History

New in the Catalog

The Case for Servant Leadership by Dr. Kent M. Keith, Greenleaf Center CEO, is now available. The 85-page book cites the universal importance of service, defines servant leadership, compares the power model of leadership with the service model, describes some key practices of servant-leaders, and explores the meaningful lives of servant-leaders. To buy copies of the book, click here.

Servant leader Howard Behar has written a book about the leadership principles that he used to build Starbucks. The Greenleaf Center is grateful to Mr. Behar for donating half the royalties to the Center. To buy copies of his book, click here.

Robert K. Greenleaf (1904-1990) founded the Center in 1964 as the Center for Applied Ethics. Greenleaf was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and spent most of his organizational life in the field of management, research, development, and education at AT&T. Just before his retirement as Director of Management Research at AT&T, he held a joint appointment as visiting lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and the Harvard Business School. He also held teaching positions at Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia.

When Greenleaf retired from AT&T in 1964, he launched a new career as speaker, writer, and consultant. Greenleaf coined the term "Servant Leadership," and wrote and spoke extensively on the subject. In 1970 he published "The Servant as Leader," an essay which launched the servant leadership movement in the United States. (See our Online Catalog for "The Servant as Leader" and "Classic Greenleaf.") The Center was renamed the Robert K. Greenleaf Center in 1985.

Robert Greenleaf served as the President and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Center from 1964 to 1984. Since then, those serving as Board Chair have been Gerald Rapp (1984-1988), Jim Tatum (1988-1993), Andy Morikawa (1993-1996), Jack Lowe, Jr. (1996-2008), and Richard R. Pieper, Sr. (2008-present). The staff has been led by Dick Broholm (1984-1988), Kate Crane (1988-1989), Larry Spears (1990-2007), and Kent Keith (2007-present).

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