Warren Bennis - On becoming a leader (1989)

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Taking charge of your own learning is a part of taking charge of your life, which is the sine qua non in becoming an integrated person.

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

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

Warren Bennis
If knowing yourself and being yourself were as easy to do as to talk about, there wouldn't be nearly so many people walking around in borrowed postures, spouting secondhand ideas, trying desperately to fit in rather than to stand out.

Warren Bennis
The opposite of hope is despair, and when we despair, it is because we feel there are no choices.

Warren Bennis
You are your own raw material. When you know what you consist of and what you want to make of it, then you can invent yourself.

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

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Once you recognize, or admit, that your primary goal is to fully express yourself, you will find the means to achieve the rest of your goals.

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

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

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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
Manage the dream: Create a compelling vision, one that takes people to a new place, and then translate that vision into a reality.

Warren Bennis