Remembering the Roots: Honoring Servant Leadership’s Origins
Every year, organizations recognize leaders for accomplishments like revenue growth, innovation, market share, or operational excellence.
But the Ann McGee-Cooper Spirit of Servant-Leadership Award celebrates something different. It asks a question that goes beyond results: “Who did this person help become their best self?”
Presented by Sophia Partners to Dr. Richard Kyte at Viterbo University’s Conference on Servant Leadership on June 25, 2026, in La Crosse, Wisconsin, the award reminds us that the greatest measure of leadership isn’t found in a title or a résumé.
It’s found in the lives we’ve influenced, the people we’ve empowered, and the communities we’ve helped strengthen.
Why Roots Matter
Robert K. Greenleaf coined the term “servant-leader” in his 1970 essay “The Servant as Leader,” but as those of us who knew the people closest to his work understand, his thinking didn’t stop there.
Over the following decades, Greenleaf’s ideas deepened–moving beyond a set of leadership behaviors toward something more fundamental: the importance of spirit, and what he called “inspiriting” institutions and society.
That distinction matters.
It’s easy for servant leadership to get flattened into a management technique or a checklist of “listen first,” “empower your team,” or “lead from behind.”
Useful as those practices are, they miss the deeper claim Greenleaf was making: that real ethical action, real care for others, has to flow from something deeper than a professional code of conduct. It flows from within.
When we forget that root, servant leadership risks becoming just another leadership trend—a set of tactics divorced from the inner life that gives it meaning.
Remembering the roots keeps us honest about what we’re actually asking of leaders: not better performance reviews, but a different relationship to power itself—power as a privilege exercised on behalf of others, not over them.
Why Ann McGee-Cooper
Few people embodied that root system as fully as Ann McGee-Cooper.
Long before she became one of servant leadership’s most visible torchbearers, she was a teacher (the first Dallas Teacher of the Year) who understood from her very first days in a classroom that the greatest leaders exist to lift others up.
It was through her consulting work, co-founding Ann McGee-Cooper & Associates with Duane Trammell, that she met Greenleaf himself and became his mentee.
Under his guidance, she didn’t just study servant leadership—she became it, carrying the philosophy into major organizations like Southwest Airlines, TD Industries, and AT&T, proving that an idea rooted in spirit could thrive in the corporate world many assumed had no room for it.
Those who knew Ann personally describe something remarkable: you simply left her presence more energized, more hopeful, more committed to doing this work yourself.
That’s not charisma. That’s what Isabel Lopez calls being a “spirit carrier” — someone whose very presence makes others more positive, more energized, more productive, simply by being near them.
Why Sophia Partners Gives This Award
Ginny Gilmore, Sophia Partners foundress, said in her remarks when presenting the award at the Viterbo Conference:
“Sophia Partners exists because Ann’s influence was real and personal, being one of the many reasons this organization came into being.”
Since 2018, presenting the Ann McGee-Cooper Spirit of Servant-Leadership Award each year is an act of stewardship.
It keeps Greenleaf’s fuller vision and Ann’s living example of it from being lost to the flatter, more transactional version of “leadership” that dominates so much of public discourse.
Each year’s recipient is chosen by these criteria:
- Faithful to the writings and principles of Robert K. Greenleaf.
- Committed to self-awareness, humility, and lifelong growth.
- Inspired by a joyful passion for serving others.
- Dedicated to helping others grow, thrive, and reach their fullest potential.
These aren’t credentials you can put on a résumé. They’re qualities that show up in the texture of a life—in how someone holds office hours, which boards they serve on, what they choose to write about, and how people feel after spending time with them.
Which is why this year’s recipient fits the bill.
Pictured left to right: Christa Williams, Sophia Partners Executive Director; Richard Kyte, 2026 Ann McGee-Cooper Spirit of Servant Leadership Award Recipient; and Ginny Gilmore, Sophia Partners foundress.
Why Rick Kyte
Dr. Richard Kyte is Director of the D. B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership and Endowed Professor of Ethics at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where he teaches a variety of courses in ethics and servant leadership.
“The key to effective leadership is simple: engaging others in meaningful commitment to a shared purpose.” – Rick Kyte
He cohosts a podcast titled “The Ethical Life” with Scott Rada, writes a biweekly column that appears in 73 newspapers across the country, and has written several books.
His most recent book, Finding Your Third Place, explores the critical gathering spaces that nurture our souls and make up the bedrock of our communities.
Rick lives out Greenleaf’s servant leadership values each day: in his career, on the nonprofit boards he sits on, through speaking engagements, and in his community.
You can learn more about Rick on his personal website: www.richardkyte.net
Why It Matters Now
We live in a moment marked by an epidemic of loneliness, declining institutional trust, and deep political division. In that context, the case for remembering servant leadership’s roots isn’t abstract but URGENT.
If Greenleaf was right that institutions need to actively nurture community and spirit rather than assume it will simply appear, then the work of identifying and celebrating people who already do this isn’t ceremonial. It’s a small but real act of cultural repair.
Recipients like this year’s honoree, Rick Kyte, remind us that this work is still alive, not preserved in a textbook, but practiced daily, one coffee shop conversation, one ethics seminar, one community board meeting at a time.
Sophia Partners gives this award because someone has to keep saying, out loud and in public, that this is what leadership is actually for.
Past Recipients
Past awards recipients include the following:
Deborah Welch (2024)
- Dr. Deborah Welch is a leadership coach, author, and an award-winning faculty member at Capella University in Phoenix, AZ. In 2008, she co-created VSLLC® with Ann McGee-Cooper and Ginny Gilmore that left people more positive, energized, productive and hopeful. Read More >
Kent Keith (2023)
- Dr. Kent Keith is an author and scholar of servant leadership, having earned many prestigious degrees. He served as CEO of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership (USA), and as CEO of the Greenleaf Centre for Servant Leadership (Asia). Read More >
Tom Thibodeau (2022)
- Tom Thibodeau is the founder of the Master of Arts in Servant Leadership program at Viterbo University, the first of its kind, and has shown enthusiasm, compassion, and commitment to leadership and service in the La Crosse community and beyond. Read More >
Don M. Frick (2018)
- Don M. Frick was the first award recipient at the 2018 International Servant Leadership Conference in Dallas, TX, and was regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on the life and work of Robert K. Greenleaf, the pioneer of servant leadership. Read More >
