Great Throughts Treasury

"Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led."

"Leaders are people who focus attention on a vision. They know what they want and are very results-oriented. It’s their intense focus on worthwhile outcomes that draws others to them and to their cause."

"All organizations depend on the existence of shared meanings and interpretations of reality, which facilitate coordinated action."

"Companies which get misled by their own success are sure to be blind-sided."

"A new leader has to be able to change an organization that is dreamless, soulless and visionless... someone's got to make a wake-up call."

"Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult."

"Effective leaders allow great people to do the work they were born to do."

"Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary."

"Emotional intelligence, more than any other factor, more than I.Q. or expertise, accounts for 85% to 90% of success at work... I.Q. is a threshold competence. You need it, but it doesn't make you a star. Emotional intelligence can."

"Create a compelling vision, one that takes people to a new place, and then translate that vision into a reality."

"Find the appropriate balance of competing claims by various groups of stakeholders. All claims deserve consideration but some claims are more important than others."

"Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that gives their work meaning."

"Great Groups are vivid Utopias. They are a picture of the way organizations ought to look -- sort of like a set of aspirations and a graphic illustration of what's possible. So how do we, in our mundane, quotidian organizations, create these things? I think there are a number of factors that we can look at. Perhaps the key factor, and it's almost a banal thing to say, is finding a meaning in what you do. That is, how do you make people feel that what they're doing is somewhat equivalent to a search for the Holy Grail? This is more than just having a vision. You can see the difference in the often-cited way in which Steve Jobs brought in John Sculley to take over Apple. At the time, Sculley was destined to be the head of Pepsico. The clincher came when Jobs asked him, “How many more years of your life do you want to spend making colored water when you can have an opportunity to come here and change the world?”"

"Great Groups need to know that the person at the top will fight like a tiger for them."

"Great things are accomplished by talented people who believe they will accomplish them."

"I am reminded how hollow the label of leadership sometimes is and how heroic followership can be."

"I'd always rather err on the side of openness. But there's a difference between optimum and maximum openness, and fixing that boundary is a judgment call. The art of leadership is knowing how much information you're going to pass on -- to keep people motivated and to be as honest, as upfront, as you can. But, boy, there really are limits to that."

"How would you describe the leaders of great groups? He or she is a pragmatic dreamer, a person with an original but attainable vision. Ironically, the leader is able to realize his or her dream only if others are free to do exceptional work. Typically, the leader is the one who recruits the others, by making the vision so palpable and seductive that they see it, too, and eagerly sign up. Inevitably, the leader has to invent a leadership style that suits the group. The standard models, especially command and control, simply don't work. The heads of groups have to act decisively, but never arbitrarily. They have to make decisions without limiting the perceived autonomy of the other participants. Devising and maintaining an atmosphere in which others can put a dent in the universe is the leader's creative act."

"I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation. Someone once wrote that the sound of surprise is jazz, and if there's any one thing that we must try to get used to in this world, it's surprise and the unexpected. Truly, we are living in world where the only thing that's constant is change."

"I wanted the influence. In the end I wasn't very good at being a president. I looked out of the window and thought that the man cutting the lawn actually seemed to have more control over what he was doing."

"Innovation by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires 'courageous patience'."

"Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right."

"Leaders are made rather than born. Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led."

"Leaders keep their eyes on the horizon, not just on the bottom line."

"It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from followers."

"Leaders are people who believe so passionately that they can seduce other people into sharing their dream."

"Leaders learn by leading, and they learn best by leading in the face of obstacles. As weather shapes mountains, problems shape leaders."

"Leadership has become a heavy industry. Concern and interest about leadership development is no longer an American phenomenon. It is truly global. Though I will probably be in less demand, I wanted to move on."

"Leaders should always expect the very best of those around them. They know that people can change and grow."

"Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard."

"Leaders know the importance of having someone in their lives who will unfailingly and fearlessly tell them the truth."

"Leadership is the wise use of power. Power is the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it."

"Leadership is the capacity to transform vision into reality."

"Power is the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it."

"Silence - not dissent - is the one answer that leaders should refuse to accept."

"Successful leadership is not about being tough or soft, sensitive or assertive, but about a set of attributes. First and foremost is character."

"Taking charge of your own learning is a part of taking charge of your life, which is the sine qua non in becoming an integrated person."

"No leader sets out to become a leader. People set out to live their lives, expressing themselves fully. When that expression is of value, they become leaders. So the point is not to become a leader. The point is to become yourself, to use yourself completely all your skills, gifts, and energies in order to make your vision manifest. You must withhold nothing. You must, in sum, become the person you started out to be and enjoy the process of becoming."

"Managers are people who do things right; leaders are people who do the right thing."

"Once you recognize, or admit, that your primary goal is to fully express yourself, you will find the means to achieve the rest of your goals."

"Our tendency to create heroes rarely jibes with the reality that most nontrivial problems require collective solutions."

"People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out."

"Power is the basic energy needed to initiate and sustain action or, to put it another way, the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it. Leadership is the wise use of this power: Transformative leadership."

"The manager administers; the leader innovates. The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective. The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why. The manager has his eye on the bottom line; the leader has his eye on the horizon. The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it."

"The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it."

"The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why."

"The leaders I met, whatever walk of life they were from, whatever institutions they were presiding over, always referred back to the same failure - something that happened to them that was personally difficult, even traumatic, something that made them feel that desperate sense of hitting bottom--as something they thought was almost a necessity. It's as if at that moment the iron entered their soul; that moment created the resilience that leaders need."

"The manager has his eye on the bottom line; the leader has his eye on the horizon."

"The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment."

"The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective."