Service - A Road to Leadership?

Question:
How does one become a leader?

Discussion:
In US corporations and now increasingly in other parts of the world, a People Manager's job (one who has direct reports) is multifaceted.  The Manager is expected to be resourceful, exhibit leadership qualities, be a fair judge of performance, and track and recommend pay scales/salary increases and at times, bonus distributions.  Here we will discuss how a Manager may fulfill the expectation of exhibiting leadership qualities.  The following questions often arise, (a) What does it mean to be a Leader? and (b) How does one become a Leader?.

In my experience, a wicked irony governs the ascension to leadership.  Let me explain.  The title (and thus responsibilities) of a Manager is given by the corporation but the recognition only comes after "respect" is conferred by the direct-reports.  It is similar to the difference between a house, which is built by a construction company and a home, which is made by the family that resides in the house.  "Respect" of direct-reports is an indication of the trust in the Manager - the effectiveness of the Manager, and subsequently in the role of a Leader, depends heavily on the trust he/she enjoys.  Direct reports are very stingy with trust because good acts of the Manager can often be looked at from the lens of "why is he/she being nice to me?" and bad acts; well, need we go into that?  Hence, earning trust is directly related to genuine (read: selfless) good acts.  Genuine selfless good acts can be considered as a (colloquial) definition of service.  So, in a long winded way, ascension to a Leader has its roots in service - there in lies the irony!

The more time a Manager spends in genuinely looking after the interests of his/her direct-reports in a selfless manner, the better his/her chances will be of becoming an effective Leader.  The funniest thing is, the better the service is, the better are the chances of one of the direct-reports to get promoted to his/her position (which should be be selfless objective of service anyway, right?).  Consequently, the better the Manager's chances of getting promoted.

In conclusion, nobody is given the baton of Leadership; it has to be painstakingly earned by looking after direct-reports day after day while not worrying about the fruits those acts may yield.  Isn't this KARMA described in the Bhagwad Gita?  There are so many examples of this in action - Mahatma Gandhi & Mother Teresa immediately come to mind.  The greatest one is, of course, Jesus Christ, who died on the crucifix, serving his followers till his last breadth.