Differentiate Leadership Quotes

The great differentiator going forward, the next frontier for exponential growth, the place where individuals and organizations will find a new and sustainable competitive edge, resides in the area of human connectivity.

What differentiates victors and victims are visions and vigor. Victims won't get the vim to step out of their situations.

The entrepreneur’s mind-set is completely different to the employee’s mind-set. The entrepreneur finds it abhorrent to conform to organizational norms, whilst the employee finds joy and stability in all that’s tried and true. It’s not that one’s wrong and the other is right. It’s the mind-set that differentiates the two.

I am no feminist. Even though the term "feminism" is founded upon the basic principle of gender equality, it possesses its own fundamental gender bias, which makes it inclined towards the wellbeing of women, over the wellbeing of the whole society. And if history has shown anything, it is that such fundamental biases in time corrupt even the most glorious ideas and give birth to prejudice, bigotry and differentiation.

Decision makers are the only differentiators between the successful organizations and the less successful ones.

A company's vision often transcends the boardroom, and the company itself. A compelling vision can differentiate a company in the marketplace.

I want to stress that by well-differentiated leader I do not mean an autocrat who tells others what to do or orders them around, although any leader who defines himself or herself clearly may be perceived that way by those who are not taking responsibility for their own emotional being and destiny. Rather, I mean someone who has clarity about his or her own life goals, and, therefore, someone who is less likely to become lost in the anxious emotional processes swirling about. I mean someone who can be separate while still remaining connected, and therefore can maintain a modifying, non-anxious, and sometimes challenging presence. I mean someone who can manage his or her own reactivity to the automatic reactivity of others, and therefore be able to take stands at the risk of displeasing.

Leadership through self-differentiation is not easy; learning techniques and imbibing data are far easier. Nor is striving or achieving success as a leader without pain: there is the pain of isolation, the pain of loneliness, the pain of personal attacks, the pain of losing friends. That’s what leadership is all about.

Innovation shouldn’t be serendipity. It is a management process and the differentiated business capability.

Those five characteristics are:    1. Reactivity: the vicious cycle of intense reactions of each member to events and to one another.    2. Herding: a process through which the forces for togetherness triumph over the forces for individuality and move everyone to adapt to the least mature members.    3. Blame displacement: an emotional state in which family members focus on forces that have victimized them rather than taking responsibility for their own being and destiny.    4. A quick-fix mentality: a low threshold for pain that constantly seeks symptom relief rather than fundamental change.    5. Lack of well-differentiated leadership: a failure of nerve that both stems from and contributes to the first four. To reorient oneself away from a focus on technology toward a focus on emotional process requires that, like Columbus, we think in ways that not only are different from traditional routes but that also sometimes go in the opposite direction. This chapter will thus also serve as prelude to the three that follow, which describe the “equators” we have to cross in our time: the “learned” fallacies or emotional barriers that keep an Old World orientation in place and cause both family and institutional leaders to regress rather than venture in new directions.

A third path that a business can follow—an offshoot of our two main strategies—is pursuing a highly targeted market and focusing its resources on serving that tight segment, whether through cost leadership or differentiation. This is the focus strategy.

O my brave Almighty Human, with the ever-effulgent flow of courage, conscience and compassion, turn yourself into a vivacious humanizer, and start walking with bold footsteps while eliminating racism, terminating misogyny, destroying homophobia and all other primitiveness that have turned humanity into the most inhuman species on earth.

It is rather pointless to go head to head with strong and entrenched competition. But numerous opportunities can be found in the marketplace for a company to maximize its unique qualities, differentiate its products and services, and go after a specific market segment where its competitors are weak and where you can develop superiority, where you can win battles.

It is never easy for any leader to choose between differentiation and equality. You are condemned either way. When you treat everyone equally, you are considered just by majority as equality benefits below average people and they seem to always be in majority. At the same time, you are also condemned because you can’t produce results with people having a crab mentality. However, if you choose to reward the excellence and punish the non-performer, you achieve the desired results but get condemned for being unfair, unjust, cruel and Darwinian.

