Better Tomorrow: A Personal Perspective on Servant Leadership

By Dave Dow

“Better Tomorrow” is a quick read for adults that encourages readers to showcase servant leadership in action and not just through words. It provides practical and relevant advice to management and guidance. The leadership concepts in this book is backed by the author’s life stories, and 35-year experience as a leader, lecturer, college professor, and missionary.

This is definitely a must-have leadership skills book for any visionary who is looking for growth and wants to create and lead a better future!

Testimonials:

“Dave Dow shares a revelatory look at Servant leadership and its essential role in creating a better tomorrow. Dave tells it like it is so that the reader can apply it in their organization and in their personal life-a must read. In these troubled times, the message is essential and inspirational.” Dr. Ronald F Cichy, O.M.,Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University.

“Dave Dow’s Better Tomorrow is a wonderful contribution to the work on servant leadership. Dave is an experienced leader and teacher. He spent many years in a company devoted to servant leadership. He speaks directly to younger, developing leaders and generously shares what he has learned about how to bring servant leadership alive for yourself and your people.” Dr. Joseph B. White, President and Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois; Dean and Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan

“Dave Dow is the embodiment of ‘Servant Leadership’. In this book, he weaves personal and professional stories into a lattice that illustrates his own servant leadership in action while compelling the reader to create a better future for everyone in their world. This message is more important now than ever as leaders navigate the awesome responsibility of serving others.” Nicole Mouskondis, Co-CEO, Nicholas and Company

“Dave Dow has an exceptional way of creating thought-provoking reflections on what it means to serve. For anyone already in a management role, or just starting out in the workforce, this book has the power to open your mind and delve deeper into what it means to be a Servant Leader. His anecdotes will make you smile or hit you hard as you relate to your own personal experiences and how you handled similar situations. And remember, ‘When you are home, belong to the family’”. Debbie Gust, President, WOW Factor Desserts

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663200433

Dave Dow

David Dow was born and raised in Saginaw, Michigan. He attended Central Michigan University where he graduated in 1971 with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. It was at CMU that David met his bride Carole as they have been happily married for 50 years and have a son and daughter and seven grand children. Upon graduating from Central Michigan University, David worked for the foodservice division of the H.J. Heinz Co. In 1974 he was hired by Gordon Food Service (GFS) and spent the next 35 years in many capacities with this family owned company. He retired from GFS in 2014. David has been an adjunct professor at Michigan State University where he developed and then taught a class on the Foodservice Distribution Channel for five years. He also did volunteer mission work in Honduras and Uganda. He currently spends his time as frequent lecturer on leadership, consulting and serving on three Board of Directors.

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 Dave Dow.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-0044-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-0043-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021900835

iUniverse rev. date: 01/19/2021

This book is

dedicated to my family, who have lived the dream with me. I especially want to thank my wife, Carole; daughter, Jodi Christensen; and lifelong friend Dave Vickery, who assisted in editing this book. I want to give special thanks to Dr. Ronald F. Cichy, OM, professor emeritus, Michigan State University, for encouraging me to share my thoughts on servant leadership and for his counsel on producing the book.

I don’t know what your destiny will be—but one thing I do know. The only ones among you who will really be happy are those who have sought and found how to serve!

—Dr. Albert Schweitzer

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1 What is Your Role?

Chapter 2 Why Me?

Chapter 3 My Cornerstone

Chapter 4 Passion vs. Obsession

Chapter 5 Remember from Where You Came

Chapter 6 Practical and Relevant

Chapter 7 Coach to a Better Tomorrow

Chapter 8 Empower vs. Power

Chapter 9 Involve Me and I Will Learn

Chapter 10 Are You Listening to Me?

Chapter 11 You are the Voice

Chapter 12 I Care

Chapter 13 Be an Encourager

Chapter 14 Ask before You Blast

Chapter 15 Do the Little Things

Chapter 16 Behavior Begets Behavior

Chapter 17 Blind Spot vs. Blind Eye

Chapter 18 The Rating Wrench

Chapter 19 Culture Cops

Chapter 20 Walk Your Talk

Chapter 21 A Self-Test on Being a Servant Leader

Chapter 22 The Harvest

Selected Bibliography

About the Author

PREFACE

When I first heard of the concept of servant leadership when attending a lecture by Max DePree, the former CEO of the Herman Miller Company in Holland, Michigan, I was hooked. The concept he revealed centered on the manner in which leaders treat people (one’s clients, one’s employees, one’s suppliers) and how this is the cornerstone of some of the most successful companies in the United States. His message reinforced the manner in which I was being taught and led, and gave me a name to attach to the environment for which I had been nurtured by the Gordon family of Gordon Food Service in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Over the span of my career at Gordon Food Service, I had the opportunity to learn the concept of servant leadership from Paul, John Sr., Dan, John Jr., and Jim Gordon. Servant leadership is about lessons learned not by reading books or viewing PowerPoint presentations or paging through three-ring binders but, rather, by watching the Gordons on how they lived their lives and led their company. This concept has become a lifelong mission for me to share as I have given hundreds of lectures to many disciplines in a number of countries.

Better Tomorrow is a compilation of my learning from thirty-five years of leadership—a study supported by anecdotes rather than academic research or studies—and contains both the positive and negative experiences from a lifetime of trying to lead in a way that builds future leaders, while focusing on the success metrics of today: servant leadership. The need to understand and execute this strategy is as much needed for today’s leaders as it was with leaders thirty years ago.

One of the definitions of servant leadership that I have read comes from Robert K. Greenleaf in his book The Servant as Leader, in which he writes:

The servant leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve first. Then a conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types.

My definition of a servant leader is quite simple. A servant leader is