I recall the first time I heard the term ‘servant leadership’, I also recall the amazement that I felt—knowing that there was a name for how I had often felt. I specifically remembering thinking, ‘wow, there’s a name for that?!’ and being amazed that it was an actual leadership philosophy.

I even recall the first time I experienced servant leadership. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Powell, who also ended up being my third grade teacher, taught me a lot about serving others. I had an arm injury that year and had missed a lot school and had fallen quite behind the others in reading. Add to that the fact that I was living in the local orphanage and moving in and out of some foster homes—I had missed quite a bit of school instruction leaving me well behind my peers with no ability to read well if even at all.

Mrs. Powell took a special interest in me and begin to talk with me about reading, work with me during school hours and even after school. She even went beyond anything expected and took me home with her on occasion; these times were formative to not only my reading but also to the spirit of who I am. She would take me to eat, drinking Shirley Temples and then settle down to some reading time. She would exclaim ‘wow, you are a good reader’, and ‘my, my my, what a special person you are’, and even ‘Mr. Powell—come hear Kathleen read—isn’t she good at this?’; she did not see me for what I was, she could see beyond this.

Servant leaders have this great ability, to see others for what they can become, for who they will and can be. I like how Greenleaf used the idea of foresight and I feel this is not limited to an organizational perspective, but would also include the idea of people. Some of the greatest leaders live beyond the moment, seeing into others the greatness and the potential that is there, even when others cannot see it at all.

My hope, in this servant leadership journey, is that I too can see beyond what people are today and see them as they are tomorrow, and serve them as such! What power we truly have as human beings to serve and touch the lives around us. Servant leadership is a power that can build others in a way that not only transforms them; it can also give them hope.

Since then I have encountered many others who have taken the time to invest in me and guide my journey in servant leadership, two of these would be Dr. Bruce Winston and Professor Larry C. Spears. These two men have taught me the importance of serving and loving others along the way, about being genuine with who you are, and never seeing anyone without seeing them further and deeper than what may be apparent.

I wonder what Mrs. Powell might think if she had known I would grow up just fine, marry and have three children of my own, and be inspired by her life all these years later. Perhaps not, but maybe so, at the least I like to think she probably knew I would move beyond those years and seek more from life beyond an orphanage, somehow I really think she knew that.

So, thank you Mrs. Powell, for teaching me about servant leadership, about foresight and about hope.

Dr. Patterson has been at Regent University since 1999, first with the School of Leadership Studies and now the School of Global Leadership & Entrepreneurship and currently serves as an Associate Professor. She is noted as an expert on servant leadership. She coordinates an annual Servant Leadership Research Roundtable on the east coast in Virginia Beach, Va., at Regent University, where, each year both scholars and practitioners meet together to engage in servant leadership discourse. In addition, she has co-coordinated two Global Servant Leadership Roundtables, the first one in 2008 which was in the Netherlands; and the second one is this upcoming June 2012 in Australia. Find out more at the Regent University web site.