Quotes from Warren Bennis

Leadership has become a heavy industry. Concern and interest about leadership development is no longer an American phenomenon. It is truly global. Though I will probably be in less demand, I wanted to move on.

Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that gives their work meaning.

Leaders keep their eyes on the horizon, not just on the bottom line.

Our tendency to create heroes rarely jibes with the reality that most nontrivial problems require collective solutions.

People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out.

The factory of the future will have two employees a man and a dog. The man's job will be to feed the dog. The dog's job will be to prevent the man from touching any of the automated equipment.

The leaders I met, whatever walk of life they were from, whatever institutions they were presiding over, always referred back to the same failure something that happened to them that was personally difficult, even traumatic, something that made them feel that desperate sense of hitting bottom--as something they thought was almost a necessity. It's as if at that moment the iron entered their soul that moment created the resilience that leaders need.

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born. Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.

There are two ways of being creative. One can sing and dance. Or one can create an environment in which singers and dancers flourish.

What makes a good follower The single most important characteristic may well be a willingness to tell the truth. In a world of growing complexity leaders are increasingly dependent on their subordinates for good information, whether the leaders want to hear it or not. Followers who tell the truth and leaders who listen to it are an unbeatable combination.

Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard.

Great things are accomplished by talented people who believe they will accomplish them.

One of the best teaching experiences Ed Schein and I had when we were teaching at MIT in the 1960s was inventing a course on leadership through film.

Taking charge of your own learning is a part of taking charge of your life, which is the sine qua non in becoming an integrated person.

Success in management requires learning as fast as the world is changing.

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.

I wanted the influence. In the end I wasn't very good at being a president. I looked out of the window and thought that the man cutting the lawn actually seemed to have more control over what he was doing.

The original and brilliant idea of an MBA was the opportunity for students to study the theory and application of business and management principles.

A great director or leader knows his people, creates a great team, and then makes a great movie that can influence millions more than the readers of his column.

Learning in a face-to-face human community, as humans have evolved to do over hundreds of thousands of years, may always be the ideal - especially in an endeavor that is as relationship-driven as business.

How can we educators claim credit for understanding, let alone teaching, the 'global mind' without a single course on the impact of religion on every day life?

Most regular, two-year MBA programs provide both experience and the capacity to link together the essential elements of management such as finance, marketing, organizational behavior, and operations.

I've become more and more aware of the promise and struggle to teach the global mind nowadays because I use every chance I get to ask faculty and administrators of management education programs why we don't offer at least one course - not even required, just an elective - on the world's religions.

As my blog editor knows all too well, I wasn't all that keen to enter the blogosphere world.