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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

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

Conflict Leadership Opportunity
Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Retirement Teacher Teaching
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
Judgment without character is expediency… or worse.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Character Expediency Judgment
The manager administers; the leader innovates.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Inspirational Leader Leadership Management
Embrace error: Create an atmosphere in which prudent risk taking is strongly encouraged.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Atmosphere Errors Risk
I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don’t think that’s quite it; it’s more like jazz. There is more improvisation.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Leadership Running Thinking
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
You need people who can walk their companies into the future rather than back them into the future.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Needs People Vision
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
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

Being Ideas Knowing Yourself
It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from followers.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Follower Leadership Skills
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
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
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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