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128 Best Servant Leadership Quotes to Motivate You

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3 years ago

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We welcome you to one of the most beautiful collection of servant leadership quotes. Servant leadership entails the idea of a leader who is also a good servant. This page contains a collection of well-known quotes about servant leadership.

These servant leadership quotes will motivate and encourage you to achieve your goals in life and at work. Servant leadership, first created by Robert Greenleaf in 1970, is becoming more and more pertinent to the difficulties that leaders face.‎

Servant leadership may be a way of living, a life dedicated to the care of others grounded on empathy, support, humility, and good communication. It’s no accident that a lot of incredibly wealthy and powerful people have expressed views that are congruent with Servant Leadership’s key beliefs.

Take a look at some amazing servant leadership quotes and reconsider what it means to be a good leader. These servant leadership quotes will guide you through several key principles that are necessary for a leader to follow. It is necessary that you pay close attention each one of them.

So without any further ado, let us take you through these quotes about being a servant leader.

Best Servant Leadership Quotes of All Time

Servant leaders should embrace the mindset that they do not have to be correct all of the time. They should be aware of, and act on, the fact that other individuals have valuable ideas as well. Here are some servant leadership quotes for you to look into.

  1. 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. –Lao Tzu
  2. Serving people means growing their capacity and implies that everyone can contribute. –Juana Bordas
  3. We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give. –Winston Churchill
  4. What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world, is and remains immortal. –Albert Pine
  5. 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
  6. In a servant leadership culture we learn by choice or example that if we want to be great, we have to serve others respectfully. –Vern Dosch
  7. The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it. –John Ruskin
  8. 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. –M. Scott Peck
  9. Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit oneself—to serve. –Wm. Paul Young
  10. The king should be the servant of his people, and seek to uplift them and their lives. –Aleksandra Layland
  11. Don’t just delegate tasks to the next generation. If you delegate tasks, you create followers. Instead, delegate authority to create leaders. –Craig Groeschel
  12. How could I get up there and say, ‘People, we’ve got to do better,’ when I was the poster child for everything that was wrong? I’ve always believed leaders don’t ask others to do what they’re unwilling to do. –Mike Huckabee

Inspirational Servant Leadership Quotes

Servant leadership comes naturally to persons who have a strong self-worth. Such people have no qualms about providing recognition to others. They have no qualms about soliciting suggestions from others. They have no qualms about erecting others. In that vein, here are some inspirational quotes about servant leadership for you to consider. ‎

  1. 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. –J. Carla Nortcutt
  2. Leadership is made for service. –Jack Hyles
  3. 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. –Martin Luther King, Jr.
  4. Serving others prepares you to lead others. –Jim George
  5. The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority. –Ken Blanchard
  6. It has generally been my experience that the very top people of truly great organizations are servant-leaders. –Stephen Covey
  7. If you are a leader, then trust me, you are having either a positive or a negative impact on the people you lead. How can you tell? There is one critical question: Are you making things better for the people who follow you? –John Maxwell
  8. The quality of a true warrior is that he is in service to a purpose greater than himself; that is, to a transcendent cause. –Robert Bly
  9. It is high time the ideal of success should be replaced with the ideal of service. –Albert Einstein
  10. 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. –Lao Tzu
  11. As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others. –Bill Gates
  12. I believe the bottom line in leadership isn’t how far we advance ourselves but how far we advance others. That is achieved by serving others and adding value to their lives. –John Maxwell

Inspiring Servant Leadership Quotes

The finest leaders are unmistakable. They are always illuminating the path and letting everyone realise that what they do matters. Here are some inspiring servant leadership quotes to incorporate into your life. ‎

  1. The servant leader believes that ‘my success is your success.
  2. Service is the very purpose of life. It is the rent we pay for living on the planet. –Marian Wright Edelman
  3. The best place for a leader isn’t always the top position. It isn’t the most prominent or powerful place. It’s the place where he or she can serve the best and add the most value to other people. –John Maxwell
  4. Your rewards in life will be in direct proportion to the value of your service to others. –Brian Tracy
  5. The king [leader] is a paid servant and enjoys the resources of the state together with the people. –Chanakya
  6. The true heroes of the new millennium will be servant leaders, quietly working out of the spotlight to transform our world. –Ann McGee-Cooper
  7. 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
  8. A good leader cares enough to give his or her best people feedback…. And that’s how I’d describe my leadership: servant leadership…. I’ve always been trained with the inverted pyramid, where the customer is on top. –John Donahoe
  9. 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
  10. Being an “adder” requires me to get out of my comfort zone every day and think about adding value to others. But that’s what it takes to be a leader whom others want to follow. –John Maxwell
  11. 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

Humble Servant Leadership Quotes

Let us now go through some humble servant leadership quotes. Servant leaders prioritise the needs, ambitions, and interests of others before their own. This is what we can learn from these humble quotes about servant leadership. ‎

