Robert Townsend (author) Quotes

13 Sourced Quotes

Is what I'm doing or about to do getting us closer to our objective?

Robert Townsend
When you get right down to it, one of the most important tasks of a leader is to eliminate his people's excuse for failure.

Robert Townsend
If you have to have a policy manual, publish the 'Ten Commandments.'

Robert Townsend
The world is divided into two classes of people: the few who make good on their promises and the many who don't; get in Column A and stay there. You'll be valuable wherever you go.

Robert Townsend
It's a poor bureaucrat who can't stall a good idea until even its sponsor is relieved to see it dead and officially buried.

Robert Townsend
Compromise is usually bad. It should be a last resort. If two departments or divisions have a problem they can't solve and it comes up to you, listen to both sides and then pick one or the other. This places solid accountability on the winner to make it work. Condition your people to avoid compromise.

Robert Townsend
Twenty percent of any given group of salesmen will always produce 80 percent of the sales.

Robert Townsend
True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not the enrichment of the leaders. In combat, officers eat last.

Robert Townsend
'Top' management (the board of directors) is supposed to be a tree full of owls—hooting when management heads into the wrong part of the forest. I'm still unpersuaded they even know where the forest is.

Robert Townsend
A good manager doesn't try to eliminate conflict; he tries to keep it from wasting the energies of his people. If you're the boss and your people fight you openly when they think that you are wrong - that's healthy.

Robert Townsend
Don't hire a master to paint you a masterpiece and then assign a roomful of schoolboy artists to look over his shoulder and make suggestions.

Robert Townsend
If you don't do it excellently, don't do it at all. Because if it's not excellent, it won't be profitable or fun.

Robert Townsend
To keep an organization young and fit, don't hire anyone until everybody's so overworked they'll be glad to see the newcomer no matter where he sits.

Robert Townsend