Being leaven in the world

Here is one of my favorite Robert Greenleaf quotes, found in his essay Spirituality as Leadership in the book Seeker and Servant: Reflections on Religious Leadership. You can also find this quote in the Introduction of On Becoming A Servant-Leader:

I believe that caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is what makes a good society. Most caring was once person to person. Now much of it is mediated through institutions - often large, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt. If a better society is to be built, one more just and more caring and providing opportunity for people to grow, the most effective and economical way, while supportive of the social order, is to raise the performance as servant of as many institutions as possible by new voluntary regenerative forces initiated within them by committed individuals, servants. Such servants may never predominate or even be numerous; but their influence may form a leaven that makes possible a reasonably civilized society.