“
I want to see an elephant hunt down a man for the sole purpose of collecting his teeth, while a chorus of typewriters sings songs that praises the bananas for their wisdom, leadership, and their high levels of potassium.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (I Want)
“
Any government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck."
[On Water]
”
”
Guy de Maupassant (The Collected Stories of Guy de Maupassant)
“
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream was a manifestation of hope that humanity might one day get out of its own way by finding the courage to realize that love and nonviolence are not indicators of weakness but gifts of significant strength.
”
”
Aberjhani (Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.)
“
Every entrepreneur should spend time with all their employees, individually and collectively. It is the only way to understand what they want, what is in it for them, what they are hoping to achieve, and what they aspire to become.
”
”
Curtis L. Jenkins (Vision to Reality: Stop Working, Start Living)
“
Adaptive collective action is superior to bureaucracy.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
To be a jazz freedom fighter is to attempt to galvanize and energize world-weary people into forms of organization with accountable leadership that promote critical exchange and broad reflection. The interplay of individuality and unity is not one of uniformity and unanimity imposed from above but rather of conflict among diverse groupings that reach a dynamic consensus subject to questioning and criticism. As with a soloist in a jazz quartet, quintet or band, individuality is promoted in order to sustain and increase the creative tension with the group--a tension that yields higher levels of performance to achieve the aim of the collective project. This kind of critical and democratic sensibility flies in the face of any policing of borders and boundaries of "blackness", "maleness", "femaleness", or "whiteness".
”
”
Cornel West (Race Matters)
“
At the different stages of recognition, reflection, and redress, practicing compassion provides potentially world-saving opportunities which otherwise likely would not exist.
”
”
Aberjhani (Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.)
“
The ability to stay calm and focused in the midst of change is what distinguishes great leaders from those just collecting a paycheck.
”
”
Todd Stocker
“
We have the option to either empower our existence with love, purpose, and beauty, or allow ourselves to become slaves to ignorance and agony.
”
”
Aberjhani (Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.)
“
Myth 2: Leadership is about individuals. In fact, leadership is a distributed or collective capacity in a system, not just something that individuals do. Leadership is about the capacity of the whole system to sense and actualize the future that wants to emerge.
”
”
C. Otto Scharmer (Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies)
“
By encouraging a culture of collaboration, open communication, and constructive debate, boards can harness the collective wisdom of their members and make decisions that drive the company towards long-term success.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Board Room Blitz: Mastering the Art of Corporate Governance)
“
A meeting is a collective tacit confession of participants’ unwillingness to work.
”
”
Pawan Mishra (Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy)
“
With public sentiment, nothing can fail,” Abraham Lincoln said, “without it nothing can succeed.” Such a leader is inseparably linked to the people. Such leadership is a mirror in which the people see their collective reflection.
”
”
Doris Kearns Goodwin (Leadership: In Turbulent Times)
“
If you don’t collect any metrics, you’re flying blind. If you collect and focus on too many, they may be obstructing your field of view.
”
”
Scott M. Graffius (Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions)
“
most of a leadership team’s objectives should be collective ones.
”
”
Patrick Lencioni (The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business)
“
Women have always had to be #creative about making limited resources work to sustain themselves and their families. They understand what it means to make the hard decisions and to just get on with it.
That is why it is imperative for women not just to be the ones dusting off the table but, crafting its legs for our world to stand on.
”
”
Sandra Sealy (Chronicles Of A Seawoman: A Collection Of Poems)
“
For the first time, he caught a glimmer of what Laurent would be like as a king. He saw him, not as the Regent’s unready nephew, not as Auguste’s younger brother, but as himself, a young man with a collection of talents thrown into leadership too early, and taking it on, because he was given no other choice. I would serve him, he thought, and that itself was like a little revelation. ‘I
”
”
C.S. Pacat (Kings Rising (Captive Prince, #3))
“
He had always thought the Holy Grail would be finding a girl who submitted gladly and whole- heartedly to his leadership. Now he saw how much more powerful it was when the surrender was a bit reluctant, when she had to overcome her own strong will before yielding to his. He didn’t want an off-the-shelf submissive after all. He wanted a girl with a mind of her own, whose heart and will had to be tamed, who would submit to him and him alone.
”
”
Sweden Reese (The Southern Gentleman: Protective Instinct (Dominant Heroes Collection #1))
“
The Swedes have coined the term 'management by perkele' to portray the Finnish managerial approach. Instead of collectively pondering all the possible alternatives and letting every member of the staff from the cleaner to the MD voice their views, as the Swedes do, the Finns act swiftly and don't waste time on the decision-making process. If something isn't happening quickly enough, it is necessary for the top managers to slam their fists on the table and yell, 'Perkele!' Repeatedly, if necessary.
”
”
Tarja Moles (Xenophobe's Guide to the Finns)
“
QUALITY leadership is neither the product of one great individual nor the result of odd historical accidents. Rather, it comes from deeply bred traditions and communities that shape and mold talented and gifted persons. Without a vibrant tradition of resistance passed on to new generations, there can be no nurturing of a collective and critical consciousness—only professional conscientiousness survives.
”
”
Cornel West (Race Matters)
“
When it comes to leaders we have, if anything, a superabundance—hundreds of Pied Pipers…ready and anxious to lead the population. They are scurrying around, collecting consensus, gathering as wide an acceptance as possible. But what they are not doing, very notably, is standing still and saying, ' This is what I believe. This I will do and that I will not do. This is my code of behavior and that is outside it. This is excellent and that is trash.' There is an abdication of moral leadership in the sense of a general unwillingness to state standards….Of all the ills that our poor…society is heir to, the focal one, it seems to me, from which so much of our uneasiness and confusion derive, is the absence of standards. We are too unsure of ourselves to assert them, to stick by them, if necessary in the case of persons who occupy positions of authority, to impose them. We seem to be afflicted by a widespread and eroding reluctance to take any stand on any values, moral, behavioral or esthetic.
”
”
Barbara W. Tuchman
“
Intelligence is the ability to solve a problem, to decipher a riddle, to master a set of facts. Judgment is the ability to orbit a problem or a set of facts and see it as it might be seen through other eyes, by observers with different biases, motives, and backgrounds. It is also the ability to take a set of facts and move it in place and time—perhaps to a hearing room or a courtroom, months or years in the future—or to the newsroom of a major publication or the boardroom of a competitor. Intelligence is the ability to collect and report what the documents and witnesses say; judgment is the ability to say what those same facts mean and what effect they will have on other audiences.
”
”
James B. Comey (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership)
“
Overactive ego chakras kill objectivity, but mindfulness activates the win-win leadership chakras and brings collective and shared leadership.
”
”
Amit Ray (Mindfulness Meditation for Corporate Leadership and Management)
“
It’s ironic that the only way to kill a zombie is to destroy its brain, because, as a group, they have no collective brain to speak of. There was no leadership, no chain of command, no communication or cooperation on any level. There was no president to assassinate, no HQ bunker to surgically strike. Each zombie is its own, self-contained, automated unit, and this last advantage is what truly encapsulates the entire conflict.
