Every great group is an island… but an island with a bridge to the mainland.
WARREN G. BENNISThe American Heritage Dictionary defines crucible as “a place, time, or situation characterized by the confluence of powerful intellectual, social, economic, or political forces; a severe test of patience or belief; a vessel for melting material at high temperatures.”
More Warren G. Bennis Quotes
-
-
What makes a good follower? The single most important characteristic may well be a willingness to tell the truth. In a world of growing complexity leaders are increasingly dependent on their subordinates for good information, whether the leaders want to hear it or not.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
People in great groups have blinders on. Their work is all they see. They value failures as learning opportunities. They are optimistic, not realistic, as they proceed from one challenge and crisis to the next.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
Successful leaders are great askers
WARREN G. BENNIS -
At the time, Sculley was destined to be the head of Pepsico. The clincher came when Jobs asked him, “How many more years of your life do you want to spend making colored water when you can have an opportunity to come here and change the world?”
WARREN G. BENNIS -
People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
Companies which get misled by their own success are sure to be blind sided.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
Leaders wonder about everything, want to learn as much as they can, are willing to take risks, experiment, try new things. They do not worry about failure but embrace errors, knowing they will learn from them.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
The American Heritage Dictionary defines crucible as “a place, time, or situation characterized by the confluence of powerful intellectual, social, economic, or political forces; a severe test of patience or belief; a vessel for melting material at high temperatures.”
WARREN G. BENNIS -
Successful leadership is not about being tough or soft, sensitive or assertive, but about a set of attributes. First and foremost is character
WARREN G. BENNIS -
The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
Think of successful creative collaborations are dreams with deadlines.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
Something that made them feel that desperate sense of hitting bottom-as something they thought was almost a necessity. It’s as if at that moment the iron entered their soul; that moment created the resilience that leaders need.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
Effective leaders make a full commitment to be a learner, to keep increasing and nourishing their knowledge and wisdom.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
Power is the basic energy needed to initiate and sustain action or, to put it another way, the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it. Leadership is the wise use of this power: Transformative leadership.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
Vision animates, inspires, transforms purpose into action.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
Just as no great painting has ever been created by a committee, no great vision has ever emerged from the herd.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
Government is like an onion. To understand it, you have to peel through many different layers. Most outsiders never get beyond the first or second layer.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
If you’re the leader, you’ve got to give up your omniscient and omnipotent fantasies – that you know and must do everything. Learn how to abandon your ego to the talents of others.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
The leaders I met, whatever walk of life they were from, whatever institutions they were presiding over, always referred back to the same failure something that happened to them that was personally difficult, even traumatic.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
The leader…is rarely the brightest person in the group. Rather they have extraordinary taste, which makes them more curators than creators. They are appreciators of talent and nurturers of talent and they have the ability to recognize valuable ideas.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
The leader has a clear idea of what he wants to do professionally and personally, and the strength to persist in the face of setbacks, even failures
WARREN G. BENNIS -
If great teams don’t have an “enemy,” they create one for themselves because, as former Coca-Cola CEO Roberto Goizueta pointed out, “you can’t have a war without one.”
WARREN G. BENNIS -
Find the appropriate balance of competing claims by various groups of stakeholders. All claims deserve consideration but some claims are more important than others.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
Don’t over-react to the trouble makers.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.
WARREN G. BENNIS -
You are your own raw material. When you know what you consist of and what you want to make of it, then you can invent yourself.
WARREN G. BENNIS