I work with many leaders who aspire to live by the servant leadership philosophy the interesting thing is I think there's a misnomer in what servant leadership's definition is a lot of the leaders that I work with feel like they have to give to others first and take care of others first as a part of servant leadership and yes um leading through others is servant leadership but there's a misnomer here there are times where you do have to take care of yourself first in order to be a great servant leader there are times you have to you know the old adage put your mask on first before you can put the mask on others often leaders are burnt out they're not taking care of themselves because they're taking care of their team so much and giving to their team so much that they themselves are suffering and the problem is if you don't stop and pause and take care of yourself one you're setting a bad example for your team members and they're likely to be burnt out as well and two um you're not in the best position to truly Empower them and to truly help them make the best decisions and guide them as a servant leader um you're not the best at asking questions you resort to old habits of jumping in and making decisions for them instead of empowering them to make their decisions so to be a great servant leader don't forget to take care of yourself first it's the only way to truly serve others [Music]