Thoughts on Servant Leadership

Taylor Burns

• 2 min read
Thoughts on Servant Leadership

"You can have everything in life you want, if you just help enough people get what they want." - Zig Ziglar

How can you truly care about those you serve, when helping them achieve is tied to your own personal goals? Are you being genuine in your efforts to help them, or are you doing it for yourself?

These are important questions to ask of yourself and to answer them honestly.

You must set your ego aside entirely. It's not about you!

Major Richard "Dick Winters" was the epitome of a great leader. He put it best: "Leaders lead the way."

Jim Collins in Good to Great puts it nearly perfectly: (all we have to do is substitute great company/institution to either individual athletes or a team - depending on your position)

"The greatest leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. It's not that they have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious - but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves."

Here's the catch. It's okay to have big goals for yourself: to live the life you want for you and your family you need to earn income. It's not selfish to want a nice house and be able to travel.

But here's the key:

Those life goals CAN'T be the goal. They will simply be a byproduct of excellence in how you serve others.

The goal is to be authentically, genuinely selfless in how you serve your athletes.

George Bailey looking at a photo of his father in It's A Wonderful Life. "All you can take with you is that which you've given away."

Give more.

Give what you didn't get.

Love more.