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Vision animates, inspires, transforms purpose into action.

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

Different Government Onions
Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Business Failure Leadership
Embrace error: Create an atmosphere in which prudent risk taking is strongly encouraged.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Atmosphere Errors Risk
Our tendency to create heroes rarely jibes with the reality that most nontrivial problems require collective solutions.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Hero Problem Reality
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.”
WARREN G. BENNIS

Backward Enemy Ideas Themselves Winning
Followers who tell the truth, and leaders who listen to it, are an unbeatable combination.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Followers Leadership Telling Truth
To become a leader, then, you must become yourself, become the maker of your own life
WARREN G. BENNIS

Leader Leadership Makers
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.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Jazz Living Someone Surprise World
Those who take risks walk the high wire with no fear of falling.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Fall Risk Wire
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
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

Characteristics Important Leader Truth Willingness
Great groups deliver great results. And for everyone involved in a great group, great work is its own reward.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Great Groups Rewards Work
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.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Always Dreamer People Pragmatic Soul
The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born – that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Inspirational Motivational Success
One of the worst mistakes is to do nothing.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Mistake More Nothing Worst
Ineffective leaders often act on the advice and counsel of the last person they talked to.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Advice Lasts Leader

Vision animates, inspires, transforms purpose into action.

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Vision animates, inspires, transforms purpose into action.

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