“
Don’t let mental blocks control you. Set yourself free. Confront your fear and turn the mental blocks into building blocks.
”
”
Roopleen (Words to inspire the winner in YOU)
“
The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
”
”
Colin Powell
“
With a hint of good judgment, to fear nothing, not failure or suffering or even death, indicates that you value life the most. You live to the extreme; you push limits; you spend your time building legacies. Those do not die.
”
”
Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
“
You are not a failure until you start blaming others for your mistakes
”
”
John Wooden (Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization)
“
Advice to my younger self:
1 Start where you are with what you have
2 Try not to hurt other people
3 Take more chances
4 If you fail, keep trying
”
”
Germany Kent
“
Trust is equal parts character and competence... You can look at any leadership failure, and it's always a failure of one or the other.
”
”
Stephen M.R. Covey (The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything)
“
The first thing that you can learn as a leader is that you’re not working with robots but with emotional beings.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
As a board, you want to be able to identify exactly what the company is succeeding at and exactly what it's failing at so that you can amplify the successes and correct the failures with surgical precision.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Board Room Blitz: Mastering the Art of Corporate Governance)
“
Everyone starts a business with passion, but not everyone starts it with enough planning.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
We forget many times, but changes are not threatening as they are the only way to move forward.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
Randomness rarely works for businesses.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
A business will require you to wear many hats. You have to be a leader with a mission, vision, and direction.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
It’s very possible that your inexperienced intern knows more than you think, even if you have been part of the industry for over thirty years.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
It’s wonderful to dream big but you still have to be realistic.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
You never know where your next big idea will come from.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
There can’t be anything more fatal to a business than making decisions based on somebody else’s assumptions.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
Building a team is a huge task. This task can’t be delegated to someone else. You’re the leader of your business and you have to behave like a leader for your employees.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
You need to be a risk-taker, but you have to also make sure that you are a calculated risk-taker.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
Trust plays an important role in making you a great leader because if your employees don’t trust you, they won’t trust your vision or the action plan that you will share with them.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
Those days of autocratic leadership style are gone. It’s the age of partnerships where all your employees are your partners.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
Good leaders are above all that. They think of their team first before they think of themselves.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
You don’t want to run your business based on mere suspicions and assumptions.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
A successful business owner will know their business as good as they know their favorite celebrity, their partner, and even their dogs.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
Being successful is not that tough, you just need a little mindset change.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
A good leader never takes credit but always takes the blame.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
One’s needs and others’ understanding of one’s needs - these two are very different.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
Humans' needs are never constant, and they are also very complex.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
Restricted thoughts will keep you under the illusion that whatever you’re thinking is right and anyone who doesn’t think the same as you has no clue about how to run your business.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
Accepting that you’re wrong, shows humility which will set a better example of you as a leader on your team than sticking to something that others can clearly see is wrong.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
Become a leader that shows humility and not stubbornness.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
Search engines' results aren’t always trustworthy. As a matter of fact, they can be easily manipulated.
”
”
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
“
Life is too short to be anything but happy. So kiss slowly. Love deeply. Forgive quickly. Take chances and never have regrets. Forget the past but remember what it taught you.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
How much you can learn when you fail determines how far you will go into achieving your goals.
”
”
Roy Bennett
“
Sometimes you just have to know when the battle you’re fighting is one best walked away from, than fought to the cold, bitter end.
”
”
A.J. Darkholme (Rise of the Morningstar (The Morningstar Chronicles, #1))
“
Leaders who do not help the people must be replaced by the people.
”
”
DaShanne Stokes
“
Live a life that leaves a memory, nobody can steal.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
Your life is a trajectory. Every choice you make alters that trajectory, in a positive or negative way. Will you categorize that dinner with friends as a business expense? Will you be honest with your daughter? Will you take more credit than you’re due? These are just the small questions that we face every day, and little by little, the answers influence the trajectory of our lives and beings.
”
”
Donald Van de Mark
“
A major criterion for judging the anxiety level of any society is the loss of its capacity to be playful.
”
”
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
“
Mindful leaders know how to repeat success patterns and overcome failure patterns.
”
”
Amit Ray (Mindfulness Meditation for Corporate Leadership and Management)
“
The truth is that everything starts from the top. What determines your failure or success is your style of leadership and the chain of command that you design.
”
”
Robert Greene (The 33 Strategies of War)
“
The only unreachable dream is the one you don’t reach for.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
When you feel that others are lacking and failing ....
first assess the skill, style, quality, results, mindset,
support, professionalism and spirit with which
you yourself play the game.
”
”
Rasheed Ogunlaru
“
If you listen to critics for too long, you will become deaf to success.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
Tenderhearted people are silent sufferers they just learn the art to fly with broken wings.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (Feelings Undefined: The Charm of the Unsaid Vol. 1)
“
Whoever convinces himself that he is not worthy of first position has doomed himself to failure from the very beginning.
”
”
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (Flashes of Thought)
“
To take risk and fail is not a failure. Real failure is to fear taking any risk
”
”
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (Flashes of Thought)
“
The successes and failures of yesterday are gone, today is a new day.
”
”
Noel DeJesus
“
If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
Working harder to achieve results usually results in frustration and failure. The focus of work is the activities that generate results, not the results themselves.
”
”
Raymond Wheeler (Lift: Five Practices Great Managers Do Consistently: Raise Performance and Morale - See Your Employees Thrive)
“
People don't become leaders because they never fail. They become leaders because of the way they respond to failure.
”
”
Gerald M. Weinberg (Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach)
“
The history of the failure of war can almost be summed up in two words: too late.
”
”
Douglas MacArthur
“
Leaders who won't own failures become failures.
”
”
Orrin Woodward
“
Don’t blame others. it won’t make you a better person.
”
”
Lolly Daskal (The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness)
“
The richest people in the world build networks and invest in people; everyone else looks for work and invests in survival.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, So ... Love the people who treat you right and pray for the ones who don't. Life is 10% what you make it 90% how you take it.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (Feelings Undefined: The Charm of the Unsaid Vol. 1)
“
One of the most deadly causes of destruction of divine destinies is when a leader is failing, but he or she does not know it. Ignorance about your role is a death plot against people's successes.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor
“
Your need to feel significant will never be met, until you can conquer your fear and manage your focus.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Leaders don't climb hills of success with shoes of pride. They are slippery enough to bring a person down to the valley.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Ladder)
“
Have and show motivation to do and learn. That's the key for a good career. Everything else is an extrapolation of that.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
Theres no competition in DESTINY. Run your own RACE and wish others WELL!!!
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
No body is a looser either he is a Winner or a Learner
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
It has been my impression that at any gathering, whether it be public or private, those who are quickest to inject words like sensitivity, empathy, consensus, trust, confidentiality, and togetherness into their arguments have perverted these humanitarian words into power tools to get others to adapt to them.
”
”
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
“
Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
”
”
Colin Powell (Colin Powell: An American Hero Speaks Out)
“
FORGIVE FAILURE. The corollary to accountability is forgiveness. Things go wrong all the time in relationships, and the healthiest ones move on from them, leaving behind grudges and blame. This is not to say that failure is accepted; rather, that it is acknowledged and understood.
”
”
Charlene Li (Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead)
“
The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. If you want your child, spouse, client, or boss to shape up, stay connected while changing yourself rather than trying to fix them.
”
”
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
“
In order for leadership to grow, we must look in the mirror and face our failures
”
”
Michael A. Wood Jr.
“
There's a story behind every
"I don't believe in love"
"Period
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (Feelings Undefined: The Charm of the Unsaid Vol. 1)
“
Just as the bird needs wings to fly, a leader needs useful information to flow. Leaders learn.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Ladder)
“
Leaders create influence with the clays of criticism others throw at them. They don't take offence; they take corrections.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Ladder)
“
Smiling is not a choice It’s a Lifestyle Pass it on
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
Memories of the past are what drive us, whether to a life of beauty or a life of insanity is up to us.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (Feelings Undefined: The Charm of the Unsaid Vol. 1)
“
IF you want to be a winner than follow one simple rule and feed it in your mind. Take each task and work as " Do it yourself project.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
True Relations never break and relation which breaks were never true
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
Time change - Moments don't.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
The only difference between success and failure is Lack of Vision
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
Don’t set your own goals by what other people make important.
