Quotes from Frances Hesselbein

It is not business, it is not government - it is the social sector that may yet save the society.

I thought I'd never leave Pennsylvania. And I never imagined that I'd one day have the chance to lead the largest organization for girls and women around the world.

If you grow up in Germantown, Pennsylvania, as I did, 5:30 means 5:30.

I didn't have a career plan. But what I did was, whenever there was a door open and a new opportunity, I always looked into it and took a chance and walked through the door.

There's something exhilarating about being in the mountains and talking about management and the future with Peter Drucker.

Few leaders are born. We learn to be leaders. We learn by working with other people and working through our philosophy.

The leader builds dispersed and diverse leadership - distributing leadership to the outermost edges of the circle to unleash the power of shared responsibility.

We cannot ensure equal access or build upon our diverse strengths by sitting at our desks.

There is just one reason that we are placed on this Earth. That reason is to love and be loved - in that order.

We are increasingly becoming a pluralistic nation.

Good leaders make people's strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant.

I adored my grandparents and spent every weekend with Mama and Papa Wicks. They had seven children, so they needed a big house - and it seemed only logical to them to build into their house a pipe organ in a music room with a sixteen-foot ceiling.

In 1976, I was invited to interview for the CEO position of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.

It is what we do with our lives that counts.

Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do it.

Leadership is much less about what you do, and much more about who you are.

No matter what business you're in, everyone in the organisation needs to know why

If we are to remain mission focused, as we must be if we are to be relevant in an uncertain age, the abandoning those things that do not further the mission is a leadership imperative.

Key to the societal significance of tomorrow's leaders is the way they embrace the totality of leadership, not just including 'my organization' but reaching beyond the walls as well.

Move beyond the old assumptions, practices, and language that can be barriers to equal access.

We do not know what lies ahead, yet whatever the challenge, leaders will rise, finding the heart, the language, the caring that embraces and sustains.

I believe that tears should be very private, and no matter what issue or what situation, we should have a very dignified demeanor.

Tears belong within the family.

Planning defines the particular place you want to be and how you intend to get there. It's a responsibility rather than a technique.