Servant Leadership Coach

The last three years it has been my honor to serve as a leadership coach for the Servant Leadership Institute (SLI) at Concordia University Irvine. The SLI was designed to bring teams of leaders from public, private, and charter schools to the university campus in Irvine, California, twice during a year for professional learning related to servant leadership. The first campus retreat is in May and the second in early winter (January or February). During this time attendees hear high level speakers share stories and words of inspiration related to servant leadership. A servant leader is a leader who strives to help others succeed (Greenleaf, 1977). A servant leader is one who can lift others up with positive comments and support. Servant leadership refers to someone who is a servant first, putting the needs of others before their own (Greenleaf, 1970).  

At each SLI the attendees are encouraged to select a Kaizen challenge to work on as a team during the year. Kaizen means “to seek harmony through continuous improvement” (Prošić, 2011, p. 173). Imai (1986) determined Kaizen to be based on Japanese philosophy of management. The concept is to start small and grow continually and gradually through teamwork and planning.

A value-add to the SLI experience is that each team is assigned a coach for the year. The coach provides support and facilitation of discussions to help move the Kaizen challenge from an idea to reality. For me, this has meant using my executive coaching background to coach three different school leadership teams.

I met in person once a month for one hour with the teams I was assigned. I brought water and snacks to each meeting. I came prepared with the agenda and was the note taker. However, my primary role was facilitator and listener. The teams came up with the ideas, I just guided the discussion and asked inquiry questions. I took notes and developed the agenda as a way of keeping the team on track and to document a collective memory.

During the 2022-2023 year, I was assigned a team from a public school in southern California. This school chose “family literacy” as their Kaizen challenge. Each month they brainstormed ways to help families understand and support their child(ren) with literacy. Together we wrote a small grant to support the work. Among the many activities they developed, they hosted a highly successful parent reading day. I have remained in touch with this school, and they reported their reading test scores have improved. It is the belief of their leadership team that this improvement has come in part due to the intentional focus on family literacy as their Kaizen area-of-focus. 

In 2023-2024, I was assigned to a private school. This school already had many successful programs developed so it took a bit longer to determine their Kaizen challenge. They focused on mental wellness. A part of this focus was having a parent night and inviting a highly recognized expert in mental health to speak to the parents. They also targeted two grade levels for pilot mental health lessons developed in collaboration with the school counselor. Recently, the school counselor shared that the lessons have now expanded to other grade levels and the school is piloting “Resilient Minds: Christ-centered mental health curriculum” from Concordia Publishing House.

This year (2024-2025) I have the pleasure of working with a large public elementary school. During the servant leadership Kaizen challenge brainstorm, this school realized many of their over 100 staff members do not know each other. They made the intentional decision to spend the year focusing on staff relationships. Each month a different relationship-building activity was planned. For example, at the December staff meeting, they divided the staff into groups and each group was given a gingerbread house to make as a team. The day was delightful with lots of relationship building and even some competition as the gingerbread houses were designed.

A common thread in working with all three schools was that a shared vision was established, (as a component of the Kaizen challenge), to inspire collective action in improving the school culture (Sussman, 2025). The monthly planning time led to immense impact on the implementation of the Kaizen challenge at each site. The collaborative work guided continuous improvement and a shared interest in school improvement (Ventura, 2025). 

 A key to the success of each group was the use of partnering conversations during which every member of the team was seen as a partner and all voices were treated as relevant (Knight et al., 2025). As a coach, it was my role to facilitate these partnering conversations. There is a lot going on in education today and seeing each of these school teams design and implement something of value has been very rewarding. During several conversations, I believe I learned as much (or more) from listening and learning from these dedicated educators. Each team took the Kaizen challenge seriously and through our monthly meetings refined and built projects or activities leading to continuous improvement.

If you are ready to work with a school team to develop a Kaizen challenge and participate in some exemplary servant leadership training, consider sending a team to our next academy. For more information about the servant leadership academy, please visit https://www.cui.edu/academicprograms/education/servant-leadership-institute

Greenleaf, R. K. (1977). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. Paulist press.

 Greenleaf, R. K. (1970). The servant as leader (an essay). Greenleaf Organization.   http://www.ediguys.net/Robert_K_Greenleaf_The_Servant_as_Leader.pdf

Imai, M. (1986). Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success, McGraw-Hill Publishing Company.

Knight, J. Campbell, J. C., & VanNieuwerburgh, C. (2025). Ask more, tell less: How to structure learning conversations, The Learning Professional, 46(1), 26-330. https://learningforward.org/journal/learning-designs/ask-more-tell-less-how-to-structure-learning-conversations/

Prošić, S. (2011, June). Kaizen management philosophy. In I International Symposium Engineering Management and Competitiveness, June (Vol. 24, No. 25, pp. 173-178).

Sussman, A. (2025). From classroom to culture: How teacher leaders shape schools, Educational Leadership, 82(6), 62-65. https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/from-classroom-to-culture-how-teacher-leaders-shape-schools

Ventura, S. (2025) High-Impact teacher collaboration begins with leaders, Educational Leadership, 82(7), 38-45. https://ascd.org/el/articles/high-impact-teacher-collaboration-begins-with-leaders

Dr. Belinda Karge is a professor of doctoral studies in the educational leadership program at Concordia University Irvine and professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton. She taught and served in administrative roles at both the elementary and high school levels before moving to the university. She gives back by using her executive coaching skills and sharing her knowledge through writing - she has published 12 books and over 160 articles.