Quotes About Leadership

Gendemen, I have resolved never to make an unjust war, but to end a just one only with the utter ruin of my enemies. I will attack the first to take the field, conquer him, and then deal with the others."- Charles XII

If he had wished, he could have annexed Denmark; and ended a thousand years of war and history. But Charles had no weaknesses; now and thereafter he was behaving out of a book. The first maxim of Alexanderism is never to stop; Charles continued.

He fought with Augustus and Peter, not with Russia or Poland. He aimed at full apologies, not conquests.

They, whether steel kings or Bonapartes, cannot, after a certain age, endure solitude. For it is the solitude, even though strictly relative in the majority of cases, that kills them, or sends them on the road to Waterloo.

It is for these reasons that managing the neutral zone is so essential during a period of enormous change. Neutral zone management isn't just something that would be nice if you had more time. It's the only way to ensure that the organization comes through the change intact and that the necessary changes actually work the way that they are supposed to.

Establish by word and example that this is a time to step back and take stock, a time to question the "usual," and a time to come up with new and creative solutions to the organization's difficulties. Explain how business as usual chokes off creativity and explain why the present is the best possible time to generate and test new ideas. Model this new manner yourself by taking time to step back and question how your own job is done.

The task before you is therefore twofold: first, to get your people through this phase of transition in one piece; and second, to capitalize on all the confusion by encouraging them to be innovative.

If you cry, "Forward," you must make clear the direction in which to go. Don't you see that if you fail to do that and simply call out the word to a monk and a revolutionary, they will go in precisely the opposite directions? ANTON CHEKHOV, RUSSIAN WRITER

Rule 1: Be Consistent The first form of reinforcement is consistency of message. Every policy, procedure, and list of priorities sends a message, but if you aren't careful, your messages will be conflicting ones.

The second form of reinforcement is a particular kind of consistency: the consistency of your own actions. Regardless of the confusions surrounding a new beginning—and you're sure to have your own share—you have one reliable point of leverage in moving people out of the neutral zone: the example of your own behavior.

Do whatever you can to restore people's sense of having some control over their situation.

It is important for leaders to comprehend the implications of what they are trying to achieve and not to let their understanding that renewal is essential blind them to the painful transitions that will be necessary to make things turn out as intended. It is also important for the HR and OD specialists who advise the leaders to recognize that transition management must be built into the very fabric of organizational renewal efforts.

Wise leaders, understanding that example is the most powerful tool they can employ, start with themselves: "What part of my identity—of the way I come across, and even the way I experience myself—do I need to let go of if we are going to enter the Path of Renewal?

The impatient leader is likely to want to Redream the Dream and Recapture the Venture Spirit and get the renewal-generating organizational infrastructure in place and working tomorrow!

transitions will need to make sense to people, for otherwise people will resist them and make it far harder for the organization to grow as it must.

What is this new beginning going to require of us and of others in the organization? The sooner you start embodying the behaviors and attitudes that fit the new beginning, the sooner others in the organization will have the leader they need.

But remember: in your communications you need to speak to wherever people are now, not to where you want them to go, and they need your help, not in getting to the destination you want them ultimately to reach, but in taking the next step in the transition they find themselves in because of your big change.

it is natural to feel somewhat nervous and confused at such a time. As the old patterns disappear from people's minds and the new ones begin to replace them, people can be full of self-doubts and misgivings about themselves and their leaders. As their ambivalence increases, so does their longing for answers.

One of the most important leadership roles during times of change is that of putting into words what it is time to leave behind. Because talking about making a break with the past can upset its defenders, some leaders shy away from articulating just what it is time to say good-bye to. But in their unwillingness to say what it is time to let go of, they are jeopardizing the very change that they believe they are leading.

Never denigrate the past. Many managers, in their enthusiasm for a future that is going to be better than the past, ridicule or demean the old way of doing things. In doing so they consolidate the resistance against the transition because people identify with the way things used to be and thus feel that their self-worth is at stake whenever the past is attacked.

The first thing you're going to need in order to handle nonstop organizational change is an overall design within which the various and separate changes are integrated as component elements. In periods of major strategic change, such a design may have been announced to the organization by its leadership. When that happens, you're fortunate. Even if you don't entirely agree with the logic of the larger change, you benefit from the coherence it gives to the component changes.

The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obedience to the heart.

REGINA, REGINA PIGMEORUM, VENI Come Queen, Queen of the Pygmies

Both men lost speech in their last days and hours. Both died at age sixty-three, Lee long since weary of life, and Grant ready to live it again. Their war made them national icons, and their war reputations dictated the balance of their lives, careers, and posterity.