Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
Case 10.2: Doctor to the Poor
Case Synopsis and Analysis
This case study portrays Paul Farmer, founder and head of Partners in Health (PIH), a
nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing health care to impoverished individuals across
the globe. Paul went to Haiti after graduating college and discovered his calling: to be a
doctor for poor people. He created Partners in Health in 1987 and began building schools and
clinics in Haiti to prevent disease through treatment and education. He did this while
attending medical school at Harvard University. After completing his medical degree, he
became a fellow with Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston but remained in Haiti
during most of his fellowship. Eventually, he helped spearhead programs to assist with
tuberculosis, AIDS, and other diseases in Africa, Peru, and even the United States. By 2009,
PIH had grown to 11,000 employees working in 11 countries. Paul continues to travel the
world, monitoring these programs, raising money for PIH, and leading the Department of
Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard.
This case study portrays a servant leader who works tirelessly to achieve his vision. Students
will be inspired by Dr. Farmer’s story.
Learning objectives:
• Students should be able to apply the servant leader behaviors to a leader.
• Students should begin to understand some of the strengths of being a servant
leader.
Answers to questions in the text:
1. Would you characterize Paul Farmer as a servant leader? Explain your answer.
Greenleaf has written that servant leadership “begins when leaders commit
themselves to putting their followers first, being honest with them, and treating them
fairly. Servant leaders make it a priority to listen to their followers and develop strong
long-term relationships with them. This allows leaders to understand the abilities,
needs, and goals of followers, which, in turn, allows these followers to achieve their
full potential.”
Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
2. Putting others first is the essence of servant leadership. In what way did Paul Farmer
put others first?
Paul Farmer puts patients first. When he started PIH, he recognized that poor people
3. Another characteristic of a servant leader is getting followers to serve. Who were
Paul’s followers, and how did they become servants to his vision?
Paul has followers working in his organization. His vision is compelling; he is a
strong role model; and he presumably hires people for PIH that have similar visions
and goals.
4. What role do you think Paul’s childhood had in his development as a servant leader?
It is difficult to know for certain, but it seems that Paul’s childhood played a strong
role in his development as a leader. He grew up very poor and lived in a school bus
Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
Potential teaching approaches:
Below is a way to structure a class based on Servant Leadership and Case Study 10.2:
• Hold a lecture on servant leadership.
• Ask students to read Case 10.2 and answer the questions.
• Discuss Questions 1–4 in the case study as a class.
• Finally, the professor may choose to conduct in-class exercises listed below.
Exercises for this case study:
1) The professor should show a video about Paul Farmer and/or the Partners in Health
(PIH).
2) Paul Farmer had a strong vision for himself and his work. The professor could discuss
that and work with students to create their own mission for giving and serving.
Students could create their own mission/vision statements through free online
mission-building programs, or the professor could ask some targeted questions to help
students develop missions. Potential questions could include:
3) In small groups, after watching the video listed above, students should discuss and
outline tangible ways they can help to support the PIH organization. Groups can also