EP 76 | The Servant Leader's Dilemma: Are You Sacrificing Too Much?

In this episode of Being in the Arena, Zach Arend delves into the intricacies of servant leadership, urging entrepreneurial leaders to recognize the importance of self-service before serving others. Through a candid exploration of the seven levels of leadership, Zach challenges leaders to reevaluate their approach and find balance between serving others and serving oneself. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion on leadership, compassion, and self-care.

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TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Welcome to being in the arena, a podcast for entrepreneurial leaders. Who want to grow their impact, their influence. And bill that make a bigger difference. In the lives of those, they lead.

Welcome to being in the arena. A podcast for entrepreneurial leaders looking to create more, what they.

Welcome to being in the arena, a podcast for entrepreneurial leaders. Wanting to put themselves in the arena of their own lives so they can create more of what they want in their businesses and on their teams and for themselves personally, more freedom impact. And influence and how they approach leadership in today's episode. I want to share a little bit, uh, of a common thread that has continued to show up. In the dialogues during my events that I've been hosting throughout the year.

And in these events, I introduce leaders to the seven levels of leadership. And these seven levels are a powerful self-awareness framework to help you really understand why things are occurring to you the way they are, because there's a reason for why things are the way they are. There's a reason for why. Um, one individual and one business over here. Feels alive and thriving and just constantly creating new opportunities and they love what they do. And then yet this other business over here. The leader feels stuck, drained, overwhelmed, exhausted.

Why is that? What is the difference between that thriving leader and that thriving entrepreneur and the one that feels overwhelmed and stocked? What is the difference? This seven law, these seven levels help you see exactly what the difference, what is different about this person versus this person?

And what does that mean for you is now you can start to look closer at who you're being. That's the seven levels of leadership and level four is one that I love digging in with people. Level four is we'll call it the servant leader at level four leaders tend to show up with a lot of compassion. They love giving and contributing and helping. People having an impact on people's lives. Uh, I don't know why, but. I think I know why. But I tend to attract this type of leader.

Srimati giving extremely compassionate. The those that I tend to work with and tend to come to my events. They're not in a position of leadership or even entrepreneurship. They're not really in it just to make money. Or even for the lifestyle, for sure. That's a component of it. But in their heart, they want to make an impact.

Like that's their they're so impact driven. Like it, it is almost an obsession. To make a bigger impact. In the lives of others. And so the servant leader always resonates with every one of my attendees. It resonates with me. And in each one of the seven levels as I show them to you, right. We walk through these and help help you see. How these levels are showing up for it for you and your day to day and how it's impacting their results or lack thereof in certain areas of your life.

Well, the servant leader is interesting. Because it's very tricky. You know, servant leaders, compassionate givers, helpers, we, we want to be of service to others. Like that's where we, we find a lot of meaning and fulfillment. And there's advantages and disadvantages of each one of the levels. And the advantages of the servant leader are probably already quite clear compassion.

It feels great to help people. It fills you up. It fills your cup. Yeah. Those were the advantages. The disadvantages though. It's far too often. We w we get a little confused around servant leadership and we make it so much about giving and we add words in there, like sacrifice and. And being selfless. Humble. And it's not about me.

It's about you. We kind of fall into these, these. Cultural stories like this is throughout the fabric of our, of a. Of our world today, it's been around for a long time. That this idea of to be the servant leader, you must make sacrifices and be selfless. You know, we've written books out there. Uh, There's a book out there called leaders eat last. Uh, the it's just it's drew out our culture. That leadership is a, one of sacrifice.

The leader is. Is the one that is to serve. The greater good. And. In spirit. Like if we really look like I would, I'm not disagreeing with any of that.

But then also, I don't know if it's really about when the leader eats, whether they eat first or lie. I think we turn, we turn this into an intellectual exercise and we've lost the heart. Of servant leadership and the true heart. Cause I think there's a difference between servant leadership and being a heart centered leader. And I think the pure intent when I'm teaching level four, it's really, I've been calling it the servant leader because it resonates, but it's really being the heart centered leader. Because the disadvantages of being the servant leader. And fall into the cultural traps of what we believe.

Servant leadership is. It's not long. And at some point you get to the point of like, what about me? What about me? I've been giving, giving, giving. And, and. And now resentment starts to creep in and exhaustion and burnout. Because we can't not say no. We are always throwing ourselves in sacrificing ourselves to help others in the good, for the good of others we're doing what we're supposed to do.

And all that ends, all we end up with is feeling spent. And have nothing left to give. That's the trap of servant leadership and frankly, it's it's it's because we've misunderstood. What Subaru servant leadership truly is. It's it's heart centered leadership. And what that means is. You know, the disadvantages is we.

We forget that it has much to do with serving ourselves is it has to do a serving others. Being a servant leader, a pure true heart-centered servant leader requires you to also make sure. You're serving yourself.