”
”
Max Brooks (World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War)
“
In China, once collective farms were disbanded in 1978 under the leadership of the reformer Deng Xiaoping, agricultural output doubled in the space of just four years. A
”
”
Francis Fukuyama (The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution)
“
being likeable isn't just about social media or business - it's about living life, to its fullest.
”
”
Dave Kerpen (Likeable Leadership: A Collection of 65+ Inspirational Stories on Marketing, Your Career, Social Media & More)
“
India, created by collective leadership and built on principles of diversity and tolerance, has become a country addicted to debate; Pakistan,
”
”
Roderick Matthews (Jinnah vs. Gandhi)
“
Collective leadership effectiveness drives business performance.
”
”
William A. Adams (Mastering Leadership: An Integrated Framework for Breakthrough Performance and Extraordinary Business Results)
“
The overwhelming consensus is that the traditions contained within the epistle can confidently be traced to James the Just. That would make James’s epistle arguably one of the most important books in the New Testament. Because one sure way of uncovering what Jesus may have believed is to determine what his brother James believed. The first thing to note about James’s epistle is its passionate concern with the plight of the poor. This, in itself, is not surprising. The traditions all paint James as the champion of the destitute and dispossessed; it is how he earned his nickname, “the Just.” The Jerusalem assembly was founded by James upon the principle of service to the poor. There is even evidence to suggest that the first followers of Jesus who gathered under James’s leadership referred to themselves collectively as “the poor.
”
”
Reza Aslan (Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth)
“
One of the outstanding ironies of history is the utter disregard of ranks and titles in the final judgments men pass on each other. The final estimate of men shows that history cares not an iota for the rank or title a man has borne, or the office he has held, but only the quality of his deeds and the character of his mind and heart.
”
”
Samuel Logan Brengle (The Collected Works of S.L. Brengle - Eight Books in One)
“
We seek to uncover
behind the events changes in the collective consciousness. We reject wholesale references to the “spontaneity” of the movement, references which in most cases
explain nothing and teach nobody. Revolutions take place according to certain laws. This does not mean that the masses in action are aware of the laws of revolution, but it does mean that the changes in mass consciousness are not accidental, but are subject to an objective necessity which is capable of theoretic explanation, and thus makes both prophecy and leadership possible.
”
”
Leon Trotsky (History of the Russian Revolution)
“
What is culture? It’s a set of consistent patterns people follow for communicating, thinking, and acting, all grounded in their shared assumptions and values.
”
”
Michael D. Watkins (Leadership Transitions: The Watkins Collection (4 Items))
“
Leadership’s primary job is to enhance creative capacity by developing collectively effective leadership.
”
”
William A. Adams (Mastering Leadership: An Integrated Framework for Breakthrough Performance and Extraordinary Business Results)
“
Collaboration begins with focusing on the collective good rather than personal gain.
”
”
Jane Ripley (Collaboration Begins with You: Be a Silo Buster)
“
A leadership team is a small group of people who are collectively responsible for achieving a common objective for their organization.
”
”
Patrick Lencioni (The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business)
“
I’ve seen too many leaders misunderstand leadership. They divide, instead of unite. They avoid their role in collective purpose.
”
”
Richie Norton
“
We are always in the middle of change, and our daily
choices, work, relationships, and other aspects of our lives affect our collective future.
”
”
Dele Ola (Be a Change Agent: Leadership in a Time of Exponential Change)
“
But perhaps the greatest threat is that we lack the mechanism of consensus, a way of making up our collective minds.
”
”
Robert K. Greenleaf (Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness)
“
People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed." The
”
”
Business and Leadership Publishing (The Christian Collection - 9 Books including: Mere Christianity / Screwtape Letters / Miracles / The Great Divorce / Pilgrim's Recess / The Problem Of Pain)
“
The beauty of ideas is that many can co-exist at the same time and propel new leaps in our personal and collective evolution.
”
”
Anaik Alcasas (Sending Signals: Amplify the Reach, Resonance and Results of Your Ideas)
“
The third stage in religious development arises when men identify them—when the Numinous Power to which they feel awe is made the guardian of the morality to which they feel obligation.
”
”
Business and Leadership Publishing (The Christian Collection - 9 Books including: Mere Christianity / Screwtape Letters / Miracles / The Great Divorce / Pilgrim's Recess / The Problem Of Pain)
“
Ideas and creativity are the most dangerous weapons against those who look to suppress freedom. Never underestimate the power of collective, civil discussions with those who hold opposing views.
”
”
Tom Golway
“
Intelligence is the ability to collect and report what the documents and witnesses say; judgment is the ability to say what those same facts mean and what effect they will have on other audiences.
”
”
James Comey (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership)
“
But all civilisations pass away and, even while they remain, inflict peculiar sufferings of their own probably sufficient to outweigh what alleviations they may have brought to the normal pains of man.
”
”
Business and Leadership Publishing (The Christian Collection - 9 Books including: Mere Christianity / Screwtape Letters / Miracles / The Great Divorce / Pilgrim's Recess / The Problem Of Pain)
“
Within three weeks the hollowness of another Nazi promise was exposed when Hitler decreed a law bringing an end to collective bargaining and providing that henceforth “labor trustees,” appointed by him, would “regulate labor contracts” and maintain “labor peace.”18 Since the decisions of the trustees were to be legally binding, the law, in effect, outlawed strikes. Ley promised “to restore absolute leadership to the natural leader of a factory—that is, the employer… Only the employer can decide. Many employers have for years had to call for the ‘master in the house.’ Now they are once again to be the ‘master in the house.
”
”
William L. Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany)
“
The vision should be less about what things are going to look like in the future and more about how the company is going to be better positioned to create value and to reap the rewards of that value creation. When we communicate vision in this way, we can go from the world of vague ideals to the world of "this makes sense" for the people who will ultimately be responsible for stewarding the vision. And when it makes sense to them, and they feel connected to it, they do their part so we can collectively bring it to life.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
Leadership involves moving a system from where it is now to some other, better place. It means that one often is at the margins of what people presently like and want, working close to the edge of what is acceptable rather than at the center of the collective consensus.
”
”
J. Richard Hackman (Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances)
“
The central theme of this book is that America’s present dilemma resulted substantially and directly from choices made by the Baby Boomers. Their collective, pathological self-interest derailed a long train of progress, while exacerbating and ignoring existential threats like climate change. The Boomers’ sociopathic need for instant gratification pushed them to equally sociopathic policies, causing them to fritter away an enormous inheritance, and when that was exhausted, to mortgage the future. When the consequences became troubling, Boomer leadership engaged in concealment and deception in a desperate effort to hold the system together just long enough for their generational constituencies to pass from the scene. The story of the Boomers is, in other words, the story of a generation of sociopaths running amok.
”
”
Bruce Cannon Gibney (A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America)
“
God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible-ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again.