The emphasis here will be on strength, not pathology; on challenge, not comfort; on self-differentiation, not herding for togetherness. This is a difficult perspective to maintain in a “seatbelt society” more oriented toward safety than adventure. This book is not, therefore, for those who prefer peace to progress. It is not for those who mistake another’s well-defined stand for coercion. It is not for those who fail to see how in any family or institution a perpetual concern for consensus leverages power to the extremists. And it is not for those who lack the nerve to venture out of the calm eye of good feelings and togetherness and weather the storm of protest that inevitably surrounds a leader’s self-definition. For, whether we are considering a family, a work system, or an entire nation, the resistance that sabotages a leader’s initiative usually has less to do with the “issue” that ensues than with the fact that the leader took initiative.

In our society today, much is made of treating children as persons, human beings who have a right to be heard. But many family leaders today bend so far in the direction of consensus, in order to avoid the stigma of being authoritarian, that clarity of values and the positive, often crucial benefits of the leader's self-differentiation are almost totally missing from the system. One of the most prevalent characteristics of families with disturbed children is the absence or the involution of the relational hierarchy. While schools of family therapy have different ways of conceptualizing this condition, which may also be viewed as a political phenomenon regarding congregations, it is so diffuse among families troubled by their troubled children that its importance cannot be underestimated. What happens in any type of family system regarding leadership is paradoxical. The same interdependency that creates a need for leadership makes the followers anxious and reactive precisely when the leader is functioning best.

I will begin by describing the nature of an emotional regression and showing how in any society, no matter how advanced its state of technology, chronic anxiety can induce an approach to life that is counter-evolutionary. One does not need dictators in order to create a totalitarian (that, is totalistic) society. Then, employing five characteristics of chronically anxious personal families, I will illustrate how those same characteristics are manifest throughout the greater American family today, demonstrating their regressive effects on the thinking and functioning, the formation and the expression, of leadership among parents and presidents. Those five characteristics are:    1. Reactivity: the vicious cycle of intense reactions of each member to events and to one another.    2. Herding: a process through which the forces for togetherness triumph over the forces for individuality and move everyone to adapt to the least mature members.    3. Blame displacement: an emotional state in which family members focus on forces that have victimized them rather than taking responsibility for their own being and destiny.    4. A quick-fix mentality: a low threshold for pain that constantly seeks symptom relief rather than fundamental change.    5. Lack of well-differentiated leadership: a failure of nerve that both stems from and contributes to the first four. To

In actual fact our Russian experience—when I use the word "Russian" I always differentiate it from the word "Soviet"—I have in mind even pre-Soviet, pre-revolutinoary experience—in actual fact it is vitally important for the West, because by some chance of history we have trodden the same path seventy or eighty years before the West. And now it is with a strange sensation that we look at what is happening to you; many social phenomena that happened in Russia before its collapse are being repeated. Our experience of life is of vital importance to the West, but I am not convinced that you are capable of assimilating it without having gone through it to the end yourselves. You know, one could quote here many examples: for one, a certain retreat by the older generation, yielding their intellectual leadership to the younger generation. It is against the natural order of things for those who are youngest, with the least experience of life, to have the greatest influence in directing the life of society. One can say then that this is what forms the spirit of the age, the current of public opinion, when people in authority, well known professors and scientists, are reluctant to enter into an argument even when they hold a different opinion. It is considered embarrassing to put forward one's counterarguments, lest one become involved. And so there is a certain abdication of responsibility, which is typical here where there is complete freedom....There is now a universal adulation of revolutionaries, the more so the more extreme they are! Similarly, before the revolution, we had in Russia, if not a cult of terror, then a fierce defense of terrorists. People in good positions—intellectuals, professors, liberals—spent a great deal of effort, anger, and indignation in defending terrorists.

From my experiences with managing teams in different settings, I have discovered that transparent leaders are much more effective at building loyal and cohesive teams than those who attempt to keep information close to their vests. As far as leadership qualities go, transparency is a differentiator.

