Quotes About Leadership

Perhaps that is why Jesus appeared first to women: they are the ones who most frequently lead acts of reconciliation that can come to make a difference. They are the ambassadors of reconciliation par excellence.

HIRED GUN HUNTED RESURRECTION IN COLD BLOOD REAGAN'S

Younger managers learn quickly that, whatever the public protestations to the contrary, bosses generally want pliable and agreeable subordinates, especially during periods of crisis. Clique leaders want dependable, loyal allies. Thos who regularly raise objections to what a boss or a clique leader really desires run the risk of being considered problems themselves and of being labeled "outspoken," or "nonconstructive," or "doomsayers," "naysayers," or "crepehangers.

Managers know that to be weak in a world that extols strength and power is to invite abuse.

I accept all of the responsibility, but none of the blame. - Nixon

Eventually, computers and robots will run things. Humans will manage those machines, but that doesn't require courage or strength, or any characteristics like those. In fact, men are outliving their usefulness

As long as there are only 3 to 4 people on the floor, the country is in good hands. It's only when you have 50 to 60 in the Senate that you want to be concerned.

At least she's the president of something, which is more than I can say. (on his wife Elizabeth, president of the American Red Cross)

Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams.

Everywhere there is much complaining about too few leaders. We have too few because most institutions are structured so that only a few—only one at the time—can emerge.

Now you can do as I do, stand outside and criticize, bring pressure if you can, write and argue about it. All of this may do some good. But nothing of substance will happen unless there are people inside these institutions who are able to (and want to) lead them into better performance for the public good. Some of you ought to make careers inside these big institutions and become a force for good—from the inside.

The servant leader is servant first... It begins with a natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first...

In the context of religious leadership, tinkering with structure is not a first choice of means for building or sustaining quality in an institution. Leadership is the prime concern!

Listening, coupled with regular periods of reflection, are essential to the growth of the servant-leader.

Throughout this chapter I take the cue from this definition—that the role of trustees is to stand outside the active program of the institution and to manage. What they delegate to the inside operating executives is administration

Trustees are accountable to all parties at interest for the best possible performance of the institution in the service of the needs of all constituencies—including society at large.

To the worldly, servant-leaders may seem naive; and they may not adapt readily to prevailing institutional structures. The

But the conventional practice, particularly in a large foundation, is to delegate administration to a hierarchical staff structure, much as a business board would do it. And when bureaucratic inertia takes over, as it does—in time—in all institutions that are so structured, the usual remedy is to install a new top administrator who will build some new life into it.

Typically, today, somebody in top management meets with a consultant, reads a book, gets excited about a new idea, and begins to talk about it.

It is no challenge to lead when everybody is with you. Liberal

W. Edwards Deming—that arguably, over 90 percent of problems are due to bad systems, not bad people. However, Greenleaf correctly points out that people are the programmers.

The skill of foresight is crucial. The "lead" that a leader has is his ability to foresee an event that must be dealt with before others see it so that he can act on it his way, the right way, while the initiative is his.

The new assumption is that delegation of authority from trustees to operating executives is best made to a team of several persons whose exceptional talents are complementary and who relate to one another as equals, under the leadership of a primus inter pares (as discussed in the last chapter).

Some basic principles will need to be explicitly accepted, such as that no one, absolutely no one, is to be entrusted with the operational use of power without the close oversight of fully functioning trustees.