Most important, [leaders] can conceive and articulate goals that lift people out of their petty preoccupations, carry them above the conflicts that tear a society apart, and unite them in pursuit of objectives worthy of their best efforts.
Leadership is often confused with other things, specifically management. But management requires an entirely different set of skills.
In organizations where mistakes are not allowed ... mistakes have to be ignored or selectively reinterpreted, in order that those top people can pretend that no mistake has been made. So it doesn’t get fixed... if they’re committed by people lower down in the organization, mistakes get concealed
We must be the change we want to see in the world
You should preserve the ability to say, ‘Shove it,’ and go your own way. That really frees you.
If you haven’t failed, you haven’t tried very hard
• Think strategically and invest in the future—but keep the numbers up. • Be entrepreneurial and take risks—but don’t cost the business anything by failing.... Succeed, succeed, succeed—and raise terrific children.
You can’t really create leaders. How do you teach people to make decisions, for example? All you can do is develop the talents people have. I’m a great believer in trial by fire, on-the-job experience. Put them out there in the plants, put them in the markets, send them to Japan and Europe. Train them on the job.
Short-term thinking is the societal disease of our time.
There are two other qualities that I think are more positive reasons to follow someone. One is an honest belief in the person you’re following. The other is selfish. The person following has to believe that following is the best thing to do at the time.
Ghandi
John W. Gardner
Don Ritchey
Norman Lear
Richard Ferry
Sydney Pollack
John Cleese
Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Shirley Hufstedler
John Sculley