That you're, you're loving yourself. And that's why I do not like words like sacrificing yourself. Like, but it's a bunch of bullshit. Yeah. Like don't sacrifice yourself. Like you don't have to do that. You don't have to do that. I can create for sure. There's some scenarios that I'm like, you know, And I'm kinda, I'm a guy and I'm thinking of some war stories.

I'm thinking of like, yeah, there might be some times on the battlefield where the honorable thing to do as a sacrifice yourself. For, for the team. But I, I think. Bringing the war metaphors into day-to-day. I think that's. I think that's. Totally. I don't know, I'm, I'm not an agreement with that because that, that war battle and what, what our soldiers get like that is a whole different level.

Like, come on. Let's not mix metaphors here, but that's what we do li well, I need to sacrifice myself for the tea and make sure, but it's not sustainable because. The business needs you at your best, your team needs you at your best. And if you're constantly sacrificing yourself, And run around on empty. You're hurting yourself and you're hurting your team more than helping. And that's the truth. So, what is the servant leadership?

Like? How do we like pure level for what I've helped leaders see is, is you have to first serve yourself. So that you can serve others. In fact, You have to learn to be selfish. And we don't know how to do that. We haven't been taught how to be selfish. And I am not parked talking about like this ego center, narcissistic selfishness.

Self-absorbed. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about like capital L S S capital S selfish.

Coming from a place of self. Because frankly, I don't, if you don't do that, I don't know how this works. For you to be a heart center leader, you have to come from your heart yourself. That's my definition of self your heart. So I want you to be okay if we, if the selfish kind of triggers, I want you to be a heart filled leader. Full of heart.

And that means you got to bring yourself a hundred percent of the game. And if you ultimately want to serve. You first have to serve yourself so that you can serve others because you're, if you're cupping full, you have nothing to give. And that makes sense. It's common sense, but it's not common practices.

It. We that makes sense. Yet, we don't do it. We give and give and give at the expense of ourself. To where at the end of the day, we're exhausted. And if that's resonating with you, you get to have you going to make a choice. And you get to start asking yourself, I'm going to invite you to ask yourself this question. How is this serving me really?

And if you can't see how it's serving you. What would have to be different for it to truly serve you? Because. I see so many, even in even like managers and lower level individuals in inside companies, they, they show up with a lot of servant leadership, energy, like kind of like. How can I help you? What can I do to help?

Right. But it's kind of a hat in hand. I'm here to do whatever you need me to do. And I think that's selling yourself short. Because I would much rather you show up. And if I had a team, you know, for my team, I want them showing up. Telling me what they would love to do. How, tell me what you would love to do to help. I want you to come in service and a spirit of service, but I also want you to bring your whole heart.

What would you love to do to help here? What would you love your contribution to be now? You're kind of bringing yourself to the game. You're not just coming hat in hand and oh, hi, Mr. Ho, how can I help you today? Like, no, I'm not interested in that, that apologetic helping mode out at night. Like, I want you to have an opinion. I think you do too. I want you to bring your whole self to the game.

What would you love to do to help? What would you love to do to contribute to the outcome here? And that's the difference. And if you're doing that, you're serving yourself. While in service to others. And that's how you prevent yourself from falling into the trap of, of resentment. You have to serve yourself.

So. Can you connect the dots? To service and yourself and bring both to the game. Where in your business, where on your team, in your, in, in your place of work, might you be sacrificing yourself actually? At the expense of your ability to serve fully. And what would be different if you were to serve yourself first? What would have to change? And here's what happens when you start to do this? To bring yourself fully to the game, serving yourself so that you can serve others massive impact.

That's when we get into the levels five, six, and seven, which is ultimately where all the extraordinary results are created. If you look out there and all that, The leaders you most admire this most successful entrepreneurs. They get this. And they're able to move beyond this level four. And fully embrace who they are and bring everything to the game and have massive impact on those around them. And that's what we get into at levels five and six and seven.

And that's what we get into. And when those that come to attend my events like leading in the arena or, or company workshops, we really explore this who you're being and how you can access these higher levels of leadership. But it starts and I'm giving you the first step. It starts with you learning to love yourself and stop setting yourself aside for the expense of others. When you start bringing your heart to this and making sure you're serving yourself, it opens news new doors for you.

And that's really where the work begins. And so. I would love to hear from you. Like if you're listening to this podcast and come find me on Instagram at, at Zack. Dot errand or find me on LinkedIn. Uh, drop me a DM. I'd love to know if you've been listening, what you're getting out of this. Um, even more specifically, how you might be. Um, Learning to serve yourself more so that you can serve others and what that is for you, because it's very unique.

It's a very personalized journey. There's not one size fits all here. And so I'd love to hear from you. I appreciate you listening to the show. Uh, Yeah. And we'll see in the next episode. Thank you.