Leadership including directorship is crucial to strengthen the business links and weave them to the differentiated business capabilities.

The primary elections are the cornerstones of the plebiscitary presidency. They strip away the veneer of party unity and expose the individuality of each candidate. As contemporary selection procedures force party leaders to compete with one another in the open, they prompt them to differentiate themselves publicly and to boast of their independence of mind. Pitting potential party spokespersons against one another in public combat, these procedures undercut the credibility of the candidate's affiliation with anything other than him- or herself.

When strategy is adjusted, leadership teams must scrutinize the work of the organization and discern what new or existing activities and touch points will actually deliver differentiation in the marketplace. Not what activities are familiar old friends that have previously contributed to success. Not what activities are headed by the most charismatic or brilliant people in your company. Not what activities are considered "best in class.” Not what activities are prescribed by the myriad of institutions that inform the education and professional certification of technical experts you have hired. Not what activities are legislated. Just those activities that will help you win because they set you apart from everyone else.

The best way to achieve alignment is to sequentially move through a series of structured discussions that clarify the organization’s strategy, defining precisely what differentiating capabilities are required, then to examine all the systems of choices that develop that capability: work processes; structure and governance; information and metrics; people and rewards; continuous improvement; and culture and leadership (fig. 1.5). These are the conversations entailed in organization alignment. They can—and should—be quick and to the point. But these critical conversations should not be skipped.

When we fail to differentiate between self and other in a mentoring relationship, we run the risk of projecting our own lived experience onto our mentee.

It is no good pretending that as Christian leaders we have little or no power. We do. Power and power differentials are givens in leadership. Being realistic about this is essential if we are to grasp how we affect others. We need to be as insightful as possible if we want to ensure that we use our power and authority in right and godly ways.

When President Bush correctly and courageously declared a war on terrorism, he drew a line in the sand that ultimately pitted America against Islam. His administration worked long and hard to differentiate between peaceful Muslims and hostile Muslims. He even talked about how Muslim extremist terrorists had hijacked the religion. I believe he is absolutely right. Sure, the Koran glorifies persecution of Jews and Christians. But most Muslims don't have any intention of fulfilling that call or of becoming terrorists. Most are no different from Americans who want to raise their children in peace, feed them well, and provide them with a good education. The majority of Muslims are truly peace-loving. Yet the leadership of the typical mosque continuously calls Allah's followers to join the battle and get in step with jihad so Islam can eventually take over the world. The messages are nonstop. To radical Muslims, our war on terrorism is only a convenient excuse for America to keep Islam from spreading around the globe. It also is perceived as an excuse for us to unconditionally support Israel and its fight against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

I am so happy that I grew up knowing the word of God, the spirit of discernment in me is 24hrs activated, I can differentiate between light and darkness. I put on the amour of God even when the whole world is going to hell, I refuse to join them. The light in me shall overshadow every power of darkness.

Those five characteristics are:    1. Reactivity: the vicious cycle of intense reactions of each member to events and to one another.    2. Herding: a process through which the forces for togetherness triumph over the forces for individuality and move everyone to adapt to the least mature members.    3. Blame displacement: an emotional state in which family members focus on forces that have victimized them rather than taking responsibility for their own being and destiny.    4. A quick-fix mentality: a low threshold for pain that constantly seeks symptom relief rather than fundamental change.    5. Lack of well-differentiated leadership: a failure of nerve that both stems from and contributes to the first four. To reorient oneself away from a focus on technology toward a focus on emotional process requires that, like Columbus, we think in ways that not only are different from traditional routes but that also sometimes go in the opposite direction. This chapter will thus also serve as prelude to the three that follow, which describe the “equators” we have to cross in our time: the “learned” fallacies or emotional barriers that keep an Old World orientation in place and cause both family and institutional leaders to regress rather than venture in new directions. By the term regression I

