Prudence Bushnell was the ambassador when the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, was bombed by terrorists in 1998. Over 200 people were killed. The majority were nearby Kenyan civilians who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Forty-six of Bushnell’s colleagues, Kenyan and American, died in the embassy itself.

“Leadership is not about you,” Bushnell wrote recently in The Foreign Service Journal, (January/February 2017 issue “Notes to the New Administration.”)

“The lesson that practicing leadership means getting over yourself to focus on others came as a whack upside the head a few weeks after the attack. I was asked to speak at an unexpected remembrance ceremony for a beloved colleague. I was burned out from funerals, memorial services, anger, and sadness. Physically and emotionally exhausted, I actually felt a stab of resentment. Whack: This is not about me.”

Some of the employees of the United States government that President Trump will supervise have, like Bushnell, seen what it means to sacrifice for their country: military personnel who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq, Foreign Service officers who have been through bombing attacks, intelligence officers who risk lives to keep the U.S. government informed of dangers, and a lot of ordinary employees who come to work every day proud to serve as administrators and organizers of the vast amount of information and decisions required to serve over 325 million citizens of their country.

President Trump, it’s not about you. It’s about them and the citizens they—and you—serve. You are a servant.