Quotes About Leadership

Consciousness precedes being: consciousness, yours and mine, can form, deform, or reform our world. Our complicity in world making is a source of awesome and sometimes painful responsibility-and a source of profound hope for change. It is the ground of our common call to leadership, the truth that makes leaders of its all.

well-structured group can be smarter than any of its members.

Who's in Charge Here? When a congregation is profoundly clergy-centered—when the pedagogy consists of a clergyperson (performer) downloading information and inspiration to parishioners (audience)—the game is rigged. The theological message may be one of community, but the lived experience is one of dependence on an authority. Under those conditions, not much can be done to build the communal trust that allows compassion to flower, no matter how benign the leader is.

Grate power comes with grate responsibility. so use it wisely.

The difference between Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers and Enron's Kenneth Lay is far easier to recognize with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

High performance teams have six characteristics that allow them to consistently achieve exceptional levels of results: Common Purpose Crystal Clear Roles Accepted Leadership Effective Processes Solid Relationships Excellent Communication

You don't form teams; you build them.

As a leader, remember that one of the most significant strategies for building the qualities of solid relationships into the relational fabric of the team is for you, the team leader, to model them. Let team members see them in practice.

Assuming either the Left Wing or the Right Wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles.

Management must speak with one voice. When it doesn't management itself becomes a peripheral opponent to the team's mission.

It's easier to apologize than ask for permission.

Public life is regarded as the crown of a career, and to young men it is the worthiest ambition. Politics is still the greatest and the most honorable adventure.

To have long term success as a coach or in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way.

The thought about Republicans is, we're supposed to be Jeffersonian. That government governs the best that governs the least.

Kay very calmly and sweetly said, "You know, Pat, how much better do you think Lea Henry and Cindy Noble are going to get at this point?" She was saying ease up—it's enough. I had reached the point of diminishing returns. "I think they are both trying really hard to please you, but how much more can they possibly do?" she said. "I just wonder if you've really thought about that.

She coached every day like it was the national championship game. Every practice was coached like that. It was never a letup. I can't ever remember a day where she was tired, ever. —MICKIE DEMOSS

very few people are able to organize and direct followers, which is a far more subtle and multifaceted skill. Leadership is really a form of temporary authority that others grant you, and they only follow you if they find you consistently credible. It's all about perception—and if teammates find you the least bit inconsistent, moody, unpredictable, indecisive, or emotionally unreliable, then they balk and the whole team is destabilized.

What Michelle didn't yet know was that there is a vast difference between playing and leading. The point guard position in basketball is one of the great tutorials on leadership, and it ought to be taught in classrooms. Anyone can perfect a dribble with muscle memory;

guy raised his hand and asked if I had any advice when it came to "coaching women." I remember leveling him with a death ray stare and then relaxing and curling up the corner of my mouth and saying, "Don't worry about coaching 'women.' Just go home and coach 'basketball.' 

I'd bring our big players out to the perimeter and make them run the play like a guard, so they saw the play from that angle as well as their own. When one of our bigs got upset if a guard didn't make a play, I'd say, "Fine. You go play point.

We can't win at home and we can't win on the road. My problem as general manager is I can't think of another place to play.

Not only was he one of history's greatest leaders, Abraham Lincoln was one of history's most devoted readers. Doris Kearns Goodwin writes of Lincoln, "Books became his academy, his college. The printed word united his mind with the great minds of generations past.

If barking correlates with a juvenile and submissive condition, then it's doubtful that dogs read our loud vocal displays as dominant or impressive. Rather, they might see them as a sign of fear or as a sign that we don't have a lot of control. Many people to whom dogs are drawn are laconic and soft-spoken. I think their lack of "barking" is perceived as a sign of leadership, and dogs are drawn to their sense of self-confidence.

Subordinates may initiate contact more often, but the one with the higher rank gets to decide when and if to interact.