Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom

Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom

by Matt Tenney
Released May 2014
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781118868461

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Book description

Do you aspire to be a more effective leader who guides your team or organization to higher levels of lasting success? Would you like to look forward to each day and know that you are having a positive impact on the world around you?

This is possible for everyone, regardless of your title or position. In fact, Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom will train you to make this a reality. Although it's not an easy process, it is a worthwhile one.

By making a shift in your approach to leadership, you can become a highly effective leader who enjoys your work and makes the world a better place. The shift is simply a matter of gradually becoming more focused on how you can serve others and increase your capacity to do so. Being an extraordinary leader does not require a MBA or PhD. The reality is that anyone can be a great leader.

Author Matt Tenney has survived - and thrived - in situations where most people would have been quickly broken. In Serve to Be Great, he offers his life experiences and unique insights to help leaders apply the powerful principles of servant leadership. Servant leaders are not weak or timid. Motivated by the aspiration to serve, they achieve true power by empowering others to achieve excellence.

This is a practical guide to becoming a leader people want to follow. By shifting focus from short-term gain to serving others, leaders can create great workplace cultures that deliver superior, long-term results. Serve to Be Great is the perfect playbook for realizing the ultimate in personal and business success.

In keeping with the spirit in which Serve to Be Great was written, all author proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to charity.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Praise for Serve to Be Great
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Foreword
  7. Introduction
    1. Notes
  8. Part 1: My Journey Fromprisoner to Monk to Social Entrepreneur
    1. Chapter 1: My Greatest Failure
      1. Finding Opportunity in Disaster
    2. Chapter 2: From Selfish to Servant
      1. The Practice That Changed My Life
      2. What If Businesses Operated in This Way?
      3. The Power of Servant Leadership
      4. The Essence of Leadership
      5. Serving by Helping Organizations Develop Extraordinary Leaders
      6. Notes
  9. Part 2: Serve to be Great: The Business Case
    1. Chapter 3: Winning the War for Talent
      1. Attracting Top Talent
      2. Fully Engaged People
      3. Improving Retention
      4. Notes
    2. Chapter 4: Creating a Highly Innovative Culture
      1. Linking Innovation Directly to Profit
      2. What Does Being Innovative Actually Mean?
      3. Building a Highly Innovative Culture
      4. Why Serving and Caring for People Results in a Highly Innovative Culture
      5. Notes
    3. Chapter 5: Delivering World-Class Customer Service
      1. Quantifying the ROI in Customer Service
      2. How Great Leaders Inspire World-Class Customer Service
      3. Developing Employees Who Wow Your Customers
      4. Notes
    4. Chapter 6: Why Serving Others Is a Highly Effective Marketing Tactic
      1. Smarter, More Enjoyable Marketing
      2. Marketing with the Spirit of Service
      3. Notes
  10. Part 3: Making the Shift: Becoming the Ultimate Leader
    1. Chapter 7: Making Serving a Habit
      1. An Easy Way to Jump in to the Top 1 Percent
      2. Action Is Most Important
      3. The Habit of Serving Others
      4. The Little Things Matter
      5. What a Teenager Dying of Cancer Taught Me about Leadership
      6. Notes
    2. Chapter 8: Grow by Empowering Others
      1. Empowered People Equal Better Results
      2. Empowering Others Helps Us Become the Ultimate Leaders
      3. Notes
    3. Chapter 9: Inspire Greatness
      1. Start with Why
      2. The Gift of Inspiration
      3. Values That Inspire and Guide the Way
      4. Character That Inspires
      5. True Greatness
      6. Self-Sacrifice: The Ultimate Test of Character
      7. Notes
    4. Chapter 10: Measuring the Right Things
      1. Measuring the Intangibles in Business
      2. Be Goals versus Do Goals
      3. Notes
    5. Chapter 11: Becoming the Ultimate Leader
      1. Becoming the Ultimate Leader Is Enjoyable
      2. Staying Cool under Pressure
      3. The Ultimate Tool for Becoming the Ultimate Leader
      4. Making a Profit While Making a Difference
      5. Notes
  11. Afterword
  12. Author's Note
  13. Serve Your Team
  14. Connect with Matt
  15. About the Author
  16. Acknowledgments
  17. Appendix: A Quick Start Guide to Mindfulness Training
    1. Awareness Training in Activity
    2. Awareness Training in Stillness
  18. Index
  19. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom
  • Author(s): Matt Tenney
  • Release date: May 2014
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781118868461