Servant Leadership Quotes

A leader is best when people barely know that he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. Fail to honor people, They fail to honor you. But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aims fulfilled, they will all say, "We did this ourselves.

Leadership is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge.

Exhort all your household often that all those who serve you shall know to serve God and you, faithfully and painstakingly, and for the will of God to prefer in all things to do your will and pleasure in all things that are not against God.

Are you a politician who says to himself, 'I will use my country for my own benefit?' If so, you are naught but a parasite living on the flesh of others. Or are you a devoted patriot, who whispers in the ear of his inner self, I love to serve my country as a faithful servant." Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country?

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.

I am not the King. Jesus Christ is the King. I’m just an entertainer.

A good king is a public servant.

That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all amenable to them.

Leadership does not mean domination

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

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. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first.

The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way.

The measure of a leader is not the number of people who serve him, but the number of people he serves.

Above all, leadership is a position of servanthood.

Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front.

Strength does not make one capable of rule; it makes one capable of service.

Great leaders gain authority by giving it away.

Leadership involves not so much marching gloriously at the head of a parade as paying quietly for the parade permit and the cleanup afterward. Leading the world means acting not as its Commander-In-Chief but as its concierge.

We are here to serve our citizens and not our ambitions.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

The power of the leader is given to him by the people, so he has a duty to engage and listen more attentively and carefully to the aspirations of the people.

At the end of the day we are not selling, we are serving.

Great leaders genuinely care for and love the people they lead more than they love leading itself.

Leadership is for those who love the public good and are endowed and trained to administer it.

My father taught us to serve with strength and clear-minded conviction, but to do so with humility, to work in the Oval Office on behalf of the American people with a servant's heart.