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.
The servant leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve.
The quality of a society will be judged by what the least privileged in it achieves.
Where there is no community, trust, respect, and ethical behavior are difficult for the young to learn and for the old to maintain.
For the person with creative potential there is no wholeness except in using it.
Ego can’t sleep. It micro-manages. It disempowers. It reduces our capability. It excels in control.
The only test of leadership is that somebody follows.
Purpose and laughter are the twins that must not separate. Each is empty without the other.
Love without laughter can be grim and oppressive. Laughter without love can be derisive and venomous. Together they make for greatness of spirit.
On an important decision one rarely has 100% of the information needed for a good decision no matter how much one spends or how long one waits. And, if one waits too long, he has a different problem and has to start all over. This is the terrible dilemma of the hesitant decision maker.
The work exists for the person as much as the person exists for the work.
Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams.
The most serious failure of leadership is the failure to foresee.
Not much happens without a dream. And for something great to happen, there must be a great dream. Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams. Much more than a dreamer is required to bring it to reality; but the dream must be there first.
The servant-leader is servant first, it begins with a natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first, as opposed to, wanting power, influence, fame, or wealth.
I hold that hope, thus defined, is absolutely essential to both sanity and wholeness of life.
Listening, coupled with regular periods of reflection, are essential to the growth of the servant-leader.
Rabbi Heschel replied: “I would say: Let them remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity. Let them be sure that every little deed counts, that every word has power, and that we can – every one – do our share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and all frustrations and all disappointments. And above all, remember that the meaning of life is to build a life as if it were a work of art.
Knowledge may be power, but not without the willingness, and the release from inhibiting mind-sets, to use that knowledge.
In the context of religious leadership, tinkering with structure is not a first choice of means for building or sustaining quality in an institution. Leadership is the prime concern!