”
”
Business and Leadership Publishing (The Christian Collection - 9 Books including: Mere Christianity / Screwtape Letters / Miracles / The Great Divorce / Pilgrim's Recess / The Problem Of Pain)
“
Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
”
”
Business and Leadership Publishing (The Christian Collection - 9 Books including: Mere Christianity / Screwtape Letters / Miracles / The Great Divorce / Pilgrim's Recess / The Problem Of Pain)
“
Failure to hold one another accountable creates an environment where the fifth dysfunction can thrive. Inattention to results occurs when team members put their individual needs (such as ego, career development, or recognition) or even the needs of their divisions above the collective goals of the team.
”
”
Patrick Lencioni (The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable)
“
Integrity is your best friend. And it’s also one of the best friends that your friends will ever have. When the people around you know that you’re a person of integrity, they know that you want to influence them because of the opportunity to add value to their lives. They don’t have to worry about your motives.
”
”
John C. Maxwell (Real Leadership: The 101 Collection)
“
India’s post-independence leadership eschewed parochial nationalism in favor of civic nationalism where the rights and privileges of being Indian were conceived as arising not from some pre-existent modes of belonging—religion, race, or ethnicity—but instead from participation in a collective political endeavor.
”
”
Bibek Debroy (Getting India Back on Track: An Action Agenda for Reform)
“
The Moral Law does not give us any grounds for thinking that God is "good" in the sense of being indulgent, or soft, or sympathetic. There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails. It tells you to do the straight thing and it does not seem to care how painful, or dangerous, or difficult it is to do.
”
”
Business and Leadership Publishing (The Christian Collection - 9 Books including: Mere Christianity / Screwtape Letters / Miracles / The Great Divorce / Pilgrim's Recess / The Problem Of Pain)
“
In this model, the change agent attempts to bring to light all values, working through conflicts embedded in the larger collective. The emphasis is on communication and cooperation with the change target. The technique is to involve the change target in an honest dialogue, while mutually learning the way to win-win solutions.
”
”
Robert E. Quinn (Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Accomplish Extraordinary Things (Jossey-Bass Leadership Series Book 348))
“
Its first disappointment was over the crucifixion. The Man came to life again. In a sense—and I quite realise how frightfully unfair it must seem to them—that has been happening ever since. They keep on killing the thing that He started: and each time, just as they are patting down the earth on its grave, they suddenly hear that it is still alive and has even broken out in some new place. No wonder they hate us.)
”
”
Business and Leadership Publishing (The Christian Collection - 9 Books including: Mere Christianity / Screwtape Letters / Miracles / The Great Divorce / Pilgrim's Recess / The Problem Of Pain)
“
I must add, too, that the only purpose of the book is to solve the intellectual problem raised by suffering; for the far higher task of teaching fortitude and patience I was never fool enough to suppose myself qualified, nor have I anything to offer my readers except my conviction that when pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.
”
”
Business and Leadership Publishing (The Christian Collection - 9 Books including: Mere Christianity / Screwtape Letters / Miracles / The Great Divorce / Pilgrim's Recess / The Problem Of Pain)
“
Nothing so much marks a man as bold imaginative expressions,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his diary, speaking of Socrates and the golden sayings of Pythagoras: “A complete statement in the imaginative form of an important truth arrests attention and is respected and remembered.” Such oratory “will make the reputation of a man.” The way Lincoln had learned to use language, the collective story he told, and the depth of his conviction marked a turning point in his reputation as both a man and a leader.
”
”
Doris Kearns Goodwin (Leadership: In Turbulent Times)
“
Many people hear the word autistic, and they think of easily recognizable traits. They think of tics. Outbursts. They think of obsessions with trains. They don’t see the shy kid who’s fascinated with color and glass. They don’t think of the girl with few friends who shows strong leadership skills. But the autism spectrum is as vast and varied as those glass jars Ellis collects. No two situations are the same, and at the end of the day, ASD or not, Ellis is his own person. He’s his own unique person just like everybody else. He’s not broken. He doesn’t need to be fixed. None of us are perfect, but I love my son just as he is. And you do, too. Don’t you?
”
”
Emmy Sanders (To Catch a Firefly)
“
Lippmann was a major figure in many domains, including political theory. The main collection of his political essays is called “political philosophy for liberal democracy.” In these essays he explains that the “public must be put in its place” so that “the intelligent minorities” may live free of “the trampling and roar of the bewildered herd,” the public. Members of the bewildered herd are supposed to be “spectators of action,” not “participants.” They do have a function, however. Their function is to show up periodically to push a button to vote for a selected member of the leadership class. Then they are to go away and leave us alone. That’s progressive democratic theory. I
”
”
Noam Chomsky (Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance)
“
The first dysfunction is an absence of trust among team members. Essentially, this stems from their unwillingness to be vulnerable within the group. Team members who are not genuinely open with one another about their mistakes and weaknesses make it impossible to build a foundation for trust. This failure to build trust is damaging because it sets the tone for the second dysfunction: fear of conflict. Teams that lack trust are incapable of engaging in unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas. Instead, they resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments. A lack of healthy conflict is a problem because it ensures the third dysfunction of a team: lack of commitment. Without having aired their opinions in the course of passionate and open debate, team members rarely, if ever, buy in and commit to decisions, though they may feign agreement during meetings. Because of this lack of real commitment and buy-in, team members develop an avoidance of accountability, the fourth dysfunction. Without committing to a clear plan of action, even the most focused and driven people often hesitate to call their peers on actions and behaviors that seem counterproductive to the good of the team. Failure to hold one another accountable creates an environment where the fifth dysfunction can thrive. Inattention to results occurs when team members put their individual needs (such as ego, career development, or recognition) or even the needs of their divisions above the collective goals of the team.
”
”
Patrick Lencioni (The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable)
“
Under this scenario, in sum, we would collectively stumble our way toward a fragmented, parochial, Big Brotherish kind of information system “characterized by supervision, regulation, constraint, and control.” Moreover, given his view of the world in 1979, Lick had to rate this possibility as far more likely than his optimistic projection. An integrated, open, universally accessible Multinet wouldn’t just happen on its own, he pointed out. It would require cooperation and effort on a time scale of decades, “a long, hard process of deliberate study, experiment, analysis, and development.” That process, in turn, could be sustained only by the forging of a collective vision, some rough consensus on the part of thousands or maybe even millions of people that an open electronic commons was worth having. And that, wrote Lick, would require leadership.
”
”
M. Mitchell Waldrop (The Dream Machine)
“
Good leaders constantly worry about their limited ability to see. To rise above those limitations, good leaders exercise judgment, which is a different thing from intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to solve a problem, to decipher a riddle, to master a set of facts. Judgment is the ability to orbit a problem or a set of facts and see it as it might be seen through other eyes, by observers with different biases, motives, and backgrounds. It is also the ability to take a set of facts and move it in place and time—perhaps to a hearing room or a courtroom, months or years in the future—or to the newsroom of a major publication or the boardroom of a competitor. Intelligence is the ability to collect and report what the documents and witnesses say; judgment is the ability to say what those same facts mean and what effect they will have on other audiences.
