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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

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

Dance Leadership Music
Think of successful creative collaborations are dreams with deadlines.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Dream Successful Thinking
There is a profound difference between information and meaning.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Differences Knowledge Learning
Our tendency to create heroes rarely jibes with the reality that most nontrivial problems require collective solutions.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Hero Problem Reality
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
Organizations should try to find out if their learning programs actually work.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Organization Program Trying
Power is the basic energy needed to initiate and sustain action or, to put it another way, the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it. Leadership is the wise use of this power: Transformative leadership.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Initiate Leadership Power Translation Wise
People in great groups have blinders on. Their work is all they see. They value failures as learning opportunities. They are optimistic, not realistic, as they proceed from one challenge and crisis to the next.
WARREN G. BENNIS

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

Character Credibility No Trust
Leaders should always expect the very best of those around them. They know that people can change and grow.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Leader Management People
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
Ineffective leaders often act on the advice and counsel of the last person they talked to.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Advice Lasts Leader
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
First and foremost, effective leaders must continuously strive to make themselves smarter and better at making judgments.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Firsts Judgment Leader
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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