During Fall 2022, Volunteer Centre County Executive Director, Ann Echols, took a semester-long course on Implementing Servant Leadership from Don Frick with the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.
We will present more information about Servant Leadership in our Volunteer Centre County blog in the future, but for today, a listing of important quotes is shared to stimulate everyone’s thinking about what it means to be a servant leader. Some resources for digging deeper appear at the bottom of this blog post. Enjoy!
“Active, deep or reflective listening requires one's whole body and mind
- and sometimes one's soul -
in order to help the speaker to feel heard and deeply understood."
Greenleaf and Servant Leader Listening, Don M. Frick
“People grow taller when their leaders empathize with them and accept them for who they are.
This is true even though their performance may not be as good as it could be.
Leaders who empathize and fully accept those who go with them
on their journey are more likely to be trusted.”
The Contemporary Servant as Leader, edited by Dr. Kent M. Keith
“Leaders have to have the courage to get out in front and risk failure.”
The Contemporary Servant as Leader, edited by Dr. Kent M. Keith
“Servant-leaders exercise power for and power with, rather than power over.”
Linda Belton in The Contemporary Servant as Leader, edited by Dr. Kent M. Keith
“Servant-leaders listen in as many ways as possible. They observe what people are doing. They
conduct formal interviews, surveys, discussion groups, and focus groups. They use suggestion
boxes. They do marketing studies and needs assessments. They are always asking,
listening, watching, and thinking about what they learn.”
Questions and Answers about Servant Leadership by Dr. Kent M. Keith
“As leaders, we must climb higher and see the world from higher levels
and have the skills and capabilities to act in a creative, reflective, and generative mode.”
Voices 8: Foresight as the Central Ethic of Leadership by Daniel Kim
“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 Servant as Leader by Robert K. Greenleaf
“Just as photographs of loved ones are useful to carry around, a vision statement allows us to
share our vision with people who do not have a first-hand relationship with it.”
Voices 8: Foresight as the Central Ethic of Leadership by Daniel Kim
“As leaders, we should encourage all of our people to devote some of their time to daydreams
because this is the fertile soil from which visions are likely to sprout.”
Voices 8: Foresight as the Central Ethic of Leadership by Daniel Kim
“Move toward the minimum of difference between the outside and inside images of the self. To
some extent we all wear masks. I submit that all masks chafe; I never saw a well-fitting mask. It
is a great relief to take them off.”
Education and Maturity by Robert K. Greenleaf
“By taking successive aspirins something resembling health may be maintained. But this is not
the way exceptional health is built, in either persons or institutions.”
Teacher as Servant by Robert K. Greenleaf
“Dignity, significance, and character are wholly the attributes of individual people. They have
nothing to do with anything external to the person.”
Teacher as Servant by Robert K. Greenleaf
“I am not a piece of dust on the way to becoming another piece of dust. I am a unique
instrument of creation, unlike any that has ever been or ever will be. So is each of you.”
Teacher as Servant by Robert K. Greenleaf
“One must be close to both the bitterness and goodness of life to be fully human.”
The Contemporary Servant as Leader, edited by Dr. Kent M. Keith
“Servant-leaders exercise power for and power with, rather than power over.”
Linda Belton in The Contemporary Servant as Leader, edited by Dr. Kent M. Keith
“There usually is an information gap between the solid information in hand and what is needed.
The art of leadership rests, in part, on the ability to bridge that gap by intuition, that is, a
judgment from the unconscious process. The person who is better at this than most is likely to
emerge the leader.”
The Servant as Leader by Robert K. Greenleaf
“One does not awake each morning with the compulsion to reinvent the wheel. But if one
is a servant, either leader or follower, one is always searching, listening, and expecting that
a better wheel for these times is in the making. It may emerge any day.
Any one of us may find it out of his own experience. I am hopeful.”
The Servant as Leader, by Robert K. Greenleaf
“A leader must have more of an armor of confidence in facing the unknown - more than those
who accept his leadership. This is partly anticipation and preparation, but it is also a very firm
belief that in the stress of real-life situations one can compose oneself in a way that permits the
creative process to operate.”
The Servant as Leader, by Robert K. Greenleaf
“There is a preoccupation with criticism and not much thought is given to ‘what can I do about
it?’ Criticism has its place, but as a total preoccupation it is sterile.”
The Servant as Leader, by Robert K. Greenleaf
"The only sound basis for trust is for people to have the solid experience of
being served by their institutions in a way that builds a society that is
more just and more loving, and with greater creative opportunities for all its people."
The Institution as Servant, Robert K. Greenleaf
"Leaders are not trained. They are competent people to being with.
And they can be given a vision and a context of values.
Beyond that, they only need opportunity and encouragement to grow."
The Institution as Servant, Robert K. Greenleaf
Resources:
For More Information:
Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership
Seton Hall University
400 S. Orange Ave.
Presidents Hall 4A
South Orange, NJ 07079
973-275-4650