  1. 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. –Ralph Waldo Emerson
  2. Leadership is not an affair of the head. Leadership is an affair of the heart. –James Kouzes and Barry Posner
  3. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others? –Martin Luther King, Jr.
  4. Identify your divine gift and use it to serve humanity. –Lailah Gifty Akita
  5. You can have anything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want. –Zig Ziglar
  6. I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. –Rabindranath Tagore
  7. When you walk in obedience, integrity and sincerity, you become a vessel who brings light to others. –Germany Kent
  8. Great leadership means great service. –John Maxwell
  9. Be nice to people… maybe it’ll be unappreciated, unreciprocated, or ignored, but spread the love anyway. We rise by lifting others. –Germany Kent
  10. The utmost form of respect is to give sincerely of your presence. –Mollie Marti
  11. When you add value to people, you lift them up, help them advance, make them a part of something bigger than themselves, and assist them in becoming who they were made to be. –John Maxwell

Popular Servant Leadership Quotes

A leader is someone who takes the risk of stepping out in advance to show the right way to others. This is what a true leader is. Here are some popular quotes about servant leadership.

  1. A noble leader answers not to the trumpet calls of self promotion, but to the hushed whispers of necessity. –Mollie Marti
  2. If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. –John Quincy Adams
  3. If you can’t handle others’ disapproval, then leadership isn’t for you. –Miles Anthony Smith
  4. If every citizen should recite their national anthem daily, you will develop love to serve your country better. –Lailah Gifty Akita
  5. I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people. –Mahatma Gandhi
  6. Let your light shine as an inspiration to humanity and BE THE REASON someone believes in the goodness of people. –Germany Kent
  7. Allow the way to your great work to be guided by your service to others. –Mollie Marti
  8. Make a commitment to serve the needs of the ‘least of these’ and give voice to the voiceless. –Artika Tyner
  9. Sacrifice makes one king or queen, not bloodline. –Abhijit Naskar
  10. It is amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit. –Harry Truman

Famous Servant Leadership Quotes

A servant leader does not compel people to follow them, but rather travels among them and progresses in a path that might unify everybody in a single goal. Speaking of which here are some famous quotes on servant leadership and followership for you.

  1. 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. –Ken Blanchard
  2. The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. –Mahatma Gandhi
  3. To serve the many, you first serve the few. –Ken Jennings
  4. I believe that God desires us not only to treat people with respect, but also to actively reach out to them and serve them. –John Maxwell
  5. Become a faithful servant. Cultivate wisdom, courage, faith, and resilience. –Germany Kent
  6. Organizations exist to serve. Period. Leaders live to serve. Period. –Tom Peters
  7. Exercising adaptive leadership is about giving meaning to your life beyond your own ambition. –Ronald Heifetz
  8. A leader… is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind. –Nelson Mandela
  9. It’s the servants of the people who rule the world, not the rulers. –Abhijit Naskar
  10. The theory of servant leadership is vital, but it’s the active Serving Leader that makes the critical difference. –Ken Jennings
  11. Life’s most urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others? –Martin Luther King, Jr.

Spiritual Servant Leadership Quotes

In this section, we are going to take a look at spiritual servant leadership quotes. Another method to characterize servant leadership is moral authority, which symbolizes a mutual choice between leader and follower. Here are some spiritual slogans about servant leadership.

  1. The miracle is this–the more we share, the more we have. –Leonard Nimoy
  2. Citizens in the Kingdom of God are exhorted to serve and anointed to rule. –Sebastien Richard
  3. True greatness, true leadership, is found in giving yourself in service to others, not in coaxing or inducing others to serve you. –J. Oswald Sanders
  4. Christians everywhere have undiscovered and unused spiritual gifts. The leader must help bring those gifts into the service of the kingdom, to develop them, to marshal their power. Spirituality alone does not make a leader; natural gifts and those given by God must be there too. –J. Oswald Sanders
  5. The first order of things to be changed is me, the leader. After I consider how hard it is to change myself, then I will understand the challenge of trying to change others. This is the ultimate test of leadership. –John Maxwell
  6. A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way. –John C. Maxwell
  7. A true shepherd leads the way. He does not merely point the way. –Leonard Ravenhill
  8. A spiritual leader will first and foremost, have a calling from God. His work will not be his profession, but his calling. –Zac Poonen
  9. God ultimately raises up leaders for one primary reason: His glory. He shows His power in our weakness. He demonstrates His wisdom in our folly. We are all like a turtle on a fence post. If you walk by a fence post and see a turtle on top of it, then you know someone came by and put it there. In the same way, God gives leadership according to His good pleasure. –Matt Chandler
  10. There is no such thing as a self-made spiritual leader. A true leader influences others spiritually only because the Spirit works in and through him to a greater degree than in those he leads. –Oswald Sanders
  11. It takes more than a busy church, a friendly church, or even an evangelical church to impact a community for Christ. It must be a church ablaze, led by leaders who are ablaze for God. –Wesley L. Duewel

Servant Leadership Quotes by Robert K. Greenleaf

Robert Greenleaf may have given us the clearest description of the servant-leader. He says, “The servant leader is a servant first”. Here are some more servant leadership quotes by Robert K. Greenleaf.‎

