Quotes About Leadership

But there's a difference between being an achiever and a leader. Successful people become great leaders when they learn to shift the focus from themselves to others.

All other things being equal, your people skills (or lack of them) become more pronounced the higher up you go. In fact, even when all other things are not equal, your people skills often make the difference in how high you go.

this "we will succeed" attitude leads to staff burnout, high turnover, and a weaker team than the one you started with.

What's more important? Your company or your life?" It was a rhetorical question. I was warning him that, stripped of his identity at the top of a sixty-thousand-employee organization, he was vulnerable to boredom, dislocation, depression. I'd seen it before in ex-CEOs who didn't prepare well for their corporate exit. It would be "irresponsible" if he didn't create a new identity for himself.

If your successor truly wants to become a great CEO, she needs to recognize that there is no "off" switch when she is around the people who she will be leading.

Your people are changing constantly and it's right in front of your eyes. If you don't change accordingly, you may as well be managing with your eyes wide shut. That's the most unforgivable prejudice of all.

The danger with this, of course, is that, unchecked, this "we will succeed" attitude leads to staff burnout, high turnover, and a weaker team than the one you started with. His biggest challenge as a leader was avoiding overcommitment.

As a general rule, people in their 20s want to learn on the job. In their 30s they want to advance. And in their 40s they want to rule. No matter what their age, though, understanding their desires is like trying to pin down mercury.

The reality for leaders of the past and leaders in the future is that in the past very bright people would put up with disrespectful behavior, but in the future they will leave!

When you find yourself mentally or literally drumming your fingers while someone else is talking, stop the drumming. Stop demonstrating impatience when listening to someone. Stop saying (or thinking) "Next!" It's not only rude and annoying, but it's sure to inspire your employees to find their next boss.

Effective leaders know this intuitively. They know who on their team can be left alone and who needs more direction. Other strong leaders learn it through observation and trial and error.

For bosses this means closely monitoring how you hand out encouragement. If you find yourself saying, "Great idea," and then dropping the other shoe with a tempering "but" or "however," try cutting your response off at "idea." Even better, before you speak, take a breath and ask yourself if what you're about to say is worth it.

It's an interesting equation: Less me. More them. Equals success.

Marshall Goldsmith

A lowly clerk expressing an opinion doesn't get people's notice at a company. But when the CEO expresses that opinion, everyone jumps to attention. The higher up you go, the more your suggestions become orders.

the higher you go, the more your problems are behavioral.

Successful people become great leaders when they learn to shift the focus from themselves to others.

A leader who cannot shoulder the blame is not someone we will follow blindly into battle. We instinctively question that individual's character, dependability, and loyalty to us. And so we hold back on our loyalty to him or her.

We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don't spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don't need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.

inside each of us are two separate personas. There's the leader/planner/manager who plans to change his or her ways. And there's the follower/doer/employee who must execute the plan.

But the higher up you go in the organization, the more you need to make other people winners and not make it about winning yourself.

Every decision in the world is made by the person who has the power to make the decision. Make peace with that.

Whether you're leading other people or leading the follower in you, the obstacles to achieving your goals are the same.

Those that are elected to take part in the communal council are called voceros (spokespeople) because they are the voice of the community, and when they cease to be so, because the community no longer feels they are adequately transmitting the ideas and decisions of the community, these people can and should be recalled.