Top 25 Robert K. Greenleaf Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Good leaders must first become good servants.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Featured in: Service Quotes, Positive Work Quotes, Wednesday Inspirational Quotes, Humble Quotes, Monday Inspirational Quotes

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

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Featured in: Leadership Quotes, Service Quotes, Helping Others Quotes

3. “Servant leadership always empathizes, always accepts the person, but sometimes refuses to accept some of the person’s effort or performance as good enough.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

4. “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. The best test as a leader is: Do those served grow as persons; do they become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become leaders?”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

5. “Leadership must first and foremost meet the needs of others.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

6. “Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

7. “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.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

8. “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

9. “A statement of vision is the overarching purpose, the big dream, the visionary concept-something presently out of reach-so stated that it excites the imagination and chlalenges people to work for something they do not yet know how to do.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

10. “A Leader is one who ventures and takes the risks of going out ahead to show the way and whom others follow, voluntarily, because they are persuaded that the leader’s path is the right one-for them, probably better than they could devise for themselves.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

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

— Robert K. Greenleaf

12. “Listening, coupled with regular periods of reflection, are essential to the growth of the servant-leader.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

13. “The most serious failure of leadership is the failure to foresee.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

14. “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

15. “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.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

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

— Robert K. Greenleaf

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

— Robert K. Greenleaf

Featured in: Boss Quotes

18. “The only test of leadership is that somebody follows.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

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

— Robert K. Greenleaf

20. “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.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

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

— Robert K. Greenleaf

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

— Robert K. Greenleaf

23. “Love without laughter can be grim and oppressive. Laughter without love can be derisive and venomous. Together they make for greatness of spirit.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

24. “The work exists for the person as much as the person exists for the work.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

25. “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.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

26. “Knowledge may be power, but not without the willingness, and the release from inhibiting mind-sets, to use that knowledge.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

27. “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. Greenleaf

28. “I hold that hope, thus defined, is absolutely essential to both sanity and wholeness of life.”

— Robert K. Greenleaf

29. “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!”

— Robert K. Greenleaf