Quotes from Jeffrey Pfeffer

Volumes in the series on Lyndon Johnson, including Master of the Senate and The Path Power, describe how Johnson created resources out of nothing and built a substantial power base.

Knowledge is only useful if you do something with it.

Your most important task as a leader is to teach people how to think and ask the right questions so that the world doesn't go to hell if you take a day off.

We need to reexamine and reassess the purpose of the corporation, and go back to the idea that senior leadership has responsibilities not just to shareholders but also to customers and employees.

he was ultimately being pushed out of the company by his alumni mentor.

Actually putting your people first and treating them as if they matter to the organization's success, although easy to talk about and easy to understand, is notoriously difficult to implement.

But I no longer believe that trust is essential to organizational functioning or even to effective leadership. Why? Because the data suggest that trust is notable mostly by its absence. Nevertheless, organizations continue to roll along, as do their leaders who seemingly suffer few consequences for being untrustworthy.

our ability to accurately discern who is taking advantage of us is remarkably poor.

The most fundamental principle of learning theory is that behavior is a function of its consequences. When

people who first had the opportunity to demonstrate that they were nonprejudiced were subsequently more willing to express attitudes that showed bias.

Kildall] couldn't imagine being knifed in the back—certainly not by Gates. The two had known each other since Gates was a thirteen-year-old hacker in Seattle and Kildall was getting his doctorate. . . . They discussed merging their young companies . .

narcissism levels have increased significantly among college students over the past several decades.

Narcissism levels are higher for Americans than for citizens of many other countries and regions

a tale about America's first president not lying is itself apparently a lie.

Men tend to be more narcissistic than women, possibly because men are somewhat more competitive and women are more communal, and also because narcissistic behavior would be much more gender-role discrepant for women than for men.

the higher one rises in an organization, the more likely it is that people will tell you you're right. People will agree with powerful leaders as a strategy of ingratiation, as nothing is as flattering as others' telling you how right and how smart you are.

Business school students seem to be particularly narcissistic, an important fact because many leaders in both the for-profit and the nonprofit world come from business school backgrounds, particularly in the more recent past.

No one who is unmemorable is going to be chosen for an important job, because one cannot select what one cannot remember.

overconfident individuals achieved higher social status, respect, and influence in groups.

people with higher narcissism scores were more likely to emerge as leaders during four-person initially leaderless group discussions.

We prefer to say that Larry has a problem with tenses. For example, 'our product is available now' might mean it'll be available in a few months or that Larry was thinking about one day developing the product.

you change people's behavior by having them set some specific, measurable goals, reminding them of what they have committed to do, measuring their activities and providing frequent feedback, and providing positive reinforcement for progress. Effective

women tend to underrate their achievements, and have less confidence in their abilities than their line managers have for them.

one in 10 text messages involves a lie of some kind. . . .