”
”
James Comey (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership)
“
A classic LBO works this way: An investor decides to buy a company by putting up equity, similar to the down payment on a house, and borrowing the rest, the leverage. Once acquired, the company, if public, is delisted, and its shares are taken private, the “private” in the term “private equity.” The company pays the interest on its debt from its own cash flow while the investor improves various areas of a business’s operations in an attempt to grow the company. The investor collects a management fee and eventually a share of the profits earned whenever the investment in monetized. The operational improvements that are implemented can range from greater efficiencies in manufacturing, energy utilization, and procurement; to new product lines and expansion into new markets; to upgraded technology; and even leadership development of the company’s management team.
”
”
Stephen A. Schwarzman (What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence)
“
The qualities of a successful military strategist will change from person to person, but there are a central few that all of them need. These include, above all else, strategic judgment, but also stamina, interpersonal skills and a feel for people; an ability to energize, inspire and motivate; the ability to communicate effectively orally and in writing; a degree of personal presence and charisma; a sincere love of servicemen and women; an ability to be tough when needed, but also compassionate when that is appropriate; fortitude in the face of adversity and the capacity to stay calm in the midst of chaos; an ability to deal with setbacks, missteps and mistakes; a sense of what leadership style is required to bring out the best in those immediately below, and also for the organization collectively. A great strategic leader also needs to be able to foresee how a conflict will end.
”
”
David H. Petraeus (Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine)
“
For a patrimonial state to be stable over time, it is best ruled with consent, at least with consent from the largest minority, if not from the majority. Instinctive obedience must be the norm, otherwise too much effort needs to be put into suppressing disaffection for the regime's wider aims to be achievable. Consent is, however, not always easy to obtain. The collective view of most societies is rather conservative: in the main people prefer to see the social arrangements of their youth perpetuated into their old age; they prefer that things be done in the time-honoured way; they are suspicious of novelty and resistant to change. Thus when radical action must be taken, for whatever reason, a great burden falls on the ruler, the father-figure, who has to overcome this social inertia and persuade his subjects to follow his lead. In order that his will shall prevail, he needs to generate huge respect, preferably adulation, and if at all possible sheer awe among his people.
”
”
Paul Kriwaczek (Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization)
“
Christopher Lasch explains the process by which the therapeutic segment of the managerial elite win moral acceptance. Despite the fact that its claims to be providing “mental health” where always self-serving and highly subjective, the theapeutic class offered ethical leadership in the absence of shared principles. By defining emotional well-being as both a social good and the overcoming of what is individually and collectively dangerous, the behavioral scientists have been able to impose their absolutes upon the culturally fluid society. In “The True and Only Heaven” Lasch explores the implications for postwar politics of the “Authoritarian Personality.” A chief contributor to this anthology, Theodro Adorno, abandoned his earlier work as a cultural critic to become a proponent of governmentally imposed social therapy. According to Lasch, Adorno condemns undesirable political attitudes as “prejudice” and “by defining prejudice as a ‘social disease’ substituted a medical for a political idiom. In the end, Adorno and his colleagues “relegated a broad range of controversial issues to the clinic – to scientific study as opposed to philosophical and political debate.
”
”
Paul Edward Gottfried (After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State.)
“
Eton’s great strength is that it does encourage interests--however wacky. From stamp collecting to a cheese-and-wine club, mountaineering to juggling, if the will is there than the school will help you.
Eton was only ever intolerant of two things: laziness and a lack of enthusiasm. As long as you got “into something,” then most other misdemeanors were forgivable. I liked that: it didn’t only celebrate the cool and sporty, but encouraged the individual, which, in the game of life, matters much more.
Hence Eton helped me to go for the Potential Royal Marines Officer Selection Course, age only sixteen. This was a pretty grueling three-day course of endless runs, marches, mud yomps, assault courses, high-wire confidence tests (I’m good at those!), and leadership tasks.
At the end I narrowly passed as one of only three out of twenty-five, with the report saying: “Approved for Officer Selection: Grylls is fit, enthusiastic, but needs to watch out that he isn’t too happy-go-lucky.” (Fortunately for my future life, I discarded the last part of that advice.)
But passing this course gave me great confidence that if I wanted to, after school, I could at least follow my father into the commandos.
”
”
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
“
The essence of Roosevelt’s leadership, I soon became convinced, lay in his enterprising use of the “bully pulpit,” a phrase he himself coined to describe the national platform the presidency provides to shape public sentiment and mobilize action. Early in Roosevelt’s tenure, Lyman Abbott, editor of The Outlook, joined a small group of friends in the president’s library to offer advice and criticism on a draft of his upcoming message to Congress. “He had just finished a paragraph of a distinctly ethical character,” Abbott recalled, “when he suddenly stopped, swung round in his swivel chair, and said, ‘I suppose my critics will call that preaching, but I have got such a bully pulpit.’ ” From this bully pulpit, Roosevelt would focus the charge of a national movement to apply an ethical framework, through government action, to the untrammeled growth of modern America. Roosevelt understood from the outset that this task hinged upon the need to develop powerfully reciprocal relationships with members of the national press. He called them by their first names, invited them to meals, took questions during his midday shave, welcomed their company at day’s end while he signed correspondence, and designated, for the first time, a special room for them in the West Wing. He brought them aboard his private railroad car during his regular swings around the country. At every village station, he reached the hearts of the gathered crowds with homespun language, aphorisms, and direct moral appeals. Accompanying reporters then extended the reach of Roosevelt’s words in national publications. Such extraordinary rapport with the press did not stem from calculation alone. Long before and after he was president, Roosevelt was an author and historian. From an early age, he read as he breathed. He knew and revered writers, and his relationship with journalists was authentically collegial. In a sense, he was one of them. While exploring Roosevelt’s relationship with the press, I was especially drawn to the remarkably rich connections he developed with a team of journalists—including Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens, and William Allen White—all working at McClure’s magazine, the most influential contemporary progressive publication. The restless enthusiasm and manic energy of their publisher and editor, S. S. McClure, infused the magazine with “a spark of genius,” even as he suffered from periodic nervous breakdowns. “The story is the thing,” Sam McClure responded when asked to account for the methodology behind his publication. He wanted his writers to begin their research without preconceived notions, to carry their readers through their own process of discovery. As they educated themselves about the social and economic inequities rampant in the wake of teeming industrialization, so they educated the entire country. Together, these investigative journalists, who would later appropriate Roosevelt’s derogatory term “muckraker” as “a badge of honor,” produced a series of exposés that uncovered the invisible web of corruption linking politics to business. McClure’s formula—giving his writers the time and resources they needed to produce extended, intensively researched articles—was soon adopted by rival magazines, creating what many considered a golden age of journalism. Collectively, this generation of gifted writers ushered in a new mode of investigative reporting that provided the necessary conditions to make a genuine bully pulpit of the American presidency. “It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the progressive mind was characteristically a journalistic mind,” the historian Richard Hofstadter observed, “and that its characteristic contribution was that of the socially responsible reporter-reformer.
