black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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.

Warren G. Bennis

Think of a crucible as an occasion for real magic, the creation of something more valuable than an alchemist could possibly imagine. In it, the individual is transformed, changed, created anew. He or she grows in ways that change his or her definition of self.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Individual Possibly Real Self Something Thinking
It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from followers.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Follower Leadership Skills
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

Created Iron Moment Necessity Something
Companies which get misled by their own success are sure to be blind sided.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Blind Discipline Success
Organizations should try to find out if their learning programs actually work.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Organization Program Trying
Encourage reflective backtalk: Leaders know the importance of having someone in their lives who will unfailingly and fearlessly tell them the truth.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Importance Knows Leader
Leaders learn by leading, and they learn bestby leading in the face of obstacles. As weather shapes mountains, problems shape leaders.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Leadership Mountain Weather
People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Ideas People Standing
Without character, there is no credibility; and without credibility, there is no trust.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Character Credibility No Trust
Successful leaders are great askers
WARREN G. BENNIS

Leader Problem Successful
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

Iron Leadership Motivational
Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Business Failure Leadership
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

Create Enemy Team War
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

Crucible Political Powerful
Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity
WARREN G. BENNIS

Conflict Leadership Opportunity
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

Colored Sculley Time Water

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Warren G. Bennis Quotes