Pope Gregory The Great Wrote The Book On Servant Leadership
Gregory was a good guy. He had wealth and gave it away. He saw chaos and provided order. He inspired leaders in his own time down to today. He really earned the honorific epithet “The Great.”
Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) was born in Rome to a senatorial family with the bluest of blood. They were wealthy and powerful. His great grandfather had been a pope.
Gregory was born when Emperor Justinian ruled in Constantinople and sent General Belisarius to Italy to reconquer it and bring it back into the empire. It worked, but a few years later the Lombards marched in and conquered most of Italy. It was a time of political chaos.
Despite the upheavals, Gregory went out and achieved anyway. He was made urban prefect of Rome in 572, which was kinda the mayor of Rome, one of the highest political offices of the time. His career was on a rocket ship.
Two years later, he packed it in to become a monk and lead a contemplative life. He turned one of his family’s estates on the east side of Rome into a monastery, pulled up a chair, grabbed a glass of wine, and got to reading some books.
Gregory probably would have been content to read by the fire, but that was not his lot. The pope sent him to Constantinople as papal representative from 579-585, and then Gregory returned to Rome to become the abbot of the monastery he founded.
Finally, he was ready to enjoy some peace and quiet. Except fate had other plans. He was unanimously elected as pope in 590. D’oh!
After decades of war on the Italian peninsula, Rome didn’t have much of a functioning government. So Gregory stepped in and took over the city’s civil administration.
He focused on the basics, ensuring that the grain supply flowed in (so the people would not starve) and that payments flowed out to the Lombards (so they would not attack the city). You’ve been busy at work, yes, but you ain’t got nothing on Pope Gregory I.
Despite the daily struggle to survive, Gregory found time to correspond with leaders around Europe. He famously sent the first missionaries to Britain to Christianize the pagan Anglo-Saxons. He welcomed the King of the Visigoths in Spain into the catholic fold.
Pope Gregory exchanged letters across the Alps with Queen Brunhilda of the Franks. He invited Queen Theodelinda of the Lombards to court to smooth things over and improve relations. He would find a way to peace using diplomacy and relationships where fighting had failed.
All of that was just prelude to Gregory’s most lasting impact, that of reform within the church. He was the first pope to make his official title “Servant of the Servants of God,” which remains the title of the pope to this day.
Pope Gregory knew that as leader of the church, he could impact the daily lives of Christians all over the world - but he couldn’t do it directly. He had to work through his team. The pope was in charge of the bishops. The bishops were in charge of the priests. The priests were there to aid the lives of the people. So Gregory stepped in to lead the leaders.
Gregory wrote Pastoral Care, a four-volume book with guidelines for bishops and priests to lead their churches wisely and to live their own lives morally. Gregory stressed that the pastor existed to serve his flock, not the other way around. The four parts of the book cover important leadership topics, then and now:
1) Recruiting the right people into the organization and its leadership roles
2) Explaining how leaders set the example by their own lives every day
3) Dealing with the various types of people within the leader’s flock
4) Warning that those in authority should guard against personal ambition
Pastoral Care is important because it impacted the lives of millions of people over more than a thousand years. It did this by training the leaders who were responsible for their care. It was one of the most copied works in all of the Middle Ages, and its lessons are valid for leaders even today.
Pope Gregory the Great wrote the book on servant leadership. It’s more than 1,400 years old, and it stands up today. He tried to make the world a better place. While he would have preferred a quiet life, he repeatedly stepped up to challenges that arose in a challenging time. He served with humility, putting people at the center of all his work.
His high standards for himself and his organization set him apart during his own time, and even more so when the comically corrupt popes followed him onto the papal throne in the following centuries. But not Gregory. He led by example. Not many people are honored with “The Great” in their name, but he earned it for sure.
Pastoral Care is the original leadership training manual. Everyone knows that leaders make the difference in organizations, but not every organization spends the time and effort to train their leaders on how to lead.
In fact, once you’re in middle management, it’s kind of expected that you already know how to lead, and most middle managers are too embarrassed (or too busy) to ask for the training they need. And so everyone suffers.
Good leaders know that it’s not about them. It’s about their team. Sure, the leader might have a big office and a big bonus, but a big ego can get in the way of the big job: actually leading.
There is no leader who can’t get a little bit better. There is no leader who can’t learn a new idea that makes them a bit better for their team. There is no organization that only picks the right people to lead. There is no organization that trains every leader perfectly.
But every organization could try a little harder, put a little more focus on leadership training. The benefits are huge, compounding over time. So take a note from Gregory and spend a few minutes reading up by the fire, reflecting on how to be the best you can be for your team.
