Servant Leadership

Volodymyr Zelensky was a comic actor before being elected the president of Ukraine—not exactly stellar credentials for running a country, one might suppose. However, Zelensky has several very Benedictine qualities that have served him in good stead:

• Humility. From the beginning of his term of office, Zelensky acknowledged how little he knew and eschewed the trappings of office; for example, he reduced his motorcade to two cars without sirens.

• The ability to listen. As John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, has noted of Zelensky, “He’s a very intent listener.”

• Care for the sick and vulnerable. Zelensky recently risked his life to visit wounded soldiers in a hospital and, according to The New York Times, when he took office “He told government officials to remove presidential portraits from their offices and replace them with pictures of their children, to remind them of the stakes of their work.”

Zelensky may very well have approached the presidency as a new role to play, but somewhere along the way, he transformed from an actor playing a president to a bona fide leader who is courageously resisting the subjugation of his people by a murderous, ambitious dictator.

Neither becoming the president of a country nor following in the way of Jesus is easy. However, Zelensky has shown us a way forward: with humility, deep listening, and a heart for the vulnerable, start by playing the part and eventually we will live our way into being the  servant of others that we are called to be.