Robert K. Greenleaf spent most of his organizational life in the field of management research, development, and education at AT&T. Just before his retirement as director of management research there, he held a joint appointment as visiting lecturer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management and at the Harvard Business School. In addition, he held teaching positions at both Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia.
His consultancies included Ohio University; MIT; the Ford Foundation; the R.K. Mellon Foundation; Lilly Endowment, Inc.; and the American Foundation for Management Research.
As a consultant to universities, businesses, foundations, and churches during the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s, his eclectic and wide-ranging curiosity, reading, and contemplation provided an unusual background for observing these institutions.
As a lifelong student of organization-that is, how things get done-he distilled these observations in a series of essays on the theme of "the servant as leader," the objective of which is to stimulate thought and action for building a better, more caring society.
Robert K. Greenleaf, who died in 1990, is the author of four other books in addition to The Power of Servant-Leadership. They are: On Becoming a Servant-Leader (1996), Seeker and Servant (1996), Teacher as Servant (1979), and Servant-Leadership (1977).