Education Quote by Sonny Perdue

Leadership gets framed as lone genius in politics; Perdue flips it into staffing strategy, then slips in a value test that’s meant to sound apolitical: “surround myself with good people” isn’t humility so much as a claim to managerial competence. It’s the language of executives imported into government, where the public wants results but also wants to believe power is being handled responsibly. By emphasizing “ability, judgment and knowledge,” he signals technocratic seriousness, a reassurance that decisions will be made by adults who know what they’re doing.

The pivot is “but above all, a passion for service.” That phrase is doing two jobs. On the surface, it’s the civic ideal: public office as stewardship, not self-dealing. Underneath, it’s a soft filter for loyalty and alignment. “Passion for service” is hard to quantify and easy to use as a litmus test: the “good people” are those who share the leader’s mission and temperament, not merely their resumes. It also preemptively deflects the standard critique of political appointments as patronage. If the team is motivated by service, then the accusation of cronyism sounds petty, even cynical.

Context matters: Perdue’s career sits in an era when distrust of institutions is high and “outsider” branding is valuable, even for insiders. The quote threads that needle by promising competence without sounding elitist, and virtue without sounding sanctimonious. It’s a politician’s ideal staffing speech: not a policy, but an ethic that asks voters to judge character where they can’t easily audit outcomes.