An innovative public agency partnership between a city, a state department of transportation (DOT), and a county road commission (CRC) led to the early construction of a new interstate ramp to relieve congestion in a central commercial hub. To achieve this, the city and the CRC purchased the property, addressed environmental concerns, and performed preliminary design. This grassroots approach was the first in the state and among the first in the country. The DOT in fact had to seek approval from the Federal Highway Administration, which then classified it under its innovative financing pilot program. The DOT is open to working with similar public agency partnerships in the state to expedite project construction. However, as the city discovered, gaining community consensus is paramount to success.

A multi-methodological approach was used to examine the personal and professional life of a well-respected, nonclinical, healthcare executive for purposes of determining if “Don” was a servant leader and, if so, uncover the antecedents contributing to his leadership style. The results provided the backdrop for examining linkages between servant leadership, reporting relationships, and business structures. Content analysis and Spears’ 10 constructs of servant leaders were used as a priori themes to affirm that Don is a servant leader. Nonparametric testing revealed moderate to strong associations between the reporting relationships of the respondents (x1) and the types of business structures (x2) where the respondents and our servant leader forged their initial relationship and the perceived behaviors and attributes of Don (y). We discovered that relationships, spiritual centeredness, and desire for career advancement served as antecedents in shaping Don’s leadership style. Implications for practice and future research are also addressed.

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