Quotes about Leadership

The essence of a cohesive leadership team is trust, which is marked by an absence of politics, unnecessary anxiety, and wasted energy. Every executive wants to achieve this, but few are able to do so because they fail to understand the roots of these problems, the most damaging of which is politics.

I don't know how else to say this, but building a team is hard.

I often like to talk with candidates in a room with multiple team members. This allows us to debrief more effectively (e.g., "What did you think he meant when he said . . . ?"). This also gives you a sense of how the candidate deals with multiple people at once, which is a critical skill on a team. Some people are much different one-on-one than they are in a group, and you need to know that.

Once a leadership team has become cohesive and worked to establish clarity and alignment around the answers to the six critical questions, then, and only then, can they effectively move on to the next step: communicating those answers. Or better yet, overcommunicating those answers—over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Great team players lack excessive ego or concerns about status. They are quick to point out the contributions of others and slow to seek attention for their own. They share credit, emphasize team over self, and define success collectively rather than individually. It is no great surprise, then, that humility is the single greatest and most indispensable attribute of being a team player. Humility is the single greatest and most indispensable attribute of being a team player.

In almost any group of people you'll find hierarchy. When groups of adults form in the real world, it's generally for some common purpose, and the leaders end up being those who are best at it. The problem with most schools is, they have no purpose. But hierarchy there must be. And so the kids make one out of nothing.

pointy-haired boss doesn't mind if his company gets their ass kicked, so long as no one can prove it's his fault.

The art of governing consists simply of being honest, exercising common sense, following principle, and doing what is right and just.

Great leaders understand that the right attitude will set the right atmosphere, which enables the right response from others.

Rotten Attitudes ruin a team.

The size of a person is more important than the size of the problem.

Attitude ... is the vanguard of your true self.