Quotes About Responsibility

He had power over her not because she was free but because she was guilty. To enforce his power over her he had only to keep her guilt awake.

This is not a Western idea, but fathers and sons arrive at that relationship only by claiming that relationship: that is, by paying for it. If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons. (But to pursue this further carries us far beyond the confines of the present discussion.)

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

I think the country has to find out what it means by freedom. Freedom is a very dangerous thing. Anything else is disastrous. But freedom is dangerous. You've got to make choices. You've got to make very dangerous choices. You've got to be taught that your life is in your hands.

I yet contend that the mobs in the streets of Hitler's Germany were those in the streets not by the will of the German state, but by the will of the western world, including those architects of human freedom, the British...

All of the Western nations have been caught in a lie, the lie of their pretended humanism. This means that their history has no moral justification, and that the West has no moral authority. Vile as I am, states one of the characters in Dostoevsky's The Idiot, I don't believe in the wagons that bring bread to humanity. For the wagons that bring bread to humanity, may coldly exclude a considerable part of humanity from enjoying what is brought.

When you consider that presidents and chief-justices and archbishops and kings and statesmen are human beings like you and me and the laundryman, the thought becomes too horrible for humanity to face.

The good-to-great companies built a consistent system with clear constraints, but they also gave people freedom and responsibility within the framework of that system. They hired self-disciplined people who didn't need to be managed, and then managed the system, not the people.

Level 5 leaders look out the window to apportion credit to factors outside themselves when things go well (and if they cannot find a specific person or event to give credit to, they credit good luck). At the same time, they look in the mirror to apportion responsibility, never blaming bad luck when things go poorly.

The best people don't need to be managed. Guided, taught, led—yes. But not tightly managed.

There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away. —WINSTON S. CHURCHILL

When you have disciplined people, you don't

Level 5 leaders display a workmanlike diligence - more plow horse than show horse.

The only way to deliver to the people who are achieving is to not burden them with the people who are not achieving."38

The best people don't need to be managed. Guided, taught, led—yes. But not tightly managed. We

Accomplishing a 20 Mile March, consistently, in good times and bad, builds confidence. Tangible achievement in the face of adversity reinforces the 10X perspective: we are ultimately responsible for improving performance. We never blame circumstance; we never blame the environment.

You don't get a chance to adjust and finagle, and decide that you really didn't intend to do that anyway, and readjust your objectives to make yourself look better. You never just focus on what you've accomplished for the year; you focus on what you've accomplished relative to exactly what you said you were going to accomplish—no matter how tough the measure. That was a discipline learned at Abbott, and that we carried into Amgen.3

The only way to deliver to the people who are achieving is to not burden them with the people who are not achieving.

True leadership only exists if people follow when they would otherwise have the freedom to not follow

Leadership is the art of getting people to want to do what must be done.

Notice three things about this definition. First, as a leader, it's your responsibility to figure out what must be done. You might do this by your own insight and instinct or, more likely, via dialogue and debate with the right people; but however you do it, you need to get clear. Second, it's not about getting people to do what must be done but about getting them to want to do it. Third, it's not a science; it's an art.

Such is the nature of how people respond to authority figures. Inevitably, people will begin to emulate you. Even if you have a non-hierarchical environment, you'll still be perceived as an authority figure, and people will respond to you as such. Therefore, you've got to be a role model of the culture you want to create.

A culture of discipline involves a duality. On the one hand, it requires people who adhere to a consistent system; yet, on the other hand, it gives people freedom and responsibility within the framework of that system.

Practical Discipline #2: When you know you need to make a people change, act.