”
”
Doris Kearns Goodwin (The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism)
“
FOCUS ON GENERATING REVENUE THE DOJ FOUND THAT virtually every branch and tributary of the city’s bureaucracy—the mayor, city council, city manager, finance director, municipal court judge, municipal court prosecutor, court clerk, assistant clerks, police chief—all were enmeshed in an unending race to raise revenue through municipal fines and fees: City officials routinely urge Chief [Tom] Jackson to generate more revenue through enforcement. In March 2010, for instance, the City Finance Director wrote to Chief Jackson that “unless ticket writing ramps up significantly before the end of the year, it will be hard to significantly raise collections next year. . . . Given that we are looking at a substantial sales tax shortfall, it’s not an insignificant issue.” Similarly, in March 2013, the Finance Director wrote to the City Manager: “Court fees are anticipated to rise about 7.5%. I did ask the Chief if he thought the PD [police department] could deliver 10% increase. He indicated they could try.” The importance of focusing on revenue generation is communicated to FPD officers. Ferguson police officers from all ranks told us that revenue generation is stressed heavily within the police department, and that the message comes from City leadership. The evidence we reviewed supports this perception.
”
”
Norm Stamper (To Protect and Serve: How to Fix America's Police)
“
First, socialism — the belief that the earth belongs to labor — is my moral being. In fact, it is my religion, the values that anchor the commitments that define my life.
Second, “old school” implies putting in work year after year for the good cause. In academia one runs across people who call themselves Marxists and go to lots of conferences but hardly ever march on a picket line, go to a union meeting, throw a brick or simply help wash the dishes after a benefit. What’s even worse, they deign to teach us the “real Marx” but lack the old Moor’s fundamental respect for individual working people and his readiness to become a poor outlaw on their behalf.
Finally, plain “socialist” expresses identification with the broad movement and the dream rather than with a particular program or camp. I have strong, if idiosyncratic, opinions on all the traditional issues — for example, the necessity of an organization of organizers (call it Leninism, if you want) but also the evils of bureaucracy and permanent leaderships (call it anarchism if you wish) — but I try to remind myself that such positions need to be constantly reassessed and calibrated to the conjuncture. One is always negotiating the slippery dialectic between individual reason, which must be intransigently self-critical, and the fact that one needs to be part of a movement or a radical collective in order, as Sartre put it, to “be in history.” Moral dilemmas and hard choices come with the turf and they cannot be evaded with “correct lines.
”
”
Mike Davis
“
It is rather like arguing with an Irishman,” wrote Michael Hadow of his many conversations with Dayan. “He enjoys knocking down ideas just for the sake of argument and one will find him arguing in completely opposite directions on consecutive days.” Indeed, Dayan was a classic man of contradictions: famed as a warrior, he professed deep respect for the Arabs, including those who attacked his village, Nahalal, in the early 1930s, and who once beat him and left him for dead. A poet, a writer of children’s stories, he admitted publicly that he regretted having children, and was a renowned philanderer as well. A lover of the land who made a hobby of plundering it, he had amassed a huge personal collection of antiquities. A stickler for military discipline, he was prone to show contempt for the law. As one former classmate remembered, “He was a liar, a braggart, a schemer, and a prima donna—and in spite of that, the object of deep admiration.” Equally contrasting were the opinions about him. Devotees such as Meir Amit found him “original, daring, substantive, focused,” a commander who “radiated authority and leadership [with] … outstanding instincts that always hit the mark.” But many others, among them Gideon Rafael, saw another side of him: “Rocking the boat is his favorite tactic, not to overturn it, but to sway it sufficiently for the helmsman to lose his grip or for some of its unwanted passengers to fall overboard.” In private, Eshkol referred to Dayan as Abu Jildi, a scurrilous one-eyed Arab bandit.
”
”
Michael B. Oren (Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East)
“
It is, in short, the growing conviction that the Negroes cannot win—a conviction with much grounding in experience—which accounts for the new popularity of black power. So far as the ghetto Negro is concerned, this conviction expresses itself in hostility, first toward the people closest to him who have held out the most promise and failed to deliver (Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, etc.), then toward those who have proclaimed themselves his friends (the liberals and the labor movement), and finally toward the only oppressors he can see (the local storekeeper and the policeman on the corner). On the leadership level, the conviction that the Negroes cannot win takes other forms, principally the adoption of what I have called a "no-win" policy. Why bother with programs when their enactment results only in sham? Why concern ourselves with the image of the movement when nothing significant has been gained for all the sacrifices made by SNCC and CORE? Why compromise with reluctant white allies when nothing of consequence can be achieved anyway? Why indeed have anything to do with whites at all?
On this last point, it is extremely important for white liberals to understand what, one gathers from their references to "racism in reverse," the President and the Vice-President of the United States do not: that there is all the difference in the world between saying, "If you don't want me, I don't want you" (which is what some proponents of black power have in effect been saying), and the statement, "Whatever you do, I don't want you" (which is what racism declares). It is, in other words, both absurd and immoral to equate the despairing response of the victim with the contemptuous assertion of the oppressor. It would, moreover, be tragic if white liberals allowed verbal hostility on the part of Negroes to drive them out of the movement or to curtail their support for civil rights. The issue was injustice before black power became popular, and the issue is still injustice.
”
”
Bayard Rustin (Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin)
“
The information in this topic of decision making and how to create and nurture it, is beneficial to every cop in their quest to mastering tactics and tactical decision making and are a must read for every cop wanting to be more effective and safe on the street. My purpose is to get cops thinking about this critical question: In mastering tactics shouldn’t we be blending policy and procedure with people and ideas? It should be understandable that teaching people, procedures helps them perform tasks more skillfully doesn’t always apply. Procedures are most useful in well-ordered situations when they can substitute for skill, not augment it. In complex situations, in the shadows of the unknown, uncertain and unpredictable and complex world of law enforcement conflict, procedures are less likely to substitute for expertise and may even stifle its development. Here is a different way of putting it as Klein explains: In complex situations, people will need judgment skills to follow procedures effectively and to go beyond them when necessary.3 For stable and well-structured tasks i.e. evidence collection and handling, follow-up investigations, booking procedures and report writing, we should be able to construct comprehensive procedure guides. Even for complex tasks we might try to identify the procedures because that is one road to progress. But we also have to discover the kinds of expertise that comes into play for difficult jobs such as, robbery response, active shooter and armed gunman situations, hostage and barricade situations, domestic disputes, drug and alcohol related calls and pretty much any other call that deals with emotionally charged people in conflict. Klein states, “to be successful we need both analysis (policy and procedure) and intuition (people and ideas).”4 Either one alone can get us into trouble. Experts certainly aren’t perfect, but analysis can fail. Intuition isn’t magic either. Klein defines intuition as, “ways we use our experience without consciously thinking things out”. Intuition includes tacit knowledge that we can’t describe. It includes our ability to recognize patterns stored in memory. We have been building these patterns up all our lives from birth to present, and we can rapidly match a situation to a pattern or notice that something is off, that some sort of anomaly is warning us to be careful.5
”
”
Fred Leland (Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security)
“
She thought she was getting out of the Water Rising clean, because she didn’t see her father anywhere around: there was only Ash and Lillian sitting at a table, and a few other patrons at as much of a distance from Ash and Lillian as they could get. She made for the door, at which point Lillian caught her arm.
