about leadership - but of a different sort: servant leadership!

In today’s episode, I share a perspective on a leadership style that doesn't get nearly the credit it deserves: servant leadership. 

Often overlooked in favor of louder, more dominant approaches, servant leadership is rooted in humility, strength, and intentional service to others.

It's a philosophy that aligns perfectly with the refined values of the modern gentleman: influence through integrity, respect, and quiet confidence. In just five minutes, I unpack why this style of leading isn’t weak; 

it’s wise, powerful, and deeply effective.

Whether you're leading in business, family, or friendships, this episode offers a refreshing lens that just might change how you show up for others.

What is Gentlemen Let's Talk About?

About Matters that should Matter to Men

Let's talk about leadership - but of a different sort.

Servant Leadership.

Sir Nelson Mandela was in prison for 27 years.

When he was elected President, he invited his former prison guards for his inauguration as honored guests.

He then went on to invite some of his harshest opponents to form his government.

Try doing that with a former boss, years after a terrible performance review.

When she was the CEO of PepsiCo, Shrimati Indra Nooyi would write upto 400 letters every year.

Not to business associates, or partners.

Letters to the parents of her most promising team members across ranks to personally thank them for raising such fine professionals.

This was not a strategy from Harvard.

It was decency from Chennai.

Then there’s Sri Verghese Kurien.

The humble giant behind India’s White Revolution.

Not a billionaire.

Just a man who turned rural dairy farmers into shareholders.

He didn’t extract value.
He distributed it.

How does one fit that into a KPI?

Do you know what’s common to each of these humans?

They were all leaders.
All wielded power.

But the manner in which they did made them stand apart.

This brings to my mind the term ‘Servant Leadership’.

The word servant feels entirely wrong, channeling outdated ideas of inequality and submission, but yet in the context of leadership, it somehow feels exactly right, capturing the kind of humility and service that finest leaders quietly live by.

Power is intoxicating.

But there’s a twist.

Most of the most powerful leaders I’ve admired did not roar from the front.
They served from the middle.

A Maharaja who walks among his people will always command more loyalty than the CEO who believes that his EA must have an EA.

In Japan, I had a meeting a noted corporate leader.

As the meeting began, I observed how he personally served tea to everyone at the table - interns included.

When I discussed this with him later that evening, he said something I will never forget.

“If I forget how to bow, I’m not fit to lead.”

Continents apart, back in Delhi, I recall ever so often, Mr. Pathak.
One of my secondary school teachers.

I have several memories of his conduct, but the one that stands out is him stepping out of our school-bus, wading through knee-deep monsoon water, directing traffic because the municipal workers hadn’t show up.

I remember several of us mocking him then.
I try to model him now.

We’ve all been in rooms with leaders who love to hear the sound of their own voice.
But the ones who changed lives?

Those were the ones who asked questions.

The ones who remembered names.

Who remembered a junior’s father’s surgery.

They are the ones who refilled their own water bottles.

They are the ones who took the blame, and shared the credit.

They showed up when no one was watching.

Real servant leadership isn’t performative.

It’s self-aware.

The takeaway is when you make it not about you, your people make it about you.

When you lead by serving, people don’t just follow you:

they believe in you.

And it is belief that builds empires.