leader as a servant has existed among different races and among people with diverse political or religious beliefs. While it can also be claimed that the concept of servant leadership has withstood the test of time, the term servant-leader was coined only in 1970 by a retired AT&T executive, Robert Greenleaf. It has been advanced by several authors such as Stephen Covey, Peter Block, Peter Senge, Max De Pree, Margaret Wheatley, Ken Blanchard, and others.

  * From Spears, L. (Fall, 2004). “Practicing Servant-Leadership” Leader to leader. No., 34, pp. 7-11.

      See http://www.leadertoleader.org/knowledgecenter/journal.aspx?ArticleID=51

A. Overall Responsibility

Servant-leaders are committed to three fundamental responsibilities:

1. Stewardship: Servant-leadership assumes first and foremost a commitment to serving the needs of others. They are stewards holding their institution in trust for the greater good of society. Servant-leadership emphasizes the leader's role as steward of the resources (human, financial and otherwise) provided by the organization. It encourages leaders to serve others while staying focused on achieving results in line with the organization's values and integrity. Ken Blanchard added: “Servant leadership involves placing the growth and development of people on par with accomplishing the (organization’s) vision”.

2. Commitment to the growth of people: The servant-leader is deeply committed to the growth of each and every individual within his or her institution. Servant-leaders believe that people have an intrinsic value beyond their tangible contributions as workers.

3. Building community: The servant-leader seeks to identify means for building community among those who work with a given institution. Greenleaf said: "All that is needed to rebuild a community as a viable life form for large numbers of people is for enough servant-leaders to show the way, not by mass movements, but by each servant-leader demonstrating his own unlimited liability for a quite specific community-related group."

B. Attitude

The servant-leader attitude is anchored on two overriding intentions in interacting with others:

4. Empathy: The servant leader believes that people need to be accepted and recognized for their special and unique spirit. The servant-leader strives to understand and empathize with others. He assumes the good intentions of people and does not reject them, even when one is forced to refuse to accept their behavior or performance.

5. Healing: Many people have broken spirits and have suffered from a variety of emotional hurts. Although this is a part of being human, servant-leaders recognize that they have an opportunity to "help make whole" those with whom they come in contact.

C. Managerial Skills

The management skills employed in servant leadership are commonly cited in many writings about leadership. But their potential is dramatically enhanced when interpreted within the responsibilities and attitudes listed above, and they are given a warmer, kinder, appeal.

6. Listening: Leaders have traditionally been valued for their communication and decision-making skills. Although these are also important skills for the servant-leader, they need to be reinforced by a deep commitment to listening intently to others. The servant-leader seeks to identify the will of a group and helps clarify that will. Listening also encompasses getting in touch with one's own inner voice, and seeking to understand what one's spirit, and mind are communicating. Listening, coupled with regular periods of reflection, is essential to the growth of the servant-leader.

8. Persuasion: Another characteristic of servant-leaders is reliance on persuasion, rather than on one's positional authority, in making decisions within an organization. The servant-leader seeks to convince others, rather than coerce compliance. This particular element offers one of the clearest distinctions between the traditional authoritarian model and that of servant-leadership. The servant-leader is effective at building consensus within groups.

9. Conceptualization: Servant-leaders seek to nurture their ability to "dream great dreams." The ability to look at a problem (or an organization) from a conceptualizing perspective means that one must think beyond day-to-day realities. The traditional manager is consumed by the need to achieve short-term operational goals. Servant-leaders

are called to seek a delicate balance between conceptual thinking and a day- to-day focused approach.

10. Foresight: Closely related to conceptualization is the ability to foresee the likely outcome of a situation, a characteristic that enables the servant-leader to understand the lessons from the past, the realities of the present, and the likely consequence of a decision for the future.

During these times and for the future, we, Beta Sigmans, have a choice of whether we want to build a fraternity of servant leaders or not. We need leaders who are committed to serving the need of our members and the Filipino youth to grow a successful and significant life in a flourishing Philippine society. Our youth and our country deserve servant-leaders because more than two decades after Filipinos toppled the Marcos authoritarian rule, corruption remains deeply ingrained in our country, family dynasties are still the major force in Philippine politics, the rule of law is still constantly sacrificed to political expediency, 7 out of every 10 Pinoys still consider themselves poor and our country’s peace and order situation continues to be unstable.

Cory Aquino who was given tribute by Time magazine as one of Asia’s most astonishing heroes despite the mixed and divided verdict on her term as president of our country, urges us Filipinos “to change first within ourselves and we have to continuously find out what it is that we can do to offer to our country.” Cory’s words may seem hollow to some but she may just be echoing the words of another Asian hero, Mahatma Gandhi:” You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”