  1. 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 K. Greenleafaf
  2. Good leaders must first become good servants. –Robert K. Greenleafaf
  3. 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. –Robert K. Greenleaf
  4. A true natural servant automatically responds to any problem by listening first. –Robert K. Greenleafaf
  5. Where there is not community, trust, respect, ethical behavior are difficult for the young to learn and for the old to maintain. –Robert K. Greenleafaf
  6. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. –Robert K. Greenleafaf
  7. Nothing much happens without a dream. For something really great to happen, it takes a really great dream. –Robert K. Greenleafaf
  8. Leadership must first and foremost meet the needs of others. –Robert K. Greenleafaf
  9. Don’t assume, because you are intelligent, able, and well-motivated, that you are open to communication, that you know how to listen. –Robert K. Greenleafaf
  10. Everywhere there is much complaining about too few leaders. We have too few because most institutions are structured so that only a few—only one at the time—can emerge. –Robert K. Greenleafaf
  11. To the worldly, servant-leaders may seem naive; and they may not adapt readily to prevailing institutional structures. –Robert K. Greenleafaf
  12. The best leaders are clear. They continually light the way, and in the process, let each person know that what they do makes a difference. –Robert K. Greenleafaf

Servant Leadership Quotes from Great Business Thinkers

Let us now take a look at servant leadership quotes from great business thinkers. Servant leadership takes a new approach by addressing the needs of followers and cooperating with them to achieve corporate objectives. A leader who encourages others around him and offers particular appreciation for good work is a leader who will win the hearts of others and see amazing things happen. ‎

  1. 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
  2. Leaders don’t create more followers, they create more leaders. –Tom Peters
  3. 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
  4. People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. –John C. Maxwell
  5. Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion. –Simon Sinek
  6. Success is… knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others. –John C. Maxwell

Servant Leadership Quotes in the Bible

Servant leadership quotations abound in the Bible. These statements clearly suggest that servant leaders are courageous, that they risk failure, and that they deliver leadership that takes people to areas they have never gone before. Here are a few quotes about servant leadership in the Bible. ‎

  1. 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. –Matthew
  2. And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all. –Mark
  3. 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. –Acts
  4. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. –Philippians
  5. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant. –Mark
  6. 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. –Luke
  7. 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. –Matthew
  8. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. –Mark
  9. The greatest among you shall be your servant. –Matthew
  10. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. –Thessalonians
  11. According to [the Bible], a leader is first and foremost a servant. His concern is not for himself; his concern is not to give orders, to boss other people around, to have his own way. His concern is to meet the needs of others. –Wayne Mack

Servant Leadership Quotes in the Workplace

Let us now take a look at some quotes about servant leadership in the workplace. These comments make it quite evident that in the workplace, we should strive to foster an environment in which individuals are actively involved with one another. They should endeavor to help people around them. ‎

  1. If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. –Booker Washington
  2. I’ll lift you and you’ll lift me and we’ll both ascend together. –John Greenleaf Whittier
  3. Servant leadership propels organizational success. –Ken Blanchard
  4. The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people. –Woodrow Wilson
  5. To lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, we did it ourselves! –Lao Tzu
  6. A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. –Martin Luther King Jr
  7. Treat employees like they make a different and they will. –Jim Goodnight, SAS
  8. Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients. –Richard Branson
  9. Effective leaders go beyond not harming others, and they intentionally help others. To do that, they must value people and demonstrate that they care in such a way that their followers know it. –John Maxwell
  10. I’m learning that to be a CEO is to be a servant. My main job is to support our employees, and be a support to our clients and to our consumers. –Sylvia Metayer

More Servant Leadership Quotes

Let us now take a look at some more servant leadership slogans. We all know that one of the most perplexing contradictory concepts in business is “servant leadership.” These leadership public servant quotes will make it fairly easy for you to understand it.

  1. 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. –Bob Marley
  2. 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
  3. You take people as far as they will go not as far as you would like them to go. –Jeanette Rankin
  4. He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still. –Lao Tzu
  5. The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it. –Mother Teresa
  6. In the wired world of the twenty-first century, advancing shared values creates value.
  7. 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. –James M. Strock
  8. Are you serving others or your are being served by others? –Saji Ijiyemi
  9. Leaders who add value by serving believe in their people before their people believe in them and serve others before they are served. –John Maxwell
  10. I want to sleep for eternity with a broad smile on my face. I want those who remain behind to say, ‘This man has done his duty. –Nelson Mandela
  11. Even if you are retired, you still have a responsibility to be a servant leader in society. Your talents are needed in the community. Live on purpose. Thrive, give back, and make a difference where you are. –Germany Kent

Final Thoughts on Servant Leadership Quotes

Thank you for going through these quotes about servant leadership. These servant leadership quotes are divided into categories based on subject, making it easier for you to find the one you’re searching for. ‎

A good leader should take into account everyone’s perspectives and ideas. He can only be a good leader if he first learns to be a good servant. Servant leadership is also recommended in the Bible. Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa were two leader servants who served their respective countries with grace and integrity.

Leadership does not suggest that in a position of dominance you impose your authority according to your desires and impulses. The leader shouldn’t be subservient or weak either. He should just act in the favor his people. This is what these quotes about being a servant leader tell us. Therefore it is necessary that you get hold of as many of these servant leadership quotes as possible.

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