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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.

Warren G. Bennis

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Warren G. Bennis
President
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More quotes by Warren G. Bennis

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Create strategic alliances and partnerships: Now and in years to come, shrewd leaders will create allegiances with other organizations whose fates are correlated with their own.
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Followers who tell the truth, and leaders who listen to it, are an unbeatable combination.
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Listening to the inner voice - trusting the inner voice - is one of the most important lessons of leadership.
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People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out.
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The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born - that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.
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You need people who can walk their companies into the future rather than back them into the future.
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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.
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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.
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Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.
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Expect the best from your people and they will usually deliver but your expectations must be realistic.
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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.
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Leaders should always expect the very best of those around them. They know that people can change and grow.
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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.
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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.
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The ability to plan for what has not yet happened, for a future that has only been imagined, is one of the hallmarks of leadership.
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Leaders are people who do the right thing managers are people who do things right.
Warren G. Bennis
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In order to serve its purpose, a vision has to be a shared vision.
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You are your own raw material. When you know what you consist of and what you want to make of it, then you can invent yourself.
Warren G. Bennis
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Frank Gehry designs buildings that make other architects half his age (he's 78) gasp with envy. Neotony is what makes him lace up his skates and whirl around the ice rink, while visionary buildings come to life and dance in his head.
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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.
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