Perspectives on Servant Leadership

Utilizing Greenleaf’s framework of servant leadership, and key servant leader characteristics from the leadership and management literature, the chapter reviews Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s life and experiences as a transformative servant leader. Relying on historical records, and evidence from select published literature, I trace the influence and impact of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa as a servant leader. The chapter also emphasizes the conscious leadership choices of Sri Ramakrishna in serving his followers. Sri Ramakrishna grew up in a small village in rural India in 1836. He did not receive any formal education. During his lifetime, he mentored and developed followers from diverse backgrounds during a time when rigid caste, gender, and religious identities predetermined and perpetuated one’s position and status in society. His close followers included an unusual collective of urban and college educated youth, as well as other older members, and included women. All who came in close contact with Sri Ramakrishna were transformed by his life and teachings. In receiving his training, mentorship, and teachings, close followers were persuaded to transform their own lives and lifestyles, and in turn came to be identified as transformative servant leaders. Within a decade of Sri Ramakrishna’s passing in 1886, his followers drew national and international attention to his work particularly in India and the USA. Sri Ramakrishna stirred a huge transformational shift in diverse streams of religious, spiritual, cultural, social, and political consciousness. The ideals of spirituality, service, and worship informed the values and leadership style of Sri Ramakrishna. His disciples embodied these values and, in their pathbreaking work in India, and the USA, contributed toward the regeneration of a wider societal view of spiritual well-being.