Life Management Insights

Leadership and Success

• You can't imagine the extra work I had when I was a god. Hirohito, Emperor of Japan

• We must become the change we want to see.- Mahatma Gandhi  

• Excellent leadership requires a balanced mix of paradoxes. Leaders need to be visionary yet practical, teachers yet learners, believers yet open-minded, tough yet fair. Med Yones

• To lead people, walk beside them ... As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate ...When the best leader's work is done the people say, "We did it ourselves!" - Lao-tsu

• If I have seen farther than other men, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants.
  - Sir Isaac Newton
• I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers - Ralph Nader , president green party & US presidential candidate
• Ah well! I am their leader, I really ought to follow them! - Alexandre Ledru-Rollin

• There is no such thing as a perfect leader either in the past or present, in China or elsewhere. If there is one, he is only pretending - Liu Shao-ch'i  

• Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors. - From an old African proverb 
• When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.  - Lao Tse
• The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything. - Theodore Roosevelt
• Many people find it reassuring to think that someone else has the answer;
  others believe they have it and take control; CEO's frequently benefit
  from the realization that there is not one answer. -Unknown
• I will venture to lay it down for an infallible rule, that, if two persons equal in judgment play for a considerable sum, he that loves money the most shall lose; his anxiety for the success of the game confounds him. - Benjamin Franklin 

• Managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing. - Warren Bennis

• If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission. - Admiral Grace Hopper

• You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.   - Eleanor Roosevelt

• Leadership in today's world requires far more than a large stock of gunboats and a hard fist at the conference table. - Hubert H. Humphrey

• All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership. - John Galbraith,. economist 

• The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way.- Henry Miller

• Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character; it requires moral rather than athletic or intellectual effort, and it imposes on both leader and follower alike the burdens of self-restraint. - Lewis H. Lapham

• I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum. - Bishop Desmond Tutu

• People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. . . . The leader leads, and the boss drives. - Theodore Roosevelt

• The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on. . . . The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully. - Walter Lippmann

• If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun. - Katharine Hepburn

• In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions. - Margaret Wheatly

• The quality of leadership, more than any other single factor, determines the success or failure of an organization. - Fred Fiedler & Martin Chemers

• Don't be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small steps. - David Loyd George

• There is no contest between the company that buys the grudging compliance of its workforce and the company that enjoys the enterprising participation of its employees. - Ricardo Sempler 

• Excellence is not an accomplishment. It is a spirit, a never-ending process. - Lawrence M. Miller

• The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you.- Max DePree 

• When what you are doing isn't working, you tend to do more of the same and with greater intensity. - Dr. Bill Maynard & Tom Champoux Heart

• A friend of mine characterizes leaders simply like this: "Leaders don't inflict pain. They bear pain." - Max DePree

• A new leader has to be able to change an organization that is dreamless, soulless and visionless ... someone's got to make a wake up call. - Warren Bennis

• 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 Bennis

•  When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.- Lao Tse 

• Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity - George Patton

• Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes... but no plans. - Peter Drucker

• Hell, there are no rules here--we're trying to accomplish something.- Thomas A. Edison

• Leadership is understanding people and involving them to help you do a job. That takes all of the good characteristics, like integrity, dedication of purpose, selflessness, knowledge, skill, implacability, as well as determination not to accept failure. - Admiral Arleigh A. Burke

• Where there is no vision, the people perish.- Proverbs 

• Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. - Mother Theresa

• You can exert no influence if you are not susceptible to influence. --C. G. Jung

• General Colin Powell's Rules
  • 1.It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
  • 2.Get mad, then get over it.
  • 3.Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
  • 4.It can be done!
  • 5.Be careful what you choose. You may get it.
  • 6.Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.
  • 7.You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours.
  • 8.Check small things.
  • 9.Share credit.
  • 10.Remain calm. Be kind.
  • 11.Have a vision. Be demanding.
  • 12.Don't take counsel of your fears or nay-sayers.
  • 13.Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.