Warren Bennis - Leaders Quotes

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Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens, people feel centered and that gives their work meaning.

Warren Bennis
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. And the way we become leaders is by learning about leadership through life and job experiences, not with university degrees.

Warren Bennis
The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.

Warren Bennis
We are at least halfway through the looking glass, on our way to utter chaos. When the very model of a modern manager becomes C.E.O., he does not become a leader, he becomes a boss, and it is the bosses who have gotten America into its current fix.

Warren Bennis
The failure to find the right niche for people - or to let them find their own perfect niches - is a major reason that so many workplaces are mediocre, even toxic, in spite of the presence of talent. Leaders of great groups give them whatever they need and free them from everything else.

Warren Bennis
The basis of leadership is the capacity of the leader to change the mindset, the framework of the other person.

Warren Bennis
Great groups give the lie to the remarkably persistent but incorrect notion that successful organizations are the lengthened shadow of a great woman or man. However, each great group has a strong leader. In fact, great groups and great leaders create each other.

Warren Bennis
The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.

Warren Bennis
Leaders wonder about everything, want to learn as much as they can, are willing to take risks, experiment, try new things. They do not worry about failure but embrace errors, knowing they will learn from them.

Warren Bennis
While great leaders may be as rare as great runners, great actors, or great painters, everyone has leadership potential, just as everyone has some ability at running, acting, and painting.

Warren Bennis
The leader has a clear idea of what he wants to do professionally and personally,
and the strength to persist in the face of setbacks, even failures

Warren Bennis
More leaders have been made by accident, circumstance, sheer grit, or will than have been made by all the leadership courses put together.

Warren Bennis
Leaders encourage reflective backtalk. Norbert Wiener told me, I never know what I say until I hear the response. Leaders know the importance of having someone in their lives who will unfailingly and fearlessly tell them the truth.

Warren Bennis
Leaders are people who do the right thing. Managers are people who do things right. … a profound difference.

Warren Bennis
Unlike top management at Enron, exemplary leaders reward dissent. They encourage it. They understand that, whatever momentary discomfort they experience as a result of being told they might be wrong, it is more than offset by the fact that the information will help them make better decisions.

Warren Bennis
Leaders are people who believe so passionately that they can seduce other people into sharing their dream.

Warren Bennis
A new leader has to be able to change an organization that is dreamless, soulless and visionless … someone's got to make a wake up call.

Warren Bennis
What makes a good follower? The single most important characteristic may well be a willingness to tell the truth. In a world of growing complexity leaders are increasingly dependent on their subordinates for good information, whether the leaders want to hear it or not. Followers who tell the truth and leaders who listen to it are an unbeatable combination.

Warren Bennis
What job is worth the enormous psychic cost of following a leader who values loyalty in the narrowest sense.

Warren Bennis
Too many companies believe people are interchangeable. Truly gifted people never are. They have unique talents. Such people cannot be forced into roles they are not suited for, nor should they be. Effective leaders allow great people to do the work they were born to do.

Warren Bennis
The ruling quality of leaders adaptive capacity, is what allows true leaders to make the nimble decisions that bring success. Adaptive capacity is also what allows some people to transcend the setbacks and losses that come with age and to reinvent themselves again and again.

Warren Bennis
Trust is the emotional glue that binds followers and leaders together.

Warren Bennis
The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.

Warren Bennis
Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing. Both roles are crucial, and they differ profoundly. I often observe people in top positions doing the wrong things well.

Warren Bennis
Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity

Warren Bennis
To become a leader, then, you must become
yourself, become the maker of your own life

Warren Bennis
The manager has his eye on the bottom line; the leader has his eye on the horizon.

Warren Bennis
The organizations of the future will increasingly depend on the creativity of their members to survive. Great Groups offer a new model in which the leader is an equal among Titans. In a truly creative collaboration, work is pleasure, and the only rules and procedures are those that advance the common cause.

Warren Bennis