Quotes About Leadership

The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don't always know what you get at the other end. If you are not careful you could replace a bad government with one much worse!

As leaders, we understand that intangibles are important, but we don't have a clue how to measure them.

If the Rider isn't sure exactly what direction to go, he tends to lead the Elephant in circles. And as we'll see, that tendency explains the third and final surprise about change: What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity.

So if you reach the Riders of your team but not the Elephants, team members will have understanding without motivation. If you reach their Elephants but not their Riders, they'll have passion without direction. In

Direct the Rider. What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction. (Think 1% milk.) Motivate the Elephant. What looks like laziness is often exhaustion. The Rider can't get his way by force for very long. So it's critical that you engage people's emotional side

Big-picture, hands-off leadership isn't likely to work in a change situation, because the hardest part of change—the paralyzing part—is precisely in the details.

Habits are behavioral autopilot, and that's why they're such a critical tool for leaders. Leaders who can instill habits that reinforce their teams' goals are essentially making progress for free. They've changed behavior in a way that doesn't draw down the Rider's reserves of self-control.

When a CEO discusses "unlocking shareholder value," there is a tune playing in her head that the employees can't hear.

It can sometimes be challenging, though, to distinguish why people don't support your change. Is it because they don't understand or because they're not enthused? Do you need an Elephant appeal or a Rider appeal?

Until you can ladder your way down from a change idea to a specific behavior, you're not ready to lead a switch. To create movement, you've got to be specific and be concrete. You've got to emulate 1% milk and flee from the Food Pyramid.

Another variety of close-up involves going to the genba, a Japanese term meaning "the real place" or, more loosely, the place where the action happens. Japanese detectives, for instance, call the crime scene the genba. In a manufacturing firm, the genba would be the factory floor, and for a retailing company it would be the store. Practitioners of Total Quality Management encourage leaders to "go to the genba" to understand problems.

created this framework to be useful for people who don't have scads of authority or resources. Some people can get their way by fiat. CEOs, for instance, can

It's as though the leaders aspire to create a complaint-free service rather than an extraordinary one.

Employees as cast members" is a generative metaphor that has worked for Disney for more than fifty years.

her successes came despite a lack of authority and resources.

If you want to change things, you've got to appeal to both. The Rider provides the planning and direction, and the Elephant provides the energy. So if you reach the Riders of your team but not the

has a problem focus when he needs a solution focus. If you are a manager, ask yourself: "What is the ratio of the time I spend solving problems to the time I spend scaling successes?

As a result, choosing between Plan A and Plan B is not a close call. Here's the astonishing finding from the Forrester data: If you Elevate the Positives (Plan B), you'll earn about 9 times more revenue than if you Eliminate the Negatives (Plan A). (8.8 times, to be precise.) Yet most executives are pursuing Plan A. (See the footnote for more on the methodology and an anticipated quibble.)II

It's realizing that I can do this. I'm in charge.

It seems some CEOs who pay extremely large acquisition premiums Ã¢â'¬Â¦ come to believe their own press.

Seeking out one more option. Finding someone else who's solved our problem. Asking, "What would have to be true for you to be right?" Ooching as a way to dampen politics. Making big decisions based on core priorities. Running premortems and preparades. Laying down tripwires. Using these techniques will improve the results of your group decisions.

he didn't need to create new believers so much as he needed to unleash the believers he already had.

to create and sustain change, you've got to act more like a coach and less like a scorekeeper. You've got to embrace a growth mindset and instill it in your team.

The Heart of Change, by John Kotter and Dan Cohen [Business and organizational change].