
American leadership is at a crossroads. Public life and many institutions celebrate power, performance, and personality — and too often those traits are labeled “service.” In this episode Dr. Jeff Armstrong diagnoses the rise of what he calls “self-servant leadership” and contrasts it with true servant leadership as taught by Ken Blanchard and modeled by Jesus. Drawing on Martha C. Stewart’s biography of Ken Blanchard (Episode 44), Blanchard’s practice of “catch people doing things right,” Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of spiritual evolution toward the Omega Point, and the SPIES framework (Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, Social), we explore why servant leadership is both a practical leadership model and a spiritual practice. Jeff revisits his conversation with Greg Stewart about how “What Would Jesus Do?” was reshaped into political and religious postures like Christian Nationalism, and considers the cultural cost when leaders substitute spectacle for service. Practical takeaways include ways to cultivate servant posture in homes, workplaces, churches, and civic life — because leadership rooted in service accelerates spiritual evolution while self-serving leadership deepens division.