Some wise words on leadership from Amma Theodora – an early Christian monastic who went into the Egyptian desert during the third and fourth centuries to live a life of prayer and contemplation.
For ‘teacher’, also read leader, therapist, and coach – the advice applies equally.
A teacher ought to be a stranger to the desire for domination, vain-glory, and pride; one should not be able to fool him by flattery, nor blind him by gifts, nor conquer him by the stomach, nor dominate him by anger; but he should be patient, gentle, and humbler as far as possible; he must be tested and without partisanship, full of concern for people, and a lover of souls.
Amma Theodora on being a teacher