”
”
Lolly Daskal (The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness)
“
I’ve learned about leadership is that leaders are those individuals who do the things that failures aren’t willing to do—even though they might not like doing them either. They have the discipline to do what they know to be important—and right—versus what’s easy and fun.
”
”
Robin S. Sharma (The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in)
“
The 10 ever greatest misplacements in life:
1. Leadership without character.
2. Followership without servant-being.
3. Brotherhood without integrity.
4. Affluence without wisdom.
5. Authority without conscience.
6. Relationship without faithfullness.
7. Festivals without peace.
8. Repeated failure without change.
9. Good wealth without good health.
10. Love without a lover.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor
“
Growing older doesn't mean that you are more mature than everyone who is younger than you. Maturity is a lot of things, and age has nothing to do with it.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
May God bless and keep all soldiers, young and old, and may that same God open the eyes of all political leaders to the truth that most wars are a confession of failure—the failure of diplomacy and negotiation and common sense and, in most cases, of leadership.
”
”
Harold G. Moore (We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam)
“
Never let failure discourage you. Every time you get to the base of a mountain (literal or metaphorical), you're presented with a new opportunity to challenge yourself, to push your limits beyond what you thought possible, to learn from climbers on the trail ahead of you, and to take in some amazing views. Your performance on the mountain you climbed last week or last month or last year doesn't matter - because it's all about what you are doing right now.
”
”
Alison Levine (On the Edge: The Art of High-Impact Leadership)
“
While deeply admiring and affirming past prophets, the Qur’an casts a critical eye on human misapplication of their revelations. “Our prophetic guides came to them with clarifying signs, yet many among them soon lapsed, spreading disorder in the land” (5:32). The perpetual dynamic of monotheistic values revived by prophets only to be subsequently squandered by humans is what concerns the Qur’an. It diagnoses a range of repeated failures, including: losing a close relationship with the Divine and reverting to idolatry; debating minutiae as an excuse to avoid bold action; imposing dogma not found in scripture and turning petty disputes over dogma into deadly violence; and elites selfishly abusing their leadership positions to mislead and manipulate.
”
”
Mohamad Jebara (The Life of the Qur'an: From Eternal Roots to Enduring Legacy)
“
Anyone who wishes to advance our species or an institution must possess those qualities which those who have little sense of self will perceive as narcissistic. All this besides the fact that “arrogant,” “headstrong,” “narcissistic,” and “cold” will be the terms used against any person who tries to be more himself or herself.
”
”
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
“
Too often we think sharing our weaknesses will cause us to lose respect. We think making our weaknesses know will cause us to lose the honour to be able to proclaim the Word of God in our congregations or our businesses. I know longer believe that is true. Not today, in our post modern culture. What I do believe is the more you tell the truth about yourself – appropriately, winsomely, age-appropriately, within a context – the more effective your leadership will become, the more you will develop a true leading character. The more you tell of your own failure of character, the more God will use that for His purposes.
”
”
Dan B. Allender (Leading Character)
“
it may be said unequivocally that whenever anyone is in extremis (whether it is a marital crisis, an economic crisis, a political crisis, or a health crisis), their chances of survival are far greater when their horizons are formed of projected images from their own imagination rather than being limited by what they can actually see.
”
”
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
“
The reality for teachers is we don’t know if we’ve been successful or not. It takes years to see how a kid turns out, and it’s impossible to know what role we’ve played, for better or worse. It’s why so many teachers burn out—our successes are limited and rarely celebrated, but our failures are always out there for everyone to see and judge.
”
”
Tucker Elliot (The Rainy Season)
“
Restructuring is a favorite tactic of antisocials who have reached a senior position in an organization. The chaos that results is an ideal smokescreen for dysfunctional leadership. Failure at the top goes unnoticed, while the process of restructuring creates the illusion of a strong, creative hand on the helm.
