Barely know the leader exists--Lao Tzu

There is a good quote by Lao Tzu that reflects on some aspects of servant leadership.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

Some leaders like to be out in front and highly visible.  This approach works well in certain situations.  Steve Jobs at Apple took this role.  However, for every Steve Jobs, there are ten other leaders who do their jobs in an outstanding way from behind the curtain.  They help their teams prepare, execute, adjust, and grow.

Mentoring is a leadership role where success is measured by how someone else succeeds.  Someone else will take the reward and stand in the spotlight at the end of the day even though the mentor was critical to the development process.