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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

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

Ideas Leadership Want
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
Servant leadership teaches us that you have to lay your cards on the table.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Cards Leadership Servant Tables
First and foremost, effective leaders must continuously strive to make themselves smarter and better at making judgments.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Firsts Judgment Leader
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
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 manager administers; the leader innovates.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Inspirational Leader Leadership Management
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
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
Judgment without character is expediency… or worse.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Character Expediency Judgment
Leadership is like beauty – it’s hard to define but you know it when you see it.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Define Hard Knows Leadership
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

Balance Groups Important
The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Born Future Leaders Leadership
In great groups, the right people always have the right job.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Groups Jobs People
The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Boss Inspirational Leadership
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. BENNIS

Leaders People Roles

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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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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