”
”
Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries (The Leader on the Couch: A Clinical Approach to Changing People and Organizations)
“
A willingness to be exposed and vulnerable. One of the major limitations of imagination’s fruits is the fear of standing out. It is more than a fear of criticism. It is anxiety at being alone, of being in a position where one can rely little on others, a position that puts one’s own resources to the test, a position where one will have to take total responsibility for one’s own response to the environment. Leaders must not only not be afraid of that position; they must come to love it.
”
”
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
“
Failure of management to plan for the future and to foresee problems has brought about waste of manpower, of materials, and of machine-time, all of which raise the manufacturer’s cost and price that the purchaser must pay. The consumer is not always willing to subsidize this waste. The inevitable result is loss of market. Loss of market begets unemployment.
”
”
W. Edwards Deming (The Essential Deming: Leadership Principles from the Father of Quality)
“
Every good-to-great company had Level 5 leadership during the pivotal transition years. • “Level 5” refers to a five-level hierarchy of executive capabilities, with Level 5 at the top. Level 5 leaders embody a paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will. They are ambitious, to be sure, but ambitious first and foremost for the company, not themselves. • Level 5 leaders set up their successors for even greater success in the next generation, whereas egocentric Level 4 leaders often set up their successors for failure. • Level 5 leaders display a compelling modesty, are self-effacing and understated. In contrast, two thirds of the comparison companies had leaders with gargantuan personal egos that contributed to the demise or continued mediocrity of the company. • Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce sustained results. They are resolved to do whatever it takes to make the company great, no matter how big or hard the decisions. • Level 5 leaders display a workmanlike diligence—more plow horse than show horse. • Level 5 leaders look out the window to attribute success to factors other than themselves. When things go poorly, however, they look in the mirror and blame themselves, taking full responsibility. The comparison CEOs often did just the opposite—they looked in the mirror to take credit for success, but out the window to assign blame for disappointing results.
”
”
Jim Collins (Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't)
“
Political victories that undermine trust in politics shouldn’t be considered victories; they’re net losses for society. Record corporate profits achieved by eroding the public’s trust in business aren’t successes; they’re derelictions of duty. Lobbying and campaign donations that result in laws and regulations favoring the lobbyists and donors aren’t triumphs if they weaken public confidence in our democracy; they, too, are abject failures of leadership.
”
”
Robert B. Reich (The Common Good)
“
When man is finally able to see himself and the world around him with clear cognition, he finds a picture far more pleasant. Visible in unmistakable clarity and devastating detail is man’s failure to be what he might be and his misuse of his world. This revelation causes him to leap out in search of a way of life and system of values which will enable him to be more than he has been. He seeks a foundation of self-respect, which will have value system rooted in knowledge and cosmic reality where he expresses himself so that all others, all beings can continue to exist. His values now are of a different order from those at previous levels: They arise not from selfish interest but from the recognition of the magnificence of existence and the desire that it shall continue to be.
”
”
Clare W. Graves
“
How does one undermine the framework of racial reasoning? By dismantling each pillar slowly and systematically. The fundamental aim of this undermining and dismantling is to replace racial reasoning with moral reasoning, to understand the black freedom struggle not as an affair of skin pigmentation and racial phenotype but rather as a matter of ethical principles and wise politics, and to combat the black nationalist attempt to subordinate the issues and interests of black women by linking mature black self-love and self-respect to egalitarian relations within and outside black communities. The failure of nerve of black leadership is its refusal to undermine and dismantle the framework of racial reasoning.
”
”
Cornel West (Race Matters)
“
The path to the ethnic democratization of American society is through its culture, that is to say through its cultural apparatus, which comprises the eyes, the ears, and the "mind" of capitalism and is twentieth-century voice to the world. Thus to democratize the cultural apparatus is tantamount to revolutionizing American society itself into the living realization of its professed ideas. Seeing the problem in another way, to revolutionize the cultural apparatus is to deal fundamentally with the unsolved American question of nationality--Which group speaks for America and for the glorification of which ethnic image? Either all group images speak for themselves and for the nation, or American nationality will never be determined.
