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It’s only after you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.
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Roy T. Bennett
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Success is not how high you have climbed, but how you make a positive difference to the world.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals.
If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Let the improvement of yourself keep you so busy that you have no time to criticize others.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Always remember people who have helped you along the way, and don’t forget to lift someone up.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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If you have a strong purpose in life, you don't have to be pushed. Your passion will drive you there.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.
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John C. Maxwell
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It doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down. All that matters is you get up one more time than you were knocked down.
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Roy T. Bennett
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What you stay focused on will grow.
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Roy T. Bennett
“
Good people see the good and bring out the best in other people.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Great leaders can see the greatness in others when they can’t see it themselves and lead them to their highest potential they don’t even know.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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7 Effective Ways to Make Others Feel Important
1. Use their name.
2. Express sincere gratitude.
3. Do more listening than talking.
4. Talk more about them than about you.
5. Be authentically interested.
6. Be sincere in your praise.
7. Show you care.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Consistency is the true foundation of trust. Either keep your promises or do not make them.
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Roy T. Bennett
“
Shine your light and make a positive impact on the world; there is nothing so honorable as helping improve the lives of others.
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Roy T. Bennett
“
Change course, but don’t give up.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Great Leaders Create More Leaders
Good leaders have vision and inspire others to help them turn vision into reality. Great leaders create more leaders, not followers. Great leaders have vision, share vision, and inspire others to create their own.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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One of the best ways to influence people is to make them feel important. Most people enjoy those rare moments when others make them feel important. It is one of the deepest human desires.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Integrity is doing what is right and truthful, and doing as you say you would do.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Keep your promises and be consistent. Be the kind of person others can trust.
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Roy T. Bennett
“
Your beliefs affect your choices. Your choices shape your actions. Your actions determine your results. The future you create depends upon the choices you make and the actions you take today.
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Roy T. Bennett
“
There are many goals but one path - the path of compassion.
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Amit Ray (Nonviolence: The Transforming Power)
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Remember that things are not always as they appear to be… Curiosity creates possibilities and opportunities.
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Roy T. Bennett
“
Focus on making choices to lead your life that aligns with your core values in the most purposeful way possible.
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Roy T. Bennett
“
One word of encouragement can be enough to spark someone’s motivation to continue with a difficult challenge.
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Roy T. Bennett
“
Open the window of your mind. Allow the fresh air, new lights and new truths to enter.
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Amit Ray (Walking the Path of Compassion)
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It is not until you change your identity to match your life blueprint that you will understand why everything in the past never worked.
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Shannon L. Alder
“
To win the big stakes in this changed world, you must catch the spirit of the great pioneers of the past, whose dreams have given to civilization all that it has of value, the spirit that serves as the life-blood of our own country – your opportunity and mine, to develop and market our talents.
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Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
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The gender stereotypes introduced in childhood are reinforced throughout our lives and become self-fulfilling prophesies. Most leadership positions are held by men, so women don't expect to achieve them, and that becomes one of the reasons they don't.
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Sheryl Sandberg (Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead)
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True confidence is not about what you take from someone to restore yourself, but what you give back to your critics because they need it more than you do.
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Shannon L. Alder
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Imagine a place where everyone chooses to bring energy, passion, and a positive attitude every day.
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Stephen C. Lundin
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Each day you are leading by example. Whether you realize it or not or whether it's positive or negative, you are influencing those around you.
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Rob Liano
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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
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Germany Kent
“
One of the things my parents taught me, and I'll always be grateful as a gift, is to not ever let anybody else define me; that for me to define myself . . . and I think that helped me a lot in assuming a leadership position.
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Wilma Mankiller (Mankiller: A Chief and Her People)
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The Anatomy of Conflict:
If there is no communication then there is no respect. If there is no respect then there is no caring. If there is no caring then there is no understanding. If there is no understanding then there is no compassion. If there is no compassion then there is no empathy. If there is no empathy then there is no forgiveness. If there is no forgiveness then there is no kindness. If there is no kindness then there is no honesty. If there is no honesty then there is no love. If there is no love then God doesn't reside there. If God doesn't reside there then there is no peace. If there is no peace then there is no happiness. If there is no happiness ----then there IS CONFLICT BECAUSE THERE IS NO COMMUNICATION!
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Shannon L. Alder
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Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity.
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Roy Bennett
“
I must admit, that I have learned more from my negative experiences than I have ever learned from my positive one.
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John Paul Warren
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Men who find themselves late are never sure. They are all the things the civics books tell us the good citizen should be: partisans but never zealots, respectors of the facts which attend each situation but never benders of those facts, uncomfortable in positions of leadership but rarely unable to turn down a responsibility once it has been offered . . . or thrust upon them. They make the best leaders in a democracy because they are unlikely to fall in love with power.
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Stephen King (The Stand)
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The most attractive thing about you should have less to do with your face or body and more to do with your attitude and how you treat people.
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Germany Kent
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(On being in a position of leadership) Even if it's your dog, you've got authority over somebody. Start treating him better.
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Joyce Meyer
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Leaders lead when they take positions, when they connect with their tribes, and when they help the tribe connect to itself.
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Seth Godin (Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us)
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There is too much negativity in the world. Do your best to make sure you aren't contributing to it.
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Germany Kent
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God has a way of picking a “nobody” and turning their world upside down, in order to create a “somebody” that will remove the obstacles they encountered out of the pathway for others.
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Shannon L. Alder
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One’s needs and others’ understanding of one’s needs - these two are very different.
