Quotes About Leadership

The ruler must be a philosopher as well as a king; and he must govern unwillingly, because he loves philosophy better than dominion.

A prudent governor will not roughly oppose even the superstitions of his people; and though he may wish that they were wiser, he will know that he cannot make them so by offending their prejudices.

FROM MY GRANDFATHER VERUS I LEARNED GOOD MORALS AND THE government of my temper.

States will never be happy until rulers become philosophers or philosophers become rulers. —PLATO, The Republic

3. Alexander and Caesar and Pompey. Compared with Diogenes, Heraclitus, Socrates? The philosophers knew the what, the why, the how. Their minds were their own. The others? Nothing but anxiety and enslavement.

You can't set down rules for others until you have first followed them yourself.

frenar durante su mandato las aclamaciones y cualquier adulación; ser vigilante de las necesidades del imperio

when I have anything to do, to do it myself rather than by others; not to meddle with many businesses; and not easily to admit of any slander.

It is no excuse to plead that he knew nothing about the atrocities done in his name: it was his duty to know, and if he did not he would have been the first to confess that he had failed in his duty.

obsequious courting of the mob

Que la divinidad que está en ti sea guía de un ser varonil, respetable, social, romano, de un jefe que se coloca en su puesto como alguien que, liberado, esperara el toque de retreta para escapar de la vida, sin necesidad de un juramento ni de ningún hombre como testigo[213]. Por dentro, radiante[214] sin necesidad de servidumbre o tranquilidad exteriores. Hay que ser recto, no corregido.

and in long illness; and to see clearly in a living example that the same man can be both most resolute and yielding, and not peevish in giving his instruction; and to have had before my eyes a man

In fact, over the last twenty years, authors have offered up over nine thousand different systems, languages, principles, and paradigms to help explain the mysteries of management and leadership.

And what of the notion that "trust must be earned"? Sensible though it may sound, great managers reject it. They know that if, fundamentally, you don't trust people, then there is no line, no point in time, beyond which people suddenly become trustworthy.

This is the same feeling that many managers unwittingly create in their employees. Even when working with their most productive employees, they still spend most of their time talking about each person's few areas of nontalent and how to eradicate them. No matter how well-intended, relationships preoccupied with weakness never end well.

This company didn't have one culture. It had as many cultures as it did managers. No

Focus on each person's strengths and manage around his weaknesses. Don't try to fix the weaknesses. Don't try to perfect each person. Instead do everything you can to help each person cultivate his talents. Help each person become more of who he already is.

Define the outcomes you want from your team and its members, and then look for each person's strength signs to figure out how each person can reach those outcomes most efficiently, most amazingly, most creatively, and most joyfully. The moment you realize you're in the outcomes business is the moment you turn each person's uniqueness from a bug into a feature.

This thinking is well-intended but overly simplistic, reminiscent perhaps of the four-year-old who proudly presents his mother with a red truck for her birthday because that is the present he wants. So the best managers reject the Golden Rule. Instead, they say, treat each person as he would like to be treated, bearing in mind who he is.

Actually, the data reveals that checking in with your team members once a month is literally worse than useless. While team leaders who check in once a week see, on average, a 13 percent increase in team engagement, those who check in only once a month see a 5 percent decrease in engagement.

This advice—be clear about whom you serve—appears straightforward, but it is surprising how many leaders allow their answer to be vague, imprecise, or, most damaging of all, complex.

During Gallup's interviews with great managers, we found a consistent willingness to hire employees who, the managers knew, might soon earn significantly more than they did.

We have said that an employee may join a company because of its prestige and reputation, but that his relationship with his immediate manager determines how long he stays and how productive he is while he is there.

people leave managers, not companies. So