Recognize the skills and traits you don’t possess, and hire the people who have them.
While great leaders may be as rare as great runners, great actors, or great painters, everyone has leadership potential, just as everyone has some ability at running, acting, and painting.
Government is like an onion. To understand it, you have to peel through many different layers. Most outsiders never get beyond the first or second layer.
Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential.
The new leader is one who commits people to action, who converts followers into leaders, and who may convert leaders into agents of change.
The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
If knowing yourself and being yourself were as easy to do as to talk about, there wouldn’t be nearly so many people walking around in borrowed postures, spouting secondhand ideas, trying desperately to fit in rather than to stand out.
There is a profound difference between information and meaning.
Successful leadership is not about being tough or soft, sensitive or assertive, but about a set of attributes. First and foremost is character.
Vision animates, inspires, transforms purpose into action.
The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.
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.
Without a terrific leader, you’re not going to have a Great Group. But it is also true that you’re not going to have a great leader without a Great Group.
The basis of leadership is the capacity of the leader to change the mindset, the framework of the other person.
Companies which get misled by their own success are sure to be blind sided.
Successful leaders are great askers.
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.
Leaders wonder about everything, want to learn as much as they can, are willing to take risks, experiment, try new things. They do not worry about failure but embrace errors, knowing they will learn from them.
Leaders should always expect the very best of those around them. They know that people can change and grow.
If you’re the leader, you’ve got to give up your omniscient and omnipotent fantasies – that you know and must do everything. Learn how to abandon your ego to the talents of others.