Leadership as Service: Honoring the Humans We Lead
Seven fundamental truths that transform how leaders serve and empower their teams.
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The most consistent attitude of successful leaders is this: leadership, at its core, is service.
To lead others is to offer vision, establish and uphold standards of engagement, and then step into a collaborative process where a team continually reshapes the path toward that vision together. Leadership requires that we understand a few fundamental truths—about ourselves and about the humans we serve.
Every member of a team is the main character in their own story, and that truth doesn’t pause when they clock in. Leaders hold the shared vision, yes, but we also steward a landscape filled with people whose lives, histories, and hopes are distinct from our own. Reconciling these realities isn’t a step-by-step process, but rather a set of guiding principles that shape our perspectives and decisions.
Below are the seven truths I hold as I lead and serve.
1. Time Is the Real Currency
Employees don’t simply trade labor for wages—they trade their time. Time with loved ones. Time caring for themselves. Time pursuing dreams, rest, joy, or healing. This is time they can never get back.
Modern economic structures place immense pressure on people, and leaders must understand the weight of that exchange. It is our responsibility to ensure that the hours people give to our organizations are meaningful. Regardless of how we feel about the larger system, we must honor the reality that work takes people away from what matters most. Respect that. Act like it matters—because it does.
2. Market-Value Pay Isn’t the Same as a Livable Wage
Whether or not we can influence wages, forty hours is still forty hours. Every person who shows up with integrity, investment, and kindness deserves deep respect.
People bring different strengths, motivations, and sources of meaning to their work. Leadership requires seeing those differences and integrating them into the workflow—not because it’s a nice gesture, but because it is respectful and essential to each individual’s success and well-being.
We may not control wages, but we can offer connection, community, and purpose.
3. Do the Inner Work
We treat others the way we treat ourselves, and we expect from others what we demand of ourselves. Without self-awareness, reflection, and a willingness to grow, we risk placing the weight of our unresolved inner world onto our teams.
One of the greatest hazards of leadership is perceiving a strength in someone else—especially one we lack—as a threat. Inner work isn’t optional. It is the safeguard that prevents us from confusing leadership with control, outcomes with identity, and perception with reality.
4. Your Humanity Is a Leadership Skill
Teams look to leaders for technical skill and strategic clarity, yes, but they also look for humanity—a model for navigating workplace complexities.
Be confident in your strengths. Be comfortable not having all the answers. Be comfortable being surrounded by people whose ideas surpass your own, and then be comfortable inviting those ideas into execution. Let others shine.
Show your team that excellence and integrity belong together. Model the courage to say, “I don’t know—what do you think?” And then act on a great idea, even if it isn’t yours.
Great leaders don’t need to be the best person in the room. They need to make room for the best in others.
5. Praise Your People
Praise privately. Praise publicly. Praise often.
When teams excel, it’s because they are using sound judgment, making thoughtful decisions, and investing genuine effort. Affirming this builds confidence—and confidence builds capacity.
When missteps inevitably occur, the conversation doesn't need to be performative, scripted, or wrapped in a “feedback sandwich.” It can be a real, respectful dialogue grounded in mutual trust. That trust only exists when people know their contributions are truly seen and valued.
Conflict is not a relationship killer. In a healthy culture, conflict is a growth point.
6. Work Is Not Family
Your team doesn’t owe you anything. They have the right to show up, fulfill the responsibilities outlined in their job description, and go home. That alone is enough.
Anything beyond that—extra effort, creative energy, initiative, emotional labor—is a choice, not an obligation. It comes from investment, not indebtedness. And that investment is a privilege to receive as a leader.
Our duty is to create a culture where that extra effort has a clear place to land, clear purpose, and meaningful impact; where people feel their contributions matter and their boundaries remain intact. When leaders honor this distinction, teams thrive without pressure, guilt, or blurred lines.
7. Leadership Is an Inherent Act of Mentorship
On every team, some people already have the knowledge and confidence to move from point A to point B on their own. Others have the capacity and willingness but not yet the roadmap.
Technical skills can be taught, but internal barriers—self-doubt, imbalance, shrinking themselves—are often what keep people stuck. Overcoming these barriers is just as essential as developing professional competency.
When we recognize a team member who is capable of more, it becomes our responsibility to open a pathway for mentorship. No one succeeds alone. We all remember the mentors who invested in us, believed in us, and made room for our growth.
Choosing leadership means choosing to be that person for someone else.
Exceptional leadership creates more leaders, not fewer. We set the vision and the cultural tone, but the meaning of the work is co-created with the people who show up every day. When we honor that their lives and identities outside of work will always matter more, we create an environment where alignment and progress become natural, fluid, and shared.
