Maybe we should call Servant leaders Verdant Leaders.

At least that would focus on growing others more than simply serving others.

After all, there still are some would-be leaders who cringe at the term Servant Leader.

To them, the word “servant” suggests menial tasks such as waiting on tables, bed service at a fancy hotel (chocolate mint et al) or even gassing up your vehicle back in the day. Can you believe it? Gas stations used be called service stations where an attendant filled your car up with gas while washing your car’s windshield.

But Servant Leadership is not simply about feeding — or fueling — others to keep them on the go.

It’s about ful-filling their needs to help them grow and -in the process- grow your bottom line.

Servant Leadership is helping your employees spread their proverbial roots and bloom in new fields of opportunity that are still undiscovered like so many buried treasure chests.

Servant Leadership is making sure “the highest priority needs of others are being served ” as Robert K. Greenleaf noted in 1970 when he first defined the term.

Servant Leaders are supportive — not subservient.

And those supportive servant leaders are all about growing other leaders and unleashing their potential. Those supportive servant leaders reflect the vibrant and vigorous definition of verdant as “ vegetation; covered with growing plants or grass,” according to the dictionary.

Unleashing potential, a Verdant Leader fosters a growth-oriented work environment that explores new vistas.

Unleashing potential, a Verdant Leader sows and grows a garden that blossoms into proverbial flowers of (a.k.a. new product and new revenue streams), flowers that continuously develop and expand a vigorous growth that ultimately overcomes the barren grounds littered with complacent employees and out-dated, me-too ideas that often stifles business growth.

Unleashing potential, a Verdant Leader tills and plants (read disciplines and teaches).

Unleashing potential, a Verdant Leader fertilizes (read encouragement and inspiration).

Unleashing potential, a Verdant Leader prunes (read listening and learning).

Unleashing potential, a Verdant Leader weeds (read feedback, tough love and conflict management).

Unleashing potential, Verdant Leaders readily subscribe to Walt Disney’s definition of leadership as ” the ability to establish and manage a creative climate in which individuals and teams are self-motivated to successful achievement of long term goals in an environment of mutual trust and respect.”

For more ideas on unleashing potential and cultivating a creative climate that fosters a growth-oriented culture, purchase a 300-page book now available on Amazon. com filled with 77 short stories (5-minute reads called Leadership Mints) on examples from business, sports and politics.

It’s titled: LOVING Like a Leader with Empathy- one of three books in The Leadership Mints Series designed to help leaders refresh their feeling for leading. And as a bonus, the postscript titled- BUSINESS: A HUMAN EXPERIENCE — shares the impetus for this book on empathy impacting the bottom line.

The two other books in The Leadership Mints Series -now available on Amazon.com — include THINKING Like a Leader with Clarity and SPEAKING Like a Leader with Civility