In June, the Roundtable spoke with Dan Ebener, former Social Action Director (and Roundtable member) in the Diocese of Davenport, about his work and his latest book on Servant Leadership. Read their conversation here:
Roundtable Report: You’ve had a long history working in ministry and education. You were a diocesan social action director for twenty years, you’ve taught in universities and workshops on leadership, non-profit management, and conflict resolution, among other topics, throughout the years. Now you are director for Stewardship and Planning for the Diocese of Davenport and have recently written a book on servant leadership. How did you find yourself where you are today?
Dan Ebener: One part of my story may be of particular interest to Roundtable members. Very early in my social action ministry, at one of my very first Roundtable meetings in the 1980s, [first Roundtable secretariat] Harry Fagan got up and said, “If you’re not developing leaders, you might as well get out of this business.” That particular statement changed my whole approach to ministry.
At that time I was guilty of trying to do too much myself. I was not delegating and creating structures for others to get involved in my ministry. But from Harry Fagan I learned that we shouldn’t be doing it ourselves, we should develop the people so that the people will do it. Lao Tzu once said, “of the best leader, the people will say when the job is finished, we did it ourselves.”
This experience first changed my ideas about leadership. And now, as you can probably tell, I am very passionate about servant leadership. I feel like it’s my next calling in life.
RR: What is servant leadership? And where in Scripture do you find the foundations for servant leadership?
DE: Servant leadership is teaching and leading the way that Jesus taught and led. It’s about welcoming people and their ideas, encouraging the initiative of all, and building greater trust, commitment and cohesion among people. It about building a greater sense of mission.
I’ve been rereading the Sermon on the Mount during the past few months. Jesus says, “Where your treasure is there also your heart will be.” And I think what I’ve come to realize about the Sermon on the Mount is that it’s all about the heart.
Where the heart is, that’s a question central to servant leadership. Is my heart with the people, the mission of the organization, with God? Or is it with selfish interests and selfish motives? Is it willing to step on anybody until I get what I want? These are the questions of servant leadership that can transform ourselves, our churches, as well as corporations and society at large.
RR: In March 2010, you published a new book entitled Servant Leadership Models for Your Parish. Tell me more about that. What models do you offer for parishes in the book?
DE: My book is about how servant leadership changes how we do church. The thing that’s great about teaching leadership is that it applies to all walks of life. I teach at the graduate level and I see nurses, teachers, social workers, pastors, business leaders, coaches in my classes. All these people create an incredible learning environment to talk about and apply to leadership, because it applies to all those fields. However, we often overlook the way that leadership applies to the way that we do church.
One of the primary ways servant leadership works in a parish is that this model brings out the best in people, it welcomes their physical presence, their ideas, initiative, participation and leadership. To be truly welcoming is to open oneself up to the full personhood of those entering the parish, not just their physical presence. If people feel like they should be “seen, not heard,” that’s not welcoming.
What my research showed too is that servant leadership increased participation in parish life. When that leadership structure is in place, people are going to take their role as follower of Christ more seriously and sharpen the saw, train themselves, and develop themselves as leaders for social action. Servant leaders guide and nurture parishioners in that process.
The beginning of the book defines servant leadership. The middle is lots of stories of what it looks like in a parish. The last section puts servant leadership into various different models that could work for parishes. One of the great strengths of the book is the stories about how and why servant leadership works.
Roundtable Report: Can you share an example of one of the stories in your book? 
DE: One story from the smallest parish in the Davenport Diocese involves a guy who showed up for Mass 15 minutes early, and he noticed that the front door wasn’t swinging properly. So he went to his truck, pulled out a toolbox and fixed the door. He went to Mass and that was the end of it. But what’s significant about the story is that first, in a small parish, you can get things done smoothly and easily. Also, if the pastor of the church had seen him doing this, and asked him to stop and go through the building committee, see if it was in the budget, and fill out the paperwork, the guy would lose his initiative. A servant leadership model gives people a sense of ownership of their parish. That guy treated his church like his home. Of course, in a larger parish there are more rules. But the culture of a parish is contingent on the leadership of the pastor. It can either encourage or extinguish initiative. That story was just one simple story, but there are lots more in the book.
Roundtable Report: What are the trends you are seeing in the field of leadership, in our church and in our society?
DE: We’re in a kairos moment right now around servant leadership. There is interest mounting from lots of directions.
Take, for example, one organization called “Lead Like Jesus,” which was formed out of the evangelical churches. There are lots of evangelical Christians who are CEOs of corporations who are now looking at how they can lead their companies like Jesus would. This group has spurred a lot of interest around servant leadership in the for-profit world. The CEOs of these companies are realizing that they can’t lead like Jesus without changing the workplace. And, of course, changing the workplace in a significant way like this creates an opportunity to make major transformations in our society toward social justice and human dignity, particularly around the dignity of the worker, one of the principles of Catholic social teaching.
One of the first things I say in my book is, “Every leadership situation offers an opportunity to put our faith into practice.” In every leadership situation, a CEO of an organization has an opportunity to say, “Am I going to put my corporate hat on and think only of the financial bottom line? Or am I going to go with my gut and lead like Jesus would?” They are asking themselves how they can be disciples in the workplace.
And it’s had a great impact so far on a growing number of CEOs and top organizational leaders in very large corporations. Some 40% of Fortune 500 companies have adopted servant leadership as their philosophy. Walmart has adopted servant leadership as a corporate philosophy. We have strong Christian leaders in that company, southern evangelicals who want to practice their faith at work.
People want to practice their faith while at work. If we spend the greatest number of our waking hours at work, then we should be practicing our religion there. If corporate leaders want to practice the Sermon on the Mount at work, this could be a major breakthrough for us who believe in Catholic social action.
RR: How do the ideas of servant leadership and stewardship speak to the work of diocesan social action directors? How can promoting models of servant leadership support their work?
DE: In social ministry, we’re not looking for charismatic leaders. We are looking for transformational leaders who will create structures where people will do things themselves. We’re looking for leaders who will develop the people. As a diocesan staffperson, you can’t do it all yourself. If you try, you won’t be able to get as much done, and eventually you will burn out, but you’re also taking away the opportunity from others to get involved.
Leadership is about giving people an opportunity to practice discipleship. It’s not about work that needs to get done, it’s not about checking tasks off a “To Do” list, it’s a life that needs to be lived. The sooner we can all realize that social action ministry is a part of Christian discipleship, the sooner we will transform society.
As diocesan staffpeople, our role is to empower, enhance, and enable. Sometimes we think, “If I can just have this meeting, conference, dinner, then our social action ministry is going to excel.” But it’s not about that. It’s about the people. It’s about creating an environment where everyone practices social action ministry because it’s a part of discipleship.
When you go to community organizing school, we talk about the iron rule, which says, “don’t do unto others what they can do unto themselves.” Our role as social action ministers is empowerment. Our role is organizing, it’s not to be the leader ourselves. The best measure of leadership is not how many followers you lead but how many leaders you develop. Social action ministry just flows throughout my latest book. Everything I learned as a diocesan social action director just flows through the book.
RR: Anything else you’d like to share with Roundtable members?
DE: My bishop sent a copy of Servant Leadership Models for Your Parish to every bishop in the country. To get a copy to every pastor in the country will take diocesan work. Every diocesan social action director should know that his or her bishop has a copy of my book.
RR: Thank you, Dan, for your time and for sharing your insights!
Purchase a copy of Dan’s book from Paulist Press.