“Where are you going?”
“Uh,” said Kami, eyeballing her wildly. “I’m going to buy some drugs.”
Lillian stared. “I beg your pardon?”
“This is a really stressful time for everyone,” said Kami. “So I thought maybe I could buy a little weed, take the edge off. I might be a while. This is a very clean-living town, apart from all the murders, so I don’t actually know any drug dealers. I realize Jared kind of looks like one, but he’s not, which is a shame because I think the drug dealer’s girlfriend gets her drugs free.”
“I realize you are attempting to be humorous,” said Lillian, after a pause during which she stared some more. “I don’t understand it.”
“Hey, you’re not the only family with a legacy. ‘Glass’ rhymes with ‘sass.’ Have you met my dad?”
“I have had that dubious pleasure,” said Lillian. “He is, in fact, meant to be meeting me in order to, and I quote, ‘teach me to integrate better with society, display leadership skills, win over the populace, and stop acting like a robot princess from space.’ I admit that the humor in his humor escapes me as well.” She paused and suddenly looked determined. “I’m going to start without him.”
She climbed off the stool and headed toward the group of people in the corner. Kami and Ash watched as they collectively shrank away.
“Come on, quick,” said Kami, and as if summoned by some spirit warning him of his child’s intended reckless behavior, her dad appeared through the inn doors.
He looked distracted. “Where’s Lillian?’
Kami checked over her shoulder. “Appears to be trying to wrest a screaming baby from the arms of her frightened mother in order to kiss it.”
“Oh no no no,” murmured Jon, and raised his voice as he made his way over. “Libba, we’ve talked about this!”
“The good news is the grown-ups are distracted by politics,” said Kami.
You mean that your poor father is distracted by my awful mother, said Ash, who was far too polite to say such a thing out loud and looked vaguely embarrassed to be thinking it.
Kami grinned. “Why quibble when we have the results we want!”
I wish I could ask you what you’re planning, but I know what you’re planning, said Ash. Lucky me. I know this is important information, but going to Aurimere at all is a huge risk.
“See, the thing is, if I ran a business it would probably be called Risky Business,
”
”
Sarah Rees Brennan (Unmade (The Lynburn Legacy, #3))
“
The year 1944 was the year of the greatest burdens in this mighty struggle.
It was a year that again proved conclusively that the bourgeois social order is no longer capable of braving the storms of the present or of the coming age.
State after state that does not find its way to a truly social reorganization will go down the path to chaos. The liberal age is a thing of the past. The belief that you can counter this invasion of the people by parliamentary-democratic half-measures is childish and just as naive as Metternich’s methods when the national drives for unification were making their way through the nineteenth century. The lack of a truly social, new form of life results in the lack of the mental will to resist not only in the nations but also in the lack of the moral power of resistance of their leaders. In all countries we see that the attempted renaissance of a democracy has proved fruitless. The confused tangle of political dilettantes and military politicians of a bygone bourgeois world who order each other around is, with deadly certainty, preparing for a plunge into chaos and, insofar as Europe is concerned, into an economic and ethnic catastrophe. And, after all, one thing has already been proved: this most densely populated continent in the world will either have to live with an order that gives the greatest consideration to individual abilities, guarantees the greatest accomplishments, and, by taming all egotistical drives, prevents their excesses, or states such as we have in central and western Europe will prove unfit for life, which means that their nations are thereby doomed to perish! In this manner-following the example of royal Italy-Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary collapsed during this year. This collapse is primarily the result of the cowardice and lack of resolve of their leaders. They and their actions can be understood only in light of the corrupt and socially amoral atmosphere of the bourgeois world. The hatred which many statesmen, especially in these countries, express for the present German Reich is nothing other than the voice of a guilty conscience, an expression of an inferiority complex in view of our organization of a human community that is suspicious to them because we successfully pursue goals that again do not correspond to their own narrow economic egotism and their resulting political shortsightedness.
For us, my German Volksgenossen, this, however, represents a new obligation to recognize ever more clearly that the existence or nonexistence of a German future depends on the uncompromising organization of our Volksstaat, that all the sacrifices which our Volk must make are conceivable only under the condition of a social order which clears away all privileges and thereby makes the entire Volk not only bear the same duties but also possess the same vital rights. Above all, it must mercilessly destroy the social phantoms of a bygone era. In their stead, it must place the most valuable reality there is, namely the Volk, the masses which, tied together by the same blood, essence, and experiences of a long history, owe their origin as an individual existence not to an earthly arbitrariness but to the inscrutable will of the Almighty. The insight into the moral value of our conviction and the resulting objectives of our struggle for life give us and, above all, give me the strength to continue to wage this fight in the most difficult hours with the strongest faith and with an unshakable confidence. In such hours, this conviction also ties the Volk to its leadership. It assured the unanimous approval of the appeal that I was forced to direct to the German Volk in a particularly urgent way this year.
New Year’s Proclamation to the National Socialists and Party Comrades Fuhrer Headquarters, January 1, 1945
”
”
Adolf Hitler (Collection of Speeches: 1922-1945)
“
Fascism rested not upon the truth of its doctrine but upon the leader’s mystical union with the historic destiny of his people, a notion related to romanticist ideas of national historic flowering and of individual artistic or spiritual genius, though fascism otherwise denied romanticism’s exaltation of unfettered personal creativity. The fascist leader wanted to bring his people into a higher realm of politics that they would experience sensually: the warmth of belonging to a race now fully aware of its identity, historic destiny, and power; the excitement of participating in a vast collective enterprise; the gratification of submerging oneself in a wave of shared feelings, and of sacrificing one’s petty concerns for the group’s good; and the thrill of domination. Fascism’s deliberate replacement of reasoned debate with immediate sensual experience transformed politics, as the exiled German cultural critic Walter Benjamin was the first to point out, into aesthetics. And the ultimate fascist aesthetic experience, Benjamin warned in 1936, was war.
Fascist leaders made no secret of having no program. Mussolini exulted in that absence. “The Fasci di Combattimento,” Mussolini wrote in the “Postulates of the Fascist Program” of May 1920, “. . . do not feel tied to any particular doctrinal form.” A few months before he became prime minister of Italy, he replied truculently to a critic who demanded to know what his program was: “The democrats of Il Mondo want to know our program? It is to break the bones of the democrats of Il Mondo. And the sooner the better.” “The fist,” asserted a Fascist militant in 1920, “is the synthesis of our theory.” Mussolini liked to declare that he himself was the definition of Fascism. The will and leadership of a Duce was what a modern people needed, not a doctrine. Only in 1932, after he had been in power for ten years, and when he wanted to “normalize” his regime, did Mussolini expound Fascist doctrine, in an article (partly ghostwritten by the philosopher Giovanni Gentile) for the new Enciclopedia italiana. Power came first, then doctrine. Hannah Arendt observed that Mussolini “was probably the first party leader who consciously rejected a formal program and replaced it with inspired leadership and action alone.”
