Leaders are people who do the right thing: managers are people who do things right. Both roles are crucial, but they differ profoundly. I often observe people in top positions doing wrong things well.
WARREN G. BENNISThe ability to plan for what has not yet happened, for a future that has only been imagined, is one of the hallmarks of leadership.
More Warren G. Bennis Quotes
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Organizations should try to find out if their learning programs actually work.
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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?”
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Every great group is an island… but an island with a bridge to the mainland.
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The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
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Understand the “Gretzky Factor”: Cultivate an instinct, a “touch”, call it what you will, that enables you to know both where the “puck” is now and where it will be soon.
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Successful leadership is not about being tough or soft, sensitive or assertive, but about a set of attributes. First and foremost is character
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Leaders should always expect the very best of those around them. They know that people can change and grow.
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Followers who tell the truth and leaders who listen to it are an unbeatable combination.
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Great things are achieved by talented people who are absolutely convinced that they not only can but will achieve them.
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You need people who can walk their companies into the future rather than back them into the future.
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Almost without exception, members of great groups see themselves as winning underdogs, as a feisty David hurling fresh ideas at a big, backward-looking Goliath. They always have an “enemy.”
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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
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Great leaders love talent and know where to find it. They surround themselves with talented people who can work effectively together.
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One of the worst mistakes is to do nothing.
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Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard.
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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.
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Someone once wrote that the sound of surprise is jazz, and if there’s any one thing that we must try to get used to in this world, it’s surprise and the unexpected. Truly, we are living in world where the only thing that’s constant is change.
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Ineffective leaders often act on the advice and counsel of the last person they talked to.
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This is more than just having a vision. You can see the difference in the often-cited way in which Steve Jobs brought in John Sculley to take over Apple.
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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.
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Leadership has become a heavy industry. Concern and interest about leadership development is no longer an American phenomenon. It is truly global. Though I will probably be in less demand, I wanted to move on.
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The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.
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Who succeeds in forming and leading a Great Group? He or she is almost always a pragmatic dreamer. They are people who get things done, but they are people with immortal longings. Often, they are scientifically minded people with poetry in their souls.
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If knowing yourself and being yourself were as easy to do as to talk about, there wouldn’t be nearly so many people walking around in borrowed postures, spouting secondhand ideas, trying desperately to fit in rather than to stand out.
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Those who take risks walk the high wire with no fear of falling.
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Vision animates, inspires, transforms purpose into action.
WARREN G. BENNIS