Warren G. Bennis People Quotations

People who know what they want and why they want it, and have the skills to communicate that to others in a way that gains support

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

A leader is someone whose actions have the most profound consequences on other people's lives, for better or worse, sometime forever and ever.

You need people who can walk their companies into the future rather than back them into the future.

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

Recognize the skills and traits you don't possess, and hire the people who have them.

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

The new leader is one who commits people to action, who converts followers into leaders, and who may convert leaders into agents of change.

Leadership (according to John Sculley) revolves around vision, ideas, direction, and has more to do with inspiring people as to direction and goals than with day-to-day implementation. A leader must be able to leverage more than his own capabilities. He must be capable of inspiring other people to do things without actually sitting on top of them with a checklist.

Cicero talks, and people marvel; Ceasar talks and people march

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.

Who succeeds in forming and leading a Great Group? He or she is almost always a pragmatic dreamer. They are people who get things done, but they are people with immortal longings. Often, they are scientifically minded people with poetry in their souls.

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