Page 27 - Harnessing the Strengths

10 ■ Servant-Leadership: In a Nutshell

• If you are successful, you will win false friends and
true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
• The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
• Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
• The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas
can be shot down by the smallest men and women
with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
• People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
• What you spend years building may be destroyed
overnight.
Build anyway.
• People really need help but may attack you if you do
help them.
Help people anyway.
• Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked
in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

Lasting Solutions

The “paradoxical commandments” describe perfectly what
servant-leadership is all about. The message is clear: even in
the most diffi cult situations, it is possible to fi nd an alterna-
tive. How? According to Keith, the answer is: by confront-
ing the worst in the world with the best in ourselves. In
the end, it is not the circumstances that determine how the
world looks; it is our reactions—and these reactions can
always be positive!