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Someone said that Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.
John W. Gardner
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One generalization that is supported both by research and experience is that effective two-way communication is essential to proper functioning of the leader-follower relationship.
John W. Gardner
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Self-discipline is the free man's yoke. Either he is his own master or he will be his own slave—not merely as slave to his passions, as an earlier generation might have feared, but a slave to his unbounded ego.
John W. Gardner
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Those whose gifts fit them for leadership must recognize that a prime function of the leader is to keep hope alive.
John W. Gardner
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Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all.
John W. Gardner
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The person intent on self-renewal will have to deal with the ghosts of the past—the memory of earlier failures, the remnants of childhood dreams and rebellions, and the accumulated grievances and resentments that have long outlived their cause.
John W. Gardner
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Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor.
John W. Gardner
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If you have some respect for people as they are, you can be more effective in helping them to become better than they are.
John W. Gardner
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Perhaps the most promising trend in our thinking about leadership is the growing conviction that the purposes of the group are best served when the leader helps followers develop their own initiative, strengthens them in the use of their own judgment, enables them to grow, and to become better contributors.
John W. Gardner
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One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, but when He's good, nobody can touch Him.
John W. Gardner
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Many of the major changes in history have come about through successive small innovations, most of them anonymous.
John W. Gardner
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In the artist's recreation of the world we are enabled to see the world.
John W. Gardner
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The future announces itself from afar. But most people are not listening. The noisy clatter of the present drowns out the tentative sound of things to come. The sound of the new does not fit old perceptual patterns and goes unnoticed by most people. And of the few who do perceive something coming, most lack the energy, initiative, courage or will to do anything about it. Leaders who have the wit to perceive and the courage to act will be credited with a gift of prophecy that they do not necessarily have.
John W. Gardner
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Storybook happiness involves every form of pleasant thumb-twiddling; true happiness involves the full use of one's powers and talents.
John W. Gardner
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We may learn something about the renewal of societies if we look at the kind of men who contribute most to that outcome — the innovators.
John W. Gardner
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If one defines the term 'dropout' to mean a person who has given up serious effort to meet his responsibilities, then every business office, government agency, golf club and university faculty would yield its quota.
John W. Gardner
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Nothing can be more readily disproved than the old saw, "You can't keep a good man down." Most human societies have been beautifully organized to keep good men down.
John W. Gardner
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We cannot have islands of excellence in a sea of slovenly indifference to standards.
John W. Gardner
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Leaders develop their styles as they interact with their constituencies. They move toward the style that seems most effective in dealing with the mixture of elements that make up their constituencies.
John W. Gardner
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All that we know about the interaction between leaders and constituents or followers tells us that communication and influence flow in both directions; and in that two-way communication, nonrational, nonverbal, and unconscious elements play their part.
John W. Gardner
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The man who once cursed his fate, now curses himself - and pays his psychoanalyst.
John W. Gardner
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The ablest and most effective leaders do not hold to a single style; they may be highly supportive in personal relations when that is needed, yet capable of a quick, authoritative decision when the situation requires it.
John W. Gardner
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The play of conflicting interests in a framework of shared purposes is the drama of a free society. It is a robust exercise, and often a noisy one. It is not for the faint-hearted, or the tidy-minded.
John W. Gardner
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Whoever I am or whatever I am doing, provided that I am engaged in a socially acceptable activity, some kind of excellence is within my reach.
John W. Gardner
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Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.
John W. Gardner
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A nation is held together by shared values, shared beliefs, shared attitudes. That is what enables a people to maintain a cohesive society despite the tensions of daily life. This is what enables them to rise above the conflicts that plague any society. That is what gives a nation its tone, its fiber, its integrity, its moral style, its capacity to endure.
John W. Gardner
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The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
John W. Gardner
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Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find strength in eloquence, some in judgment, some in courage.
John W. Gardner
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Mastery is not something that strikes in an instant, like a thunderbolt, but a gathering power that moves steadily through time, like weather.
John W. Gardner
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If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure—all your life. It's as simple as that.
John W. Gardner
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Quote of the day
Men were only made into "men" with great difficulty even in primitive society: the male is not naturally "a man" any more than the woman. He has to be propped up into that position with some ingenuity, and is always likely to collapse.
Wyndham Lewis
John W. Gardner
Creative Commons
Born:
October 8, 1912
Died:
February 16, 2002
(aged 89)
Bio:
John William Gardner was Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Lyndon Johnson.
Known for:
On Leadership
The recovery of confidence
Living, Leading, and the American Dream
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