Hitler did present a program (the 25 Points of February 1920), but he pronounced it immutable while ignoring many of its provisions. Though its anniversaries were celebrated, it was less a guide to action than a signal that debate had ceased within the party. In his first public address as chancellor, Hitler ridiculed those who say “show us the details of your program. I have refused ever to step before this Volk and make cheap promises.”
Several consequences flowed from fascism’s special relationship to doctrine. It was the unquestioning zeal of the faithful that counted, more than his or her reasoned assent. Programs were casually fluid. The relationship between intellectuals and a movement that despised thought was even more awkward than the notoriously prickly relationship of intellectual fellow travelers with communism. Many intellectuals associated with fascism’s early days dropped away or even went into opposition as successful fascist movements made the compromises necessary to gain allies and power, or, alternatively, revealed its brutal anti-intellectualism. We will
meet some of these intellectual dropouts as we go along. Fascism’s radical instrumentalization of truth explains why fascists never bothered to write any casuistical literature when they changed their program, as they did often and without compunction. Stalin was forever writing to prove that his policies accorded somehow with the principles of Marx and Lenin; Hitler and Mussolini never bothered with any such theoretical justification. Das Blut or la razza would determine who was right.
”
”
Robert O. Paxton (The Anatomy of Fascism)
“
Individual effort is good but collective effort is better. We need a NETWORK of nation builders
”
”
Fela Durotoye
“
Working Group Strong, clearly focused leader Individual accountability The group’s purpose is the same as the broader organizational mission Individual work products Runs efficient meetings Measures its effectiveness indirectly by its influence on others (such as financial performance of the business) Discusses, decides, and delegates Team Shared leadership roles Individual and mutual accountability Specific team purpose that the team itself delivers Collective work products Encourages open-ended discussion and active problem-solving meetings Measures performance directly by assessing collective work products Discusses, decides, and does real work together
”
”
Harvard Business Publishing (HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing People (with featured article "Leadership That Gets Results," by Daniel Goleman))
“
recruiting is like romance, and employment is like marriage.
”
”
Michael D. Watkins (Leadership Transitions: The Watkins Collection (4 Items))
“
In collaborative professionalism, we want deeper collaboration in stronger relationships of trust, support, and solidarity. We also want more professionalism involving good data and good judgment, more candid and respectful professional dialogue, more thoughtful feedback, more collective responsibility for each other’s results, and more courageous engagement with bolder visions of education that will help young people become change makers in their own and other people’s lives.
”
”
Andrew Hargreaves (Collaborative Professionalism: When Teaching Together Means Learning for All (Corwin Impact Leadership Series))
“
Your actions are not simply the actions of a human - but the actions of a civilization – the actions of a species, in the path of collective human progress.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Let The Poor Be Your God)
“
Collective thinking builds empires
”
”
Mac Duke The Strategist
“
Clearly chairs, or CGOs, have a leading part to play in ensuring that governance boards work in the way the new model outlines. As Carver and Oliver say, "We believe that the chair's role is one of the most important keys to unlocking the potential of boards, and we are therefore going to give it considerable attention." I strongly support the importance that the model gives to the chair's role. This book stresses that the board must speak with one voice and that the CEO takes directions only from the board as a whole. The board will speak with one voice only as a result of directors' commitment to do so and the skill of the chair. I doubt that what is required of a person to serve well on any type of board or committee is a natural form of behavior. The key task of a chair is to enable the members of a board to work together effectively and to get the best out of them. This is what the servant achieved in the story on which Robert Greenleaf's concept of the servant-leader is based. Chairs have a major leadership task. It is they who are responsible for turning a collection of competent individuals into an effective team. The new model is demanding of its chairs, and much will depend on them.
Another field in which
”
”
John Carver (Corporate Boards That Create Value: Governing Company Performance from the Boardroom (J-B Carver Board Governance Series Book 26))
“
Ideally, every written or drawn picture of the future of your organization is simply evidence that collective thinking and understanding has taken place.
”
”
Chris Hutchinson (Ripple: A Field Manual for Leadership that Works)
“
There are no individual solutions to collective problems. Nonetheless, it is individuals who must come together and figure out what to do. In all of this, there is the unaddressed question of leadership. The anarchist in me genuinely believes rotating leadership is a solution: people take turns taking the lead in the areas of their greatest competence, interest, or desire. Another similar collaborative idea might be: best idea wins. But art is so subjective, and for five different people five different ideas might each seem best. It has always been my thinking that if someone in the group feels strongly that we should do something, then we should do it, their strong desire shouldn’t be watered or sanded down by the democratic entropy of the group. I want the projects to be open enough to welcome the strongest impulses of each of the participants. This is my ideal, and like all ideals it is something I often fall short of achieving. Perhaps this ideal is not even best for every collaborative situation. In a sense, it is just another way of saying that I want to work in ways that are deeply collaborative while at the same time keeping our most intense individual artistic differences more alive than alive.
”
”
Jacob Wren (Authenticity is a Feeling: My Life in PME-ART)
“
Dream Big. You are a divine original and the world needs your unique contribution.
”
”
Oluwaseun Oyeniran (Live Love Learn Grow: A Collection of Quotes with Modern Day Paradigms for Appropriating Godly Values Into Our Lives and Businesses)
“
In the school of effective growth, improvement and change go hand in hand. To enter the new is to break out of comfort.
”
”
Oluwaseun Oyeniran (Live Love Learn Grow: A Collection of Quotes With Modern Day Paradigms For Appropriating Godly Values Into Our Lives And Businesses)
“
Human you are – yes – but not an ordinary human – you are born to shape the collective thought processes of a species – you are born to take humanity ahead, not backward.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Conscience over Nonsense)
“
Running IT as the digital energizer is about accelerating business performance, unleashing business potential, and nurturing collective creativity.
”
”
Pearl Zhu (12 CIO Personas: The Digital CIO's Situational Leadership Practices)
“
Practicing entrepreneurship in IT starts with the outlier leadership and builds an innovative culture - the collective attitude to experiment better ways to do things.
”
”
Pearl Zhu (12 CIO Personas: The Digital CIO's Situational Leadership Practices)
“
the group remained a collection of very bright people with strong personalities, who frequently clashed with one another, as siblings might. I liked that. One of the junior lawyers was given to exhaling in disgust at statements she didn’t like and then interrupting aggressively, no matter who was speaking. This annoyed many of her colleagues. I loved it. I wanted her on the team because I knew she didn’t care about rank at all. Her directness added value even when she was wrong. I wanted to hear her perspective and knew it would come without prompting, even if she interrupted a senior official to offer it. That interruption would stimulate great conversation.
