M Thompson:

Those uncertainties can dog you in a never-ending but noble quest until you just go out and serve somebody. Builders from all over the world shared this recurring theme with us. Frances Hesselbein, chairman and founding president of the Leader to Leader Institute, formerly the Peter F Drucker Foundation, is best known for her leadership work with large organisations, universities, the US military, and her 13 years as CEO of the Girl Scouts of USA. She led the transformation of that vast non-profit organisation, which today has about 236,000 troops and almost a million volunteers. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998.

Hesselbein, like most Builders, believes that there is “a powerful synergy when you combine service to others with passion for your own mission, your own work.” “We are called to do what we do, and when we respond to that invitation, it is never a job. When we are called to serve and we respond, it is joy and fulfilment,” she noted. “The key to fulfilment is service and the key to leadership is not how to do, but rather how to be.” Author Ken Blanchard calls this Servant Leadership, wherein the goal of the leader is to promote not herself, but the goals of the organisation and careers of the people she leads. It’s all about alignment of what’s inside your heart and what the world needs. It’s about finding what you love and doing that to serve others. — Beliefnet.com (Concluded)