In Fast Company, Jim Stuart, entrepreneur, Harvard Business School grad, and co-founder of the Leadership Circle, writes:

Leadership derives naturally from a commitment to service. You know that you're practicing servant leadership if your followers become wiser, healthier, more autonomous—and more likely to become servant leaders themselves.

I've led from a place of servant leadership, and I've led from a place of top-down leadership—and there's no question which kind of leadership is more effective. My classmates at Harvard Business School used to call me the Prussian General: For many years, that was my approach to leadership. Then I was hit by a series of personal tragedies and professional setbacks. My wife died. A mail-order venture that I had started went bankrupt. The universe was working hard to bring a little humility into my life. Rather than launch another business, I accepted a friend's offer to head an aquarium project in Tampa.

I spent the next six years in a job that gave me no power, no money, and no knowledge. That situation forced me to draw on a deeper part of myself. We ended up with a team of people who were so high-performing that they almost walk through walls. Why, I wondered, was I suddenly able to lead a team that was so much more resilient and creative than any team that I had run before? The answer: Somewhere, amid all of my trials, I had begun to trust my colleagues as much as I trusted myself.