Talking servant-leadership doesn’t make it so! You can learn all the buzzwords and jargon, yet not be a servant-leader. What can this parable teach us today? Are there leaders in the year 2001 trying to put new wine in old wineskins? I suggest that when we try to establish a new leadership paradigm (such as servant-leadership) within an organization without first addressing the need for a compatible organizational culture, we are pouring new wine into old wineskins. Thus both the new wine and the bottle would be lost. On the other hand, if old leather bottles, which had been subject to decay, were used, the wineskins would often burst from the action of the fermenting wine. As the new wine fermented, the new leather was capable of expanding and remaining intact. In biblical times new wine was stored in strong, new leather bottles. A familiar parable is that of putting new wine in old wineskins.