”
”
Harold Cruse (The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: A Historical Analysis of the Failure of Black Leadership (New York Review Books Classics))
“
The American Civil War lays out the stark contrast: the greatest generals in war are often abundant failures during peacetime, and vice versa. McClellan and Sherman are the sharpest contrasts; but there is also Grant the peacetime drunkard, and Stonewall Jackson the barely tolerable military professor. Only Lee stands out as effective in both peace and war (and even he had a mentally unstable father, and himself may have been dysthymic in his general personality). This conflict reflects, I think, the different psychological qualities of leadership needed in different phases of human activity, peace and war being the two extremes.
”
”
S. Nassir Ghaemi (A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness)
“
Military leadership is a journey, not a destination. It is continually challenged, and must continually prove it self anew against fresh obstacles. Sometimes those obstacles are external events. Other times they are the doubts of those being led. Still other times they are a result of the leaders's own failures and shortcomings.
Political power and influence are different. Once certain levels have been reached, there is no need to prove leadership or competence. A person with such power is accustomed to having every word carefully considere, and every whim treated as an order. And all who recognize that power know to bow to it.
A few have the courage or the foolishness to resist. Some succeed in standing firm against the storm. More often, they find their paths yet again turned form their hopes for goal.
”
”
Timothy Zahn
“
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.
”
”
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
“
With families, I stopped creating encyclopedias of data about all their issues and began to search instead for the member with the greatest capacity to be a leader as I have defined it. That person generally turned out to be the one who could express himself or herself with the least amount of blaming and the one who had the greatest capacity to take responsibility for his or her own emotional being and destiny. I began to coach the “leader” alone, letting the rest of the family drop out and stay home. I stopped trying to get people to “communicate” or find better ways of managing their issues. Instead, I began to concentrate on helping the leader to become better defined and to learn how to deal adroitly with the sabotage that almost invariably followed any success in this endeavor. Soon I found that the rest of the family was “in therapy” whether or not they came into my office.
”
”
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
“
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.
”
”
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
“
Conspiracy theories have long been used to maintain power: the Soviet leadership saw capitalist and counter-revolutionary conspiracies everywhere; the Nazis, Jewish ones. But those conspiracies were ultimately there to buttress an ideology, whether class warfare for Communists or race for Nazis. With today’s regimes, which struggle to formulate a single ideology – indeed, which can’t if they want to maintain power by sending different messages to different people – the idea that one lives in a world full of conspiracies becomes the world view itself. Conspiracy does not support the ideology; it replaces it. In Russia this is captured in the catchphrase of the country’s most important current affairs presenter: ‘A coincidence? I don’t think so!’ says Dmitry Kiselev as he twirls between tall tales that dip into history, literature, oil prices and colour revolutions, which all return to the theme of how the world has it in for Russia.
And as a world view it grants those who subscribe to it certain pleasures: if all the world is a conspiracy, then your own failures are no longer all your fault. The fact that you achieved less than you hoped for, that your life is a mess – it’s all the fault of the conspiracy.
More importantly, conspiracy is a way to maintain control. In a world where even the most authoritarian regimes struggle to impose censorship, one has to surround audiences with so much cynicism about anybody’s motives, persuade them that behind every seemingly benign motivation is a nefarious, if impossible-to-prove, plot, that they lose faith in the possibility of an alternative, a tactic a renowned Russian media analyst called Vasily Gatov calls ‘white jamming’.
And the end effect of this endless pile-up of conspiracies is that you, the little guy, can never change anything. For if you are living in a world where shadowy forces control everything, then what possible chance do you have of turning it around? In this murk it becomes best to rely on a strong hand to guide you.
‘Trump is our last chance to save America,’ is the message of his media hounds. Only Putin can ‘raise Russia from its knees’. ‘The problem we are facing today is less oppression, more lack of identity, apathy, division, no trust,’ sighs Srdja. ‘There are more tools to change things than before, but there’s less will to do so.
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Peter Pomerantsev (This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality)