Robert K. Greenleaf

For the person with creative potential there is no wholeness except in using it.

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams.

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Ego can’t sleep. It micro-manages. It disempowers. It reduces our capability. It excels in control.

— Robert K. Greenleaf

The only test of leadership is that somebody follows.

— Robert K. Greenleaf

The servant leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve.

— Robert K. Greenleaf

The quality of a society will be judged by what the least privileged in it achieves.

— Robert K. Greenleaf

The work exists for the person as much as the person exists for the work.

— Robert K. Greenleaf

The most serious failure of leadership is the failure to foresee

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Even the frankest and bravest of subordinates do not talk with their boss the same way they talk with colleagues.

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Love without laughter can be grim and oppressive. Laughter without love can be derisive and venomous. Together they make for greatness of…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Servant leadership always empathizes, always accepts the person, but sometimes refuses to accept some of the person's effort or performance as good…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Where there is not community, trust, respect, ethical behavior are difficult for the young to learn and for the old to maintain.

— Robert K. Greenleaf

“But perhaps the greatest threat is that we lack the mechanism of consensus, a way of making up our collective minds.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Nothing much happens without a dream. For something really great to happen, it takes a really great dream.

— Robert K. Greenleaf

“W. Edwards Deming—that arguably, over 90 percent of problems are due to bad systems, not bad people. However, Greenleaf correctly points out…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Faith is the choice of the nobler hypothesis.' Not the noblest, one never knows what that is. But the nobler, the best…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

One must not be afraid of a little silence. Some find silence awkward or oppressive. But a relaxed approach to dialogue will…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Not much happens without a dream. And for something great to happen, there must be a great dream. Behind every great achievement…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

The servant-leader is servant first... It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

A statement of vision is the overarching purpose, the big dream, the visionary concept-something presently out of reach-so stated that it excites…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Who is the enemy? Who is holding back more rapid movement to the better society that is reasonable and possible with available…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

“Now you can do as I do, stand outside and criticize, bring pressure if you can, write and argue about it. All…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

A Leader is one who ventures and takes the risks of going out ahead to show the way and whom others follow,…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

The best leaders are clear. They continually light the way, and in the process, let each person know that what they do…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Moral authority is another way to define servant leadership because it represents a reciprocal choice between leader and follower. If the leader…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

“Ego focuses on one’s own survival, pleasure, and enhancement to the exclusion of others; ego is selfishly ambitious. It sees relationships in…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Purpose and laughter are the twins that must not separate. Each is empty without the other.

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Leadership must first and foremost meet the needs of others.

— Robert K. Greenleaf

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. Greenleaf

“Typically, today, somebody in top management meets with a consultant, reads a book, gets excited about a new idea, and begins to…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

On an important decision one rarely has 100% of the information needed for a good decision no matter how much one spends…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

“Create Dangerously.” And, as I ponder the fusing of servant and leader, it seems a dangerous creation: dangerous for the natural servant…

— Robert K. Greenleaf

“The variable that marks some periods as barren and some as rich in prophetic vision is in the interest, the level of…

— Robert K. Greenleaf