We Value Your Privacy
This site uses cookies to enhance your experience. We do not share, sell, or lease your information for any other purpose.
Servant Leadership Quotes
Quotes by Category
This list of quotes is a compilation from my own reading and studies on Servant Leadership. They are ordered by topic (category) and are all displayed in line below. Therefore, you can browse them all, or select a specific topic of interest here:
Accountability Quotes
...leaders who do not hold their people accountable to a set standard are, in effect, thieves and liars. Thieves because they are stealing from the stockholder who pays them to hold people accountable, and liars because they pretend that everything is OK with their people when in fact everything is not OK.Authority Quotes
A leader - whether in the home, church, business, community, or government - has authority due to her role, but her positional power will not bring about good for individuals or organizations unless it is backed up by the capital of character.Authority: The skill of getting people to willingly do your will, because of your personal influence.
People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.
You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional.Challenges Quotes
Grace. Loss. Fortune. Hardship. Victory. Sometimes the worst seat is best seat in the house and it comes as a result of leading.
Adversity, under servant leaders, provides room for all to grow and learn from their experiences.…even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it’ll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
A rut... is little more than a coffin with the ends kicked out.
…most leaders get sucked down into the weeds and they spend too much of their valuable time majoring in the minors.I think we're living in a time when size is not a strategic advantage, necessarily.Either we heal now, as a team, or we will die as individuals.
The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself; therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.
Character Quotes
True heroism is remarkably sober. Very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.
When individuals doubt the integrity of one another, and are highly suspicious of each other's motives, a quality, mutual relationship is impossible.
....it’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time.
Trust is a function of two things: character and competence. Character includes your integrity, your motive and your intent with people. Competence includes your capabilities, your skills, and your track record. Both are vital.
Character is the glue that bonds solid and meaningful relationshipsSow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.
For individuals, character is destiny. For organizations, culture is destiny.Leadership is not about personality, possessions, or charisma, but all about who you are as a person. I used to believe that leadership was about style but now I know that leadership is about substance, namely character.Besides pride, loyalty, discipline, heart, and mind, confidence is the key to all the locks.Courage Quotes
Courage never takes away fear; courage simply redistributes fear to get the job done.Courage is fear that has said its prayers.A warrior's not about perfection, or victory, or invulnerability. He's about absolute invulnerability. That's the only true courage.
Culture Quotes
The fundamental keys to the culture of any organization can only be achieved when everyone is on the same page.The brand is just a lagging indicator of a company's culture.Decisions Quotes
De-cide. Homo-cide. Sui-cide. Patri-cide. The root word Decidere means to "to cut off".Empowerment Quotes
Empowerment is not about "I take some of my power and give it to you". That's the myth.
The best minute you spend is the one you invest in people.Fear Quotes
Forgiveness Quotes
Forgiving behavior is dealing with situations as they arise in an assertive manner and then letting go of any lingering resentment. As the leader, if you are not able to let go of the resentment, it will consume you and render you ineffective.Humility Quotes
For most leaders, humility comes only by wounds suffered from foolish falls.I learned that if you can retain the feeling of what it feels like to be a "have not" in a society of "haves", to be down in the hierarchy, you can carry that with you into leadership positions.Too many leaders act as if the sheep... their people... are there for the benefit of the shepherd, not that the shepherd has responsibility for the sheep.kGenerally, you can be humble only if you feel really good about yourself—and you want to help those around you feel really good about themselves, too.We also decided that humility was defined not by self-deprecating behavior or attitudes but by the esteem with which you regard others.I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?
We are all important, but we are not indispensable.You shouldn't take pride in your natural talents any more than you should take pride in your sex, your race or color of your hair.Who then is the greatest leader? The one who has served the most.Your early successes can be your undoing later.The name on the front of the jersey is what really matters, not the name on the back.Joy Quotes
Leadership (General) Quotes
Your men love you. If I knew nothing else about you, that would be enough.
...you cannot separate the health of the individual from the health of the community and of society.
Our craving for success without significance has made power the modern idolatry of our times.The power appetite of leaders today, ones that are self-serving, is leading to the demise of our great nation, of great companies, and of great individuals.
