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A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus — Martin Luther King Jr

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant. — Max De Pree

Service is the very purpose of life. It is the rent we pay for living on the planet. — Marian Wright Edelman

True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not to enrich the leader. — John C. Maxwell

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.

People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.

What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world, is and remains immortal.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.

Leadership is not an affair of the head. Leadership is an affair of the heart. -James Kouzes and Barry Posner in The Leadership Challenge

In the wired world of the 21st century, advancing shared values creates value. -James M. Strock in Serve to Lead

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant. -Max DePree

You can have anything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want. -Zig Ziglar

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give. -Winston Churchill

The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.

Leadership is not an affair of the head. Leadership is an affair of the heart.

Serving people means growing their capacity and implies that everyone can contribute.

The servant leader believes that ‘my success is your success.’

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Your rewards in life will be in direct proportion to the value of your service to others.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. Serve and thou shall be served.

A noble leader answers not to the trumpet calls of self promotion, but to the hushed whispers of necessity.

Servant leadership is all about making the goals clear and then rolling your sleeves up and doing whatever it takes to help people win. In that situation, they don’t work for you; you work for them.

The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

Serving others prepares you to lead others.

It’s not about trying to find something to help you be a more effective leader. It’s about trying to be a better person. The other will follow.

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The first and most important choice a leader makes is the choice to serve, without which one’s capacity to lead is severely limited.

Servant leadership is easy for people with high self-esteem. Such people have no problem giving credit to others. They have no problem listening to other people for ideas. They have no problem in building other people up.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

We must be silent before we can listen. We must listen before we can learn. We must learn before we can prepare. We must prepare before we can serve. We must serve before we can lead.

Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.

The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires but in his integrity and in his ability to affect those around him positively.

In a servant leadership culture we learn by choice or example that if we want to be great, we have to serve others respectfully.

The true heroes of the new millennium will be servant leaders, quietly working out of the spotlight to transform our world.

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’

I’ll lift you and you’ll lift me and we’ll both ascend together.

The miracle is this–the more we share, the more we have.

The purpose of life is not to win. The purpose of life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you have brought into other people’s lives than you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them.

A true natural servant automatically responds to any problem by listening first.

Leaders don’t create more followers, they create more leaders.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.

Where there is not community, trust, respect, ethical behavior are difficult for the young to learn and for the old to maintain.

You take people as far as they will go not as far as you would like them to go.

Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.

In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.

And they said to him, If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever.

The greatest among you shall be your servant.

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.

The first and most important choice a leader makes is the choice to serve, without which one’s capacity to lead is severely limited. -Robert Greenleaf

The companies that survive are the ones that work out what they uniquely can give to the world–not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. -Charles Handy in The Search for Meaning

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The goal of many leaders is to get people to think more highly of the leader. The goal of a great leader is to help people to think more highly of themselves.

Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Your rewards in life will be in direct proportion to the value of your service to others. -Brian Tracy in The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success
A true natural servant automatically responds to any problem by listening first. -Robert Greenleaf

The purpose of life is not to win. The purpose of life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you have brought into other people’s lives than you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them. -Rabbi Harold Kushner

Servant leadership is all about making the goals clear and then rolling your sleeves up and doing whatever it takes to help people win. In that situation, they don’t work for you; you work for them. -Ken Blanchard

Authority: the skill of getting people to willingly do your will, because of your personal influence. -James C. Hunter in The Servant

Of all the things that sustain a leader over time, love is the most lasting. The best-kept secret of successful leaders is love: staying in love with leading, with the people who do the work, with what their organizations produce, and with those who honor the organization by using its work. -James Kouzes and Barry

Posner in The Leadership Challenge.

The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it. -John Ruskin

We must be silent before we can listen. We must listen before we can learn. We must learn before we can prepare. We must prepare before we can serve. We must serve before we can lead. -William Arthur Ward

Life’s most urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’ -Martin Luther King Jr.

If leadership serves only the leader, it will fail. Ego satisfaction, financial gain, and status can all be valuable tools for a leader, but if they become the only motivations, they will eventually destroy a leader. Only when service for a common good is the primary purpose are you truly leading. -Sheila Murray Bethel in Making a Difference: 12 Qualities That Make You a Leader

It’s not about trying to find something to help you be a more effective leader. It’s about trying to be a better person. The other will follow. -James A. Autry in Practicing Servant Leadership

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. -John Wooden

The miracle is this–the more we share, the more we have. -Leonard Nimoy

People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. -John C. Maxwell

Twenty-first-century leadership relationship dynamics are from the bottom up rather than the top down; from the outside in, rather than the inside out.

Choice of attention—to pay attention to this and ignore that—is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer.

About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

Leaders establish trust with candor, transparency, and credit.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists…when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will all say: We did it ourselves.

Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.

I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

Leaders need to provide strategy and direction and to give employees the tools that enable them to gather information and insight from around the world. Leaders shouldn’t try to make every decision.

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Management is doing the right thing; leadership is doing the right things.

As a leader, I am tough on myself and I raise the standard for everybody; however I am very caring because I want people to excel at what they are doing so that they can aspire to be me in the future.

The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.

If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.

Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.

Leadership is the ability to guide others without force into a direction or decision that leaves them still feeling empowered and accomplished.

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

If we cannot disconnect, we cannot lead. Creating the culture of burnout is opposite to creating a culture of sustainable creativity . . . This mentality needs to be introduced as a leadership and performance-enhancing tool.

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.

Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It’s about impact, influence, and inspiration.

Ultimately, leadership is not about glorious crowning acts. It’s about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it, especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter. It is about laying the groundwork for others’ success, and then standing back and letting them shine.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself….Serve and thou shall be served.

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others. — Bill Gates

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. — Albert Schweitzer

Organizations exist to serve. Period. Leaders live to serve. Period. — Tom Peters

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people. — Mahatma Gandhi

It is high time the ideal of success should be replaced with the ideal of service. — Albert Einstein

when you choose the paradigm of service, looking at life through that paradigm, it turns everything you do from a job into a gift. — Oprah Winfrey