servant-leaders exercise the following traits

Servant-leaders exercise the following traits and practices in their roles. They:

• Understand the value of every human soul.
• Have an inborn or developed sense of caring for others.
• Are quick to volunteer to take pressure off someone else.
• Rush to the aid of someone who is going through an embarrassing or humiliating experience.
• Treat all people on a basis of equality.
• Do not feel that tasks they expect others to do are too demeaning for themselves.
• Are not offended by disruptions of people who are themselves going through emotional traumas or stress.
• Expect more from themselves than they do from anyone else.
• Are quick to compliment, give credit, and build up those who perform a given task.
• Judge people by their potential, not necessarily by one single negative experience.
• Do not take credit for someone else’s achievements and love to share credit for any of their own accomplishments.
• Get the facts before finding fault or criticizing another person.
• Help all people feel they had a real part in the success of a project.
• Detest practical jokes or statements that focus humiliation or attention on one soul.
• Always constructively criticize in private and compliment in public.
• Are absolutely honest in their work.
• Are equally fair with all under their direction.
• Are always willing to listen to both sides of a quarrel, discussion, or issue. They know it is a pretty thin pancake that has only one side. . . .
• Make themselves accessible to all, not just those with position or power.

True servant-leaders do not need a checklist of these character traits, for they live them daily. . . .

Vaughn J. Featherstone

The Incomparable Christ: Our Master and Model (1995)

As quoted in Principles of Leadership Teacher's Manual. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City. 2001

the miraculous effect of Nephi’s oath

What astonishes the western reader is the miraculous effect of Nephi’s oath on Zoram, who upon hearing a few conventional words promptly becomes tractable, while as for the brothers, as soon as Zoram ‘made an oath unto us that he would tarry with us from that time forth … our fears did cease concerning him.’ (1 Ne. 4:35, 37.)

The reaction of both parties make sense when one realizes that the oath is the one thing that is most sacred and inviolable among the desert people and their descendants: ‘Hardly will an Arab break his oath, even if his life be in jeopardy,’ for ‘there is nothing stronger, and nothing more sacred than the oath among the nomads,’ and even the city Arabs, if it be exacted under special conditions. ‘The taking of an oath is a holy thing with the Bedouins,’ says one authority. ‘Wo to him who swears falsely; his social standing will be damaged and his reputation ruined. No one will receive his testimony, and he must also pay a money fine.’

But not every oath will do. To be most binding and solemn an oath should be by the life of something, even if it be but a blade of grass. The only oath more awful than that ‘by my life’ or (less commonly) ‘by the life of my head’ is the wa hayat Allah ‘by the life of God,’ or ‘as the Lord Liveth,’ the exact Arabic equivalent of the ancient Hebrew hai Elohim. Today it is glibly employed by the city riff raff, but anciently it was an awful thing, as it still is among the desert people. ‘I confirmed my answer in the Bedouin wise,’ says [Charles M.] Doughty. ‘By his life … he said, … “Well, swear by the life of Ullah” (God)! … I answered and thus even the nomads use, in a greater occasion, but they say by the life of thee in a little matter.’ Among both Arabs and Jews, says [Samuel] Rosenblatt, ‘an oath without God’s name is no oath,’ while ‘both in Jewish and Mohammedan societies oaths by “the life of God” are frequent.’

So we see that the only way that Nephi could possibly have pacified the struggling Zoram in an instant was to utter the one oath that no man would dream of breaking, the most solemn of all oaths to the Semite: ‘As the Lord liveth, and as I live!’ (1 Ne. 4:32.)

Hugh Nibley

An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 2nd ed. [1964], 104–5.

you can't pray a lie

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn’t come. Why wouldn’t they? It warn’t no use to try and hide it from Him…. I knowed very well why they wouldn’t come. It was because my heart warn’t right; it was because… I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was tryin’ to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing,… but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can’t pray a lie – I found that out.



Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New American Library, New York, NY. P.208-9 as quoted in Marvin J. Ashton, “Personal Prayers,” Prayer. Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City, UT. 1978. P.75

distinguishing between the honest in heart

I wish I could offer an objective test for distinguishing between the honest in heart who strive to do what they can and the pretenders who expect to be carried when they could walk, but I don't know how to do it. I am content that God knows the difference.


Stephen E. Robinson, Believing Christ, 1992, p. 86. See also Romans 6:15-16

a man out of work

A man out of work is of special moment to the Church because, deprived of his inheritance, he is on trial as Job was on trial - for his integrity. As days lengthen into weeks and months and even years of adversity, the hurt grows deeper, and he is sorely tempted to 'curse God and die.' Continued economic dependence breaks him; it humiliates him if he is strong, spoils him if he is weak. Sensitive or calloused, despondent or indifferent, rebellious or resigned - either way, he is threatened with spiritual ruin, for the dole is an evil and idleness a curse. He soon becomes the seedbed of discontent, wrong thinking, alien beliefs. The Church cannot hope to save a man on Sunday if during the weeek it is a complacent witness to the crucifixion of his soul. . . . 

Gordon B. Hinckley

Pure Religion: The Story of Church Welfare Since 1930 by Glen L. Rudd. 1995. P.310. Originally found in 'Helping Others to Help Themselves: The Story of the Mormon Church Welfare Program,' [pamphlet 1941], p.3

Integrity is fundamental to being men. Integrity means being truthful, but it also means accepting responsibility and honoring commitments and covenants. . . .

Good men sometimes make mistakes. A man of integrity will honestly face and correct his mistakes, and that is an example we can respect. Sometimes men try but fail. Not all worthy objectives are realized despite one's honest and best efforts. True manhood is not always measured by the fruits of one's labors but by the labors themselves--by one's striving.

Though he will make some sacrifices and deny himself some pleasures in the course of
honoring his commitments, the true man leads a rewarding life. He gives much, but he receives more, and he lives content in the approval of his Heavenly Father. The life of true manhood is the good life.

D. Todd Christofferson, "Let Us Be Men," Ensign, Nov. 2006, 47-48