”
”
James B. Comey (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership)
“
Initially, a start-up is dependent upon its founders for vision, leadership, direction, and management. It requires their guidance on a daily basis. As the start-up begins to realize some order of success, or begins to struggle, its future quickly moves beyond the brilliance of its founding leadership. It now requires the capability and capacity of its collective leadership. When present and functioning effectively, collective leadership removes the single point of failure—dependency on the founder—that many start-ups experience and expands the capacity and capability of the organization to lead its growth.
”
”
Bob Anderson (Mastering Leadership: An Integrated Framework for Breakthrough Performance and Extraordinary Business Results)
“
Passage Five: From Business Manager to Group Manager This is another leadership passage that at first glance doesn’t seem overly arduous. The assumption is that if you can run one business successfully, you can do the same with two or more businesses. The flaw in this reasoning begins with what is valued at each leadership level. A business manager values the success of his own business. A group manager values the success of other people’s businesses. This is a critical distinction because some people only derive satisfaction when they’re the ones receiving the lion’s share of the credit. As you might imagine, a group manager who doesn’t value the success of others will fail to inspire and support the performance of the business managers who report to him. Or his actions might be dictated by his frustration; he’s convinced he could operate the various businesses better than any of his managers and wishes he could be doing so. In either instance, the leadership pipeline becomes clogged with business managers who aren’t operating at peak capacity because they’re not being properly supported or their authority is being usurped. This level also requires a critical shift in four skill sets. First, group managers must become proficient at evaluating strategy for capital allocation and deployment purposes. This is a sophisticated business skill that involves learning to ask the right questions, analyze the right data, and apply the right corporate perspective to understand which strategy has the greatest probability of success and therefore should be funded. The second skill cluster involves development of business managers. As part of this development, group managers need to know which of the function managers are ready to become business managers. Coaching new business managers is also an important role for this level. The third skill set has to do with portfolio strategy. This is quite different from business strategy and demands a perceptual shift. This is the first time managers have to ask these questions: Do I have the right collection of businesses? What businesses should be added, subtracted, or changed to position us properly and ensure current and future earnings? Fourth, group managers must become astute about assessing whether they have the right core capabilities. This means avoiding wishful thinking and instead taking a hard, objective look at their range of resources and making a judgment based on analysis and experience. Leadership becomes more holistic at this level. People may master the required skills, but they won’t perform at full leadership capacity if they don’t begin to see themselves as broad-gauged executives. By broad-gauged, we mean that managers need to factor in the complexities of running multiple businesses, thinking in terms of community, industry, government,
”
”
Ram Charan (The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company (Jossey-Bass Leadership Series Book 391))
“
His resistance to basketball awards was a rejection of the universal instinct to separate individuals from the collective. His brand of leadership had nothing to do with the outside world or how he was perceived. It was entirely focused on the internal dynamics of his team. So long as the Celtics won titles, he didn’t mind if nobody noticed his contributions.
”
”
Sam Walker (The Captain Class: A New Theory of Leadership)
“
Soon I began to realize that cultural camouflage also obscured the universality of emotional process in institutions. For example, frequently, the leaders of a church would come to me seeking techniques for dealing with a member of the staff or a member of the congregation who was acting obstreperously, who was ornery, and who intimidated everyone with his gruffness. I might say to them, “This is not a matter of technique; it’s a matter of taking a stand, telling this person he has to shape up or he cannot continue to remain a member of the community.” And the church leaders would respond, “But that’s not the Christian thing to do.” (Synagogue leaders also tolerate abusers for the same reason.) Overall, this long-range perspective brought me to the point of wondering if there were not some unwitting conspiracy within society itself to avoid recognizing the emotional variables that, for all their lack of concreteness, are far more influential in their effects on institutions than the more obvious data that society loves to measure. Perhaps data collection serves as a way of avoiding the emotional variables. After all, the denial of emotional process is evident in society at large. If, for example, we succeed in reducing the number of cigarettes smoked by our nation’s youth but do nothing to reduce the level of chronic anxiety throughout the nation, then the addiction will just take another form, and the same children who were vulnerable to one kind of addiction will become easy prey for the as-yet unimagined new temptation. It
”
”
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
“
(a) Nationalism, in the form of the historicist idea that the state is the incarnation of the Spirit (or now, of the Blood) of the state-creating nation (or race); one chosen nation (now, the chosen race) is destined for world domination. (b) The state as the natural enemy of all other states must assert its existence in war. (c) The state is exempt from any kind of moral obligation; history, that is, historical success, is the sole judge; collective utility is the sole principle of personal conduct; propagandist lying and distortion of the truth is permissible. (d) The ‘ethical’ idea of war (total and collectivist), particularly of young nations against older ones; war, fate and fame as most desirable goods. (e) The creative rôle of the Great Man, the world-historical personality, the man of deep knowledge and great passion (now, the principle of leadership). (f) The ideal of the heroic life (‘live dangerously’) and of the ‘heroic man’ as opposed to the petty bourgeois and his life of shallow mediocrity.
”
”
Karl Popper (The Open Society and Its Enemies)
“
In 1913, Ringelmann conducted an experiment in which he asked his students to pull on a rope, both individually and in groups, while he measured the force they exerted. The conventional view was that people in a group would have more power collectively than they did alone—in other words, adding people to the pulling group would have a multiplying effect on the force. But the results showed something surprising. While the force applied did grow with every new person added, the average force applied by each person fell. Rather than amplifying the power of individuals, the act of pulling as a team caused each person to pull less hard than they had when pulling alone. Later researchers coined a name for this phenomenon. They called it social loafing.
”
”
Sam Walker (The Captain Class: A New Theory of Leadership)
“
Where did you guys end up?”
“Control room,” Zeke says. “My mom used to work there, and she taught me most of what I’ll need to know already.”
“I’m in the patrol leadership track…thing,” Shauna says. “Not the most exciting job ever, but at least I’ll get to be outside.”
“Yeah, let’s hear you say that in the dead of winter when you’re trudging through a foot of snow and ice,” Lynn says sourly. She stabs at a pile of mashed potatoes with her fork. “I better do well in initiation. I don’t want to get stuck at the fence.”
“Didn’t we talk about this?” Uriah says. “Don’t say the ‘I’ word until at most two weeks before it happens. It makes me want to throw up.”
I look at the pile of food on his tray. “Stuffing yourself up to your eyeballs with food, though, that’s fine?”
He rolls his eyes at me and bends over his tray to keep eating.
”
”
Veronica Roth (Four: A Divergent Story Collection (Divergent, #0.1-0.4))
“
So,” Marlene says loudly. “Do you know of anyone else who’s doing that leadership program, Four?”
“Come to think of it, I didn’t see Eric there today, either,” Shauna says. “I was hoping he tripped and fell into the chasm, but…
”
”
Veronica Roth (Four: A Divergent Story Collection (Divergent, #0.1-0.4))