Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More
How to Inspire and Equip Those We Influence
Art Barter is the Founder and CEO of Servant Leadership Institute. In this episode, find out how he took servant leadership and implemented it in Datron World Communications, Inc., a company he bought when it was doing $10 million in annual revenue. After just 6 years of adopting the new form of leadership, Datron was transformed into a $200 million company.
We’re here to inspire and equip those we influence. – Art Barter
Datron World Communications aims to positively impact the lives of others not only today, but in the future. It’s about the whole relationship with the customer, not just the selling process.
I believe that serving is a learned behavior. – Art Barter
Art believes that everybody is a leader, because everybody influences someone. The flow of information coming into our heads is so massive that the feeling to serve is no longer natural. In today’s world, we need to help bring out the desire to help people.
What Art did to help his employees live the company’s mission and purpose was to give them the power to choose which charities they want to donate the company’s charity fund to. In total, his employees have donated over $15 million to charitable institutions close to their hearts.
Art openly admitted that servant leadership implementation was the toughest thing he has ever done as a leader, because he was trying to change people’s behavior, starting with his own. At the same time, he needed to produce results by managing payroll, company expenses, and keeping healthy profits. He could not put his employee’s paychecks on hold while he was transitioning the company culture to servant leadership.
You don’t need permission from anyone in your company to treat people with dignity and respect. – Art Barter, responding
If you are in an organization that doesn’t quite buy into the servant leadership concept, start with your own behaviors. Be the type of leader you want to be, and let that shine through.
In God we trust, in people we invest. – posted on the wall in Art’s building lobby
What You’ll Learn
- What servant leadership looks like inside an operating for-profit business
- How and why we should be implementing servant leadership within a business
- Why “serving” is a learned behavior
- How Art’s employees were able to donate over $15 million to charities
- How Art bought a company and exploded its revenue from $10M to $200M in just 6 years
- Why servant leadership implementation was the toughest thing Art has ever done as a leader
- What to say to leaders who don’t believe in servant leadership
Resources
- Servant Leadership Institute
- Farmer Able
- The Servant Leadership Journal
- The Art of Servant Leadership
Bio
Using his passion for servant leadership, Art Barter was able to demonstrate the power of this leadership technique, not by lecturing or writing about it, but by doing it first.
After purchasing Datron World Communications in 2004, he began to dismantle the company’s traditional power-led management style and replaced it with the servant leadership model. After years of hard work, not only were the employees of Datron happier, they were more efficient. As a result, Datron grew from a $10 million company to a $200 million company in just 6 years.
In order to spread his passion for servant leadership, Art founded the Servant Leadership Institute in 2010. Since its inception, the Institute has developed a powerful curriculum with over 45 hours of training, more than half a dozen books and booklets, as well as webinars, podcasts and articles all geared toward empowering others to become effective servant leaders.
