Leadership True North: Are You Here to Serve Yourself or Others?

There's a question I ask leaders when things aren't working.

Not about process. Not about the project plan.

I mean it directly: why are you leading?

Are you here to build the capability of the people around you? Or are you here because you need to be the one who knows the answers?

That gap — that small, uncomfortable question — explains more project failures, more team dysfunction, and more change resistance than any methodology gap I've encountered.

The mirror test

Servant leadership has been written about extensively since Greenleaf. Most of the writing buries the essential challenge in technique.

The essential challenge is simpler and harder: can you honestly call your persistent leadership priority the good of those you lead?

Not in the inspiring speech. Not in the all-hands. On a Tuesday afternoon when you're tired and someone on your team is struggling — do you stay with them, or move to the next thing on your list?

That's the mirror test.

What gets in the way

Control feels like competence. Telling people what to do feels faster than helping them figure it out themselves. Being the one with the answers feels valuable.

And organizations often reward it — at least in the short term.

The problem is that control-oriented leadership doesn't scale and doesn't stick. Teams become dependent, passive, disengaged the moment the leader isn't watching. Change efforts get compliance, not adoption.

There's also the drama triangle to contend with — the pattern where leaders unconsciously move between victim, persecutor, and rescuer. The triangle keeps spinning. Capability never develops. Everyone stays stuck.

The shift

A service orientation in leadership isn't passive or deferential. It's the difference between what do I need to demonstrate here and what does this person need from me right now.

It shows up as: asking before advising. Creating conditions before demanding results. Building the capability to get it done without you — and genuinely wanting that outcome.

The best test, as Greenleaf wrote, is whether the people being led grow. Do they become more capable, more autonomous, more likely to develop others?

If yes — you're leading in the right direction. If not — it's worth asking what your leadership is actually for.

True north isn't complicated. It's just honest.

Are you building people, or building your reputation as a builder of people? The work looks similar from the outside. The outcomes are very different.