Organizations grow when they persuade a tiny cadre to be passionate, not when they touch millions with a mediocre message
Around the world, the generals are being ousted, and the poets are taking charge.
Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.
Leadership is like beauty - it's hard to define but you know it when you see it.
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.
All of great leaders evidence four basic qualities that are central to their ability to lead: adaptive capacity, the ability to engage others through shared meaning, a distinctive voice, and unshakeable integrity. These four qualities mark all exemplary leaders, whatever their age, gender, ethnicity, or race.
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.
People think it's the mind that drives us. It is the heart. The mind is a slave to the heart. So check the condition of the heart.
In a way, human beings have never been part of the natural order; we're not biological in the normal sense. Normal biological animals stop eating when they're not hungry and stop breeding when there is no sense in breeding. By contrast, human beings are what I think of as "biomythic" animals: we're controlled largely by the stories we tell. When we get the story wrong, we get out of harmony with the rest of the natural order. For a long time, our unnatural beahvior didn't threaten the natural world, but now it does.
A man without ambition is worse than dough that has no yeast in it to raise it.
To be outspoken is easy when you do not wait to speak the complete truth.