My thesis here is that the climate of contemporary America has become so chronically anxious that our society has gone into an emotional regression that is toxic to well-defined leadership. This regression, despite the plethora of self-help literature and the many well-intentioned human rights movements, is characterized principally by a devaluing and denigration of the well-differentiated self. It has lowered people’s pain thresholds, with the result that comfort is valued over the rewards of facing challenge, symptoms come in fads, and cures go in and out of style like clothing fashions. Perhaps most important, however, is this: in contrast to the Renaissance spirit of adventure that was excited by encounter with novelty, American civilization’s emotional regression has perverted the élan of risk-taking discovery and pioneering that originally led to the foundations of our nation. As a result, its fundamental character has instead been shaped into an illusive and often compulsive search for safety and certainty. This is occurring equally in parenting, medicine, and management. The anxiety is so deep within the emotional processes of our nation that it is almost as though a neurosis has become nationalized.

could you configure your capabilities to enable your company to meet the needs of customers in a distinctively valuable way, underpinning a potential differentiation strategy? Or, at a minimum, could you configure your capabilities to enable the company to match competitors in meeting the needs of customers, underpinning a potential cost-leadership strategy? In other words, how could your capabilities be configured to translate to a measurable, sustainable competitive advantage?

great companies were consistent with just three seemingly elementary rules: 1. Better before cheaper – in other words, compete on differentiators other than price. 2. Revenue before cost – that is, prioritize increasing revenue over reducing costs. 3. There are no other rules – so change anything you must to follow rules 1 and 2.

Gentlemen, our British colleagues have a saying.” He paused again, slowly looking from one end of the semicircle to the other. “Who Dares Wins. Tonight you will be daring greatly, and I know you will come out victorious.” Who Dares Wins. Three words that sum up the spirit of every great commando unit, and three words that differentiate a great leader from an average one.

However, advent of the network and the internet changed everything. Today IT is hardly about computing or writing code. Information technology today is about growing the business, marketing, relationship management, communications, recruiting, intellectual capital, and most importantly -- business differentiation. This new environment has made IT a revenue engine and a mission critical function.

Because great leaders are differentiated—that is to say, they are inherently unlike the common man, in that they surpass him in wisdom and virtue and boldness— democratic societies immediately run up against a conundrum: either they demand that these differentiated men pretend they are not what they are, that is to say, they demand hypocrisy; or else they drive these men out of their midst and choose "leaders" who are not leaders but are simple experts in mediocrity.

The leadership qualities shared by out-and-out leaders, the As, as well as by their more catalytic counterparts, the Cs, are founded on trust, determined by credibility and confidence. Where trust is the basic requirement, emotional intelligence is the differentiator.

The only difference between a boss and a leader is the differentiation of their actions.

Instead of faking it in the hope of buying time to make it, find the time now to differentiate the imagined from the real.

Information Management is a key differentiator between digital leaders and laggards; high-performing organizations and mediocre companies.

Organizations that pursue differentiation to stand apart from competitors tend to focus on what to offer more of. Those that pursue cost leadership tend to focus on what to offer less of. While both of these are viable strategic options, which a great many organizations currently pursue, both will keep you stuck in the red ocean, operating on your industry’s existing productivity frontier.

To grow and create profits, you need to differentiate based on market needs and your competitive strengths. The entry wedge can take many forms and can include new technologies (Medtronic), new business models (Dell), new locations (Walmart), or better leadership (Jobs, Bezos). The first step is to know where your venture can get an edge over your competitors and then develop marketing, operations, management, and resource strategies that are consistent with that edge.

In contrast, a differentiated leader is fully present, but fully intact, with space between where he or she ends and the other begins.

Differentiation is the courage to lead people to a difficult place while still being deeply connected. Connected to yourself and your conviction, connected to the people you are leading, and remaining nonanxious in the face of anxious responses. It is the ability to walk into an anxious situation and lead people into a new reality while maintaining caring connection to them even when they are sabotaging your efforts. Jesus, not surprisingly, is a model of differentiated leadership.

It is never an idea, technology, market forces, or access to capital that makes a company innovative. What differentiates an innovative company from an average company is the people working inside the company.