Grace Underdahl

Servant Leadership
Comprehensive Leadership Program
12/05/2017
Josh Armstrong

Servant Leadership Interview: Dave Schaub, Executive Director of Inland Northwest Land
Conservancy

So how do you define Leadership, Dave Schaub? I interviewed Dave, who has most

recently taken on the admirable position of being the Executive Director of the Inland Northwest

Land Conservancy. My experience started with the conservancy this summer while they were in

search of a new executive director. Right off the bat, Dave was confident in speaking about

leadership as well as reflecting on some of his previous experiences about leadership. His quick

answer was to the very first question of how to define leadership was Leadership is an act it is

a verb, not a noun. Being a part of Leadership Spokane, Dave also mentioned some of the very

concepts that we had recently discussed in our Servant Leadership, particularly concepts from

Heifetz. He continued, Authority is more of a noun, where as leadership is an ongoing act of

what inspiring and demonstrating path towards a desired future. Touching on his experience

with Leadership Spokane, Dave mentioned that hes found an interest in the concept of

leadership as followership, but also that there are many ways in which leadership manifests:

positive leadership, negative leadership, transformative leadership, inspirational leadership, etc.

In addition, he also discussed some of frustrations about the professional dialogue surrounding

leadership, because it is more aspirational rather than an actual conversation an idea I have

been thinking about since he mentioned it.

Dave first learned to lead after highschool when he attended the National Outdoor

Leadership School (NOLS). NOLS was a place where Dave was pushed out of his comfort zone,

and placed into intentional conversations about leadership in an outdoor setting. He also later
worked for the North Idaho LEAP Program. Dave discussed, in his clear strong voice, how he

felt he had been placed in several leadership positions that he may not have deserved but slipped

into because of his personality and voice. He touched on how his involvement in activism, and

then got a teaching degree after undergraduate school. That is where I first started thinking

about my own privilege and by virtue of being a white man well educated from upper

socioeconomic class, I have all of this positional authority that I come into situations with, and

unfairly or unjustly find myself in leadership roles. He said, Trying to get at this question, of

where I started to learn about leadership, it was through intentional experiences like NOLS, and

finding myself in these situations trying to muddle through it all.

At first little stunted by the question, how did your family shape your beliefs about

leadership, Dave first mentioned his mother, and how much of a leader in both her community

and family. He saw how his mother became a strong independent leader. Touching on his early

life, Dave was not always seen as the pack leader, but he first saw himself as a leader after

highschool. As he mentioned before, the people who influenced Dave included his mother, the

leaders from NOLS and from LEAP, touching on their emotional accessibility and vulnerability,

particularly in the male leaders, something that was eye opening today.

Dave believes that intentional time thinking and reflecting on leadership, particularly

leadership Spokane, is what has taught him the most about leadership so far. Dave said, It

opened my eyes to not only the attributes but the different ways which people in our community

demonstrate leadership in our community and serve the community.

When asked about the failures and successes of his own leadership experiences, Dave

reflected on the duality of both negatives and positives for each situation. To me leadership is

such a fluid activity even when I have celebrated leadership accomplishments, I have also
reflected on the failures inherent in that process. When he was president of the Dishman Hills

Conservancy, he wanted to see big change move faster than it was going, and set up unrealistic

expectations of the organization and staff. He had originally seen the experience as a failure, but

now he sees it as being too hard on himself.

One of the most touching aspects about learning about Dave, was that when asked about

his greatest success as a leader, Dave immediately thought of his family and kids; a true

testament to his character as a family man. I feel like I fail as often as I succeed, he said.

Watching his kids grow up and knowing they are coming from a safe, supporting, loving

foundation, makes me feel like Ive succeeded in launching them into the world. I never

wouldve though of leadership as being relevant until becoming a stay at home parent and

helping run this organization of four. Daves eyes lit up the whole time he discussed his family,

and we chuckled over calling his children a part of this organization.

Transitioning into servant leadership, Dave said that he aspires towards servant

leadership but does not believe he is one yet. Dave intentionally tries to be mindful of servant

leadership through actions not words, and doing not telling, as well as helping others emerge as

leaders and learning to sit back and listen. However, Dave believes there are a lot of times when

being a servant leader is vital if you want to empower those around you, and there are times

when being a super authoritative director leader is important as well and he gave the example of

an emergency mountain evacuation. The way I think about servant leadership is about putting

your own needs and agenda aside and supporting those around you, to create a greater synergistic

goal you can help get behind. When asked if the leader should serve first, Dave said that it is a

helpful strategy because you earn trust and can begin to build and empower the whole. He
continued, Leadership is totally situation dependent. Meaning that it is not always the right

decision but it is a productive strategy, in most cases.

Although Dave does not think of himself as a servant leader yet, there are a few examples

of his work. He jokingly started with Aside from cleaning up the kids laundry and dishes, at

the Inland Northwest Land Conservancy (INLC) the first ting he tried to do was bring

organizational order, and come in with the concept of Im here to help. Almost as an analogy,

Dave saw the mess of INLC and offered to bring order to the way things were going. He did

say It is a challenge (to be a servant leader) because people are looking to me to make

decisions.

In conservation, servant leadership is vital. The whole field is designed around servant

leadership. We are doing this in service to the world and the greater community, making it a

perfect place for servant leadership. Dave and INLC are constantly asking the question of how

can we best serve the communities needs, rather than driving their own agenda. Dave sees

conservation as a very small gesture as humans serving the nonhuman/natural world of which we

are an integral part. Conservation is an opportunity to look past our needs and serve the greater

good.

In closing thoughts, Dave wishes he knew (earlier in his career) that you can be

intentional and reflective about leadership. However, the biggest lesson he has learned is that

leadership is an evolving process.