Marcus Buckingham Quotes

25 Sourced Quotes

Clarity is the antidote to anxiety, and therefore clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader. If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear.

Marcus Buckingham
We live with them every day, and they come so easily to us that they cease to be precious.

Marcus Buckingham
Everyone can probably do at least one thing better than ten thousand other people.

Marcus Buckingham
The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how long that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor.

Marcus Buckingham
The opposite of a leader isn't a follower. The opposite of a leader is a pessimist.

Marcus Buckingham
The necessity for leaders to possess optimism and ego serves to answer the age-old question: Are leaders born or are they made? They are born. A leader is born with an optimistic disposition or she is not. If she is not, then no amount of "optimism training" is going to make her view the world in an overwhelmingly positive, opportunistic light.

Marcus Buckingham
As with all catalysts, the manager's function is to speed up the reaction between two substances, thus creating the desired end product. Specifically, the manager creates performance in each employee by speeding up the reaction between the employee's talent and the company's goals, and between the employee's talent and the customer's needs.

Marcus Buckingham
In most cases, no matter what it is, if you measure it and reward it, people will try to excel at it

Marcus Buckingham
You grow most in your areas of greatest strength. You will improve the most, be the
most creative, be the most inquisitive, and bounce back the fastest in those areas
where you have already shown some natural advantage over everyone else your strengths. This doesn't mean you should ignore your weaknesses. It just means
you'll grow most where you're already strong.

Marcus Buckingham
You can find energizing moments in each aspect of your life, but to do so you must learn how to catch them, hold on to them, to feel the pull of their weight and allow yourself to follow where they lead.

Marcus Buckingham
Define excellence vividly, quantitatively. Paint a picture for your most talented employees of what excellence looks like. Keep everyone pushing and pushing toward the right-hand edge of the bell curve.

Marcus Buckingham
The great organization must not only accommodate the fact that each employee is different, it must capitalize on these differences. It must watch for clues to each employee's natural talents and then position and develop each employee so that his or her talents are transformed into bona fide strengths.

Marcus Buckingham
Whenever you interview people who are truly successful at their chosen profession—from teaching to telemarketing, acting to accounting—you discover that the secret to their success lies in their ability to discover their strengths and to organize their life so that these strengths can be applied.

Marcus Buckingham
The secret to living a strong life is right in front of you, calling to you every day. It can be found in your emotional reaction to specific moments in your life.

Marcus Buckingham
Sustained success means making the greatest possible impact over the longest period of time

Marcus Buckingham
Talent is the multiplier. The more energy and attention you invest in it, the greater the yield. The time you spend with your best is, quite simply, your most productive time.

Marcus Buckingham
If great managers are catalysts, speeding up the reaction between the individual's talents and the company's goals, then great leaders are alchemists. Somehow they are able to transform our fear of the unknown into confidence in the future.

Marcus Buckingham
Many of us feel stress and get overwhelmed not because we're taking on too much, but because we're taking on too little of what really strengthens us.

Marcus Buckingham
Don't waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in.

Marcus Buckingham
Passion isn't something that lives way up in the sky, in abstract dreams and hopes. It lives at ground level, in the specific details of what you're doing every day.

Marcus Buckingham
What defines a leader is his preoccupation with the future. In his head he carries a vivid image of what the future could be, and this image drives him on.

Marcus Buckingham
Each person's greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength.

Marcus Buckingham
You will excel only by maximizing your strengths, never by fixing your weaknesses.

Marcus Buckingham
Every time you make a rule you take away a choice, and choice, with all of its illuminating repercussions, is the fuel for learning.

Marcus Buckingham
You cannot learn very much about excellence from studying failure.

Marcus Buckingham