black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity

Warren G. Bennis

The manager administers; the leader innovates.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Inspirational Leader Leadership Management
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
Think of successful creative collaborations are dreams with deadlines.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Dream Successful Thinking
Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Business Failure Leadership
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

Ego Give Up Leader
That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Future Leader Leadership Opposites
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
Leaders are people who believe so passionately that they can seduce other people into sharing their dream.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Believe Dream Leadership
Without character, there is no credibility; and without credibility, there is no trust.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Character Credibility No Trust
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
It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from followers.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Follower Leadership Skills
Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Dance Leadership Music
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
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

Knows Materials Raw Want
Our tendency to create heroes rarely jibes with the reality that most nontrivial problems require collective solutions.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Hero Problem Reality
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 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
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
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.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Demand Development Moving
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

Creators Ideas Inspirational Leader
Those who take risks walk the high wire with no fear of falling.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Fall Risk Wire
First and foremost, effective leaders must continuously strive to make themselves smarter and better at making judgments.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Firsts Judgment Leader
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.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Jobs Opportunity Years
To become a leader, then, you must become yourself, become the maker of your own life
WARREN G. BENNIS

Leader Leadership Makers
This duality, making yourself better while teaching and developing others’ judgment capabilities, is the key to leadership that is both productive and principled.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Judgment Keys Principle Teaching
The ability to plan for what has not yet happened, for a future that has only been imagined, is one of the hallmarks of leadership.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Hospitality Leadership Vision

Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Warren G. Bennis Quotes