Larry Spears, the CEO of the Greenleaf Center, describes servant-leadership in this way.
“As we near the end of the twentieth century, we are beginning to see that traditional autocratic and hierarchical modes of leadership are slowly yielding to a newer model – one that attempts to simultaneously enhance the personal growth of workers and improve the quality and caring of our many institutions through a combination of teamwork and community, personal involvement in decision making, and ethical and caring behavior. This emerging approach to leadership and service is called servant-leadership."
Taken from the Introduction to Reflections on Leadership published by John Wiley in 1995.