If you're truly obsessed over customers, it'll cover a lot of errors.
In the past a leader was a boss. Today's leaders must be partners with their people... they no longer can lead solely based on positional power.Doing deals doesn’t yield the deep rewards that come from building up people.Who really benefits from discouragement? More often than not, encouragement is exactly what is needed.The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than rule.
...the best leaders are servant leaders - they serve those they lead.You manage things, you lead people.Part of the role of a thought leader is not to necessarily have all the answers - I certainly don't - but it's to be able to ask the right questions and the privilege of being able to lead the conversation.The companies that are successful, they start out to make meaning, not to make money.
Servant leadership is the only real form of leadership. After all, if you're not serving others, you are self-serving and that is not leadership.This is a service station, we offer service. There is no higher purpose.
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.
We are here to add what we can to, not get what we can from life.
Servant-leadership is more than a concept, it is a fact. Any great leader, by which I also mean an ethical leader of any group, will see herself or himself as a servant of that group and will act accordingly.
Motivation Quotes
Rarely does anyone change because of information sent to the head. But if you can reach down fifteen inches to the heart of a person, then it becomes a mandate, a mission, and a cause that builds momentum.It's easy to lose sight of the ultimate goal when you're in the trenches.Is the life you're leading worth the price your paying to lead it?I made a list of the happiest periods of my life & I realized that none of them involve money.(A manager) once confided in me she liked to picture in her mind's eye that every employee was wearing one of those sandwich billboard signs. On the front side, the sign would read 'Appreciate Me' and on the back side 'Make Me Feel Important.'The mercenaries will always beat the draftees, but the volunteers will crush them both.
Passion Quotes
I had decided to stop chasing the money & start chasing the passion.Politics Quotes
Power Quotes
The measure of a man is what he does with power.
A reluctant leader is highly suspicious of people who work to accumulate and hoard power.Empowerment is not about "I take some of my power and give it to you". That's the myth.The best minute you spend is the one you invest in people.A person who is worthy of being a leader wants power not for himself, but in order to be of service.
Power: The ability to force or coerce someone to do your will, even if they would choose not to, because of your position or your might.Pride Quotes
Never let your ambition surpass your moral compass.The more I break down my pride and ego, the more joy I have in life.Religion Quotes
Each of you has been blessed with one of Gods wonderful gifts to be used in the service of others. So use your gift well.
It is God's design to use reluctant servants to usher in glory.I’ve concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn’t dollars but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched.I realized that I needed to be more like the shepherd than the hired hand in protecting my team.A leader lives with people to know their problems. A leader lives with God in order to solve them.Sacrifice Quotes
Servant Leadership Quotes
Our top-down pyramid style of management is a very old concept borrowed from centuries of war and monarchies.Servant leadership is the only real form of leadership. After all, if you're not serving others, you are self-serving and that is not leadership.Success Quotes
It is the employees who determine a company's success or failure.Few people are successful unless other people want them to be.
There is no success without a successor.
We all know that the time spent is not necessarily an indicator of success.When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality.Technology Quotes
In the age of Twitter and Facebook, everyone has a megaphone.As the CEO, one of my main jobs is to get visibility for Thomas Nelson and I don't know of an easier, better way to do it, with greater leverage, than with Social Media.Toxic Leadership Quotes
Our craving for success without significance has made power the modern idolatry of our times.The power appetite of leaders today, ones that are self-serving, is leading to the demise of our great nation, of great companies, and of great individuals.
Who really benefits from discouragement? More often than not, encouragement is exactly what is needed.A seagull manager is one who periodically flies into the area, makes a lot of noise, dumps on the people, maybe eats their lunch, and flies away.Transparency Quotes
Project authenticity and vulnerability, be present, be accepting, and see your role as being useful, as being the servant.Servant leadership teaches us that you have to lay your cards on the table.The best way to deal in a transparent world is just be transparent. Let your life be authentic and let people look in. Because if they want to find out, they're gonna find out. And so to me it's given me a greater sense of accountability as a CEO. It's given me a greater opportunity to lead.