I have recently performed ten hours of volunteer community service. Five
             of these were at a Good Will retail store where I straightened up
             merchandise and helped people find what they were looking for. The other
             five hours were at a nursing home taking care of the elderly. At the
             nursing home, I interacted with the elderly to keep them company, to
             entertain them with games of Bingo and to make them feel better about being
             in the elderly care facility. At first glance, my volunteer work doesn't
             appear to have much to do with leadership development. However, on further
             reflection, leadership is really about helping others and my volunteer
             experiences are important to developing my leadership skills. For this
             reason, I strongly advocate community service as a way to develop good
             Today's management environment is more participatory than older, top-
             down business models where the boss barked orders and expected everyone to
             jump accordingly. More than ever before, managers must change to obtain
             maximum productivity from their employees. This means that managers must
             involve all group members in decision making and must be just as concerned
             with the growth and welfare of the individual as the profitability of the
             organization. Caring behavior is one of the many important leadership
             skills that community service helps instill in volunteers and would be
             useful for the new demands leaders face. The reward for the volunteer work
             I performed and the reward for managerial work are one in the same. Both
             are about the gratification that comes from helping others. At the nursing
             home, my gratification came in helping reduce the loneliness and suffering
             of older people and at Good Will I enjoyed donating my labor to a non-
             profit organization benefiting the disadvantaged. The reward for the
             manager might be to help an employee get a promotion or attend training
             ...