Warren Bennis - Leadership Quotes

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Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.

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
Leadership is like beauty - it's hard to define but you know it when you see it.

Warren Bennis
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

Warren Bennis
I'd always rather err on the side of openness. But there's a difference between optimum and maximum openness, and fixing that boundary is a judgment call. The art of leadership is knowing how much information you're going to pass on - to keep people motivated and to be as honest, as upfront, as you can. But, boy, there really are limits to that.

Warren Bennis
Power is the basic energy needed to initiate and sustain action or, to put it another way, the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it. Leadership is the wise use of this power: Transformative leadership.

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
The ability to plan for what has not yet happened, for a future that has only been imagined, is one of the hallmarks of leadership.

Warren Bennis
Listening to the inner voice - trusting the inner voice - is one of the most important lessons of leadership.

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
This duality, making yourself better while teaching and developing others' judgment capabilities, is the key to leadership that is both productive and principled.

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

Warren Bennis