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Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
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Self-leaders are still true leaders even if they have no known followers. True leaders inspire by the influence of their characters and general self-made brands. Leadership is defined by the virtues of one's behaviour.
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Israelmore Ayivor
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Contrary to popular opinion, leadership is not a reserved position for a particular group of people who were elected or appointed, ordained or enthroned. Leadership is self-made, self-retained, self-inculcated and then exposed through a faithful, sincere and examplary life.
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Israelmore Ayivor
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You cannot become a peacemaker without communication. Silence is a passive aggressive grenade thrown by insecure people that want war, but they don't want the accountability of starting it.
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Shannon L. Alder
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Someday daughters will be trained just as sons by their parents to assume leadership positions. There are the exceptions today where a daughter assumes leadership over a state or corporation, but those are still exceptions today. A shame since women have overtaken men in being the dominant consumers and decision makers in the family. - Strong by Kailin Gow on Raising a Strong Woman Leader
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Kailin Gow
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I once knew one person in a leadership position who promoted diversity, unfortunately their policy excluded groups that were not aligned to his demeanour
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Peter F Gallagher
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Believe in yourself. Under-confidence leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy that you are not good enough for your work.
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Roopleen
“
Attitude is that little thing that will make the most difference in the accomplishment of your goals.
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Roopleen
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You are not alone in the struggles of life. Entire cosmos is with you. It evolves through the way you face and overcome challenges of life. Use everything in your advantage.
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Amit Ray (Mindfulness Meditation for Corporate Leadership and Management)
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Always remember people who have helped you along the way, and don’t forget to lift someone up.
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Roy Bennett
“
Introverts tend to assume leadership positions within groups when they really have something to contribute….they listen carefully to the ideas of the people they lead. All of this gives them a big advantage over leaders who rise to the top simply because they're comfortable talking a lot or being in control.
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Susan Cain (Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts)
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If you're not grateful for what you already have, why should you be blessed with more...
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Germany Kent
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So many people think that they are not gifted because they don’t have an obvious talent that people can recognize because it doesn’t fall under the creative arts category—writing, dancing, music, acting, art or singing. Sadly, they let their real talents go undeveloped, while they chase after fame. I am grateful for the people with obscure unremarked talents because they make our lives easier---inventors, organizers, planners, peacemakers, communicators, activists, scientists, and so forth. However, there is one gift that trumps all other talents—being an excellent parent. If you can successfully raise a child in this day in age to have integrity then you have left a legacy that future generations will benefit from.
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Shannon L. Alder
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Poetry empowers the simplest of lives to confront the most extreme sorrows with courage, and motivates the mightiest of offices to humbly heed lessons in compassion.
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Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
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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.
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Donald Van de Mark
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The job facing production managers focuses on how to help their team maintain hope while also addressing the sometimes brutal or dismal facts of their situation. If the truth of their position remains unseen, they will never grow the skills necessary to resolve it.
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Raymond Wheeler (Lift: Five Practices Great Managers Do Consistently: Raise Performance and Morale - See Your Employees Thrive)
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Every morning there are flowers of potentials. Your thoughts and interactions give them shape and reality.
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Amit Ray (Peace Bliss Beauty and Truth: Living with Positivity)
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Leadership is more disposition than position—influence others from wherever you are.
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John C. Maxwell (The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization)
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Self-leaders do not look for followers because they are busily pursuing their influencial dreams that followers will trace and ask for. Followers look for influence and that can be obtained from self-leaders.
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Israelmore Ayivor
“
7 keys to getting more things done:
1 start
2 dont make excuses
3 celebrate small steps
4 ignore critics
5 be consistent
6 be open
7 stay positive
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Germany Kent
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A warrior doesn’t worry. He or she evaluates the situation, investigates the source, calculates the risks and benefits, formulates a plan then puts it into action.
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Shannon L. Alder
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Leadership is service, not position.
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Tim Fargo
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Brainpower is our inner genius that craves to radiate creativity, positivity, hope, and ideas for the greater good of our real self and the world.
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Prem Jagyasi
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In the modern workplace, you gotta be a jack-of-all-trades. Mastering your career is all about being adaptable, versatile, and always learning.
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Shubham Shukla (Career's Quest: Proven Strategies for Mastering Success in Your Profession: Networking and Building Professional Relationships)
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Change Leadership is action, not a position
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Peter F Gallagher
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A young child is a leader to an elderly person once his purpose has a faithful, sincere and trustworthy influence on people. Leadership is not restricted to position and age; it is self-made and influencial. Everyone has this self-leadership quality.
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Israelmore Ayivor
“
Success is not money, cars, fame or material possessions but the lives you touched positively.
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Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha
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Wisdom is knowing the right thing to do and doing it at the right time to get the desired result. It is also the correct application of knowledge.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
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As you become more present in your own life, you will begin to enlighten others by your example.
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Germany Kent
“
If you compromise your core values, you go nowhere.
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Roy T. Bennett
“
Want to make waves in the business world? Then you gotta be bold, take risks, and always be ready to pivot.
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Shubham Shukla (Career's Quest: Proven Strategies for Mastering Success in Your Profession: Networking and Building Professional Relationships)
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Successful people do daily what unsuccessful people do occasionally. They practice daily disciplines. They implement systems for their personal growth. They make it a habit to maintain a positive attitude. At
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John C. Maxwell (Good Leaders Ask Great Questions: Your Foundation for Successful Leadership)
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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.
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Mohamad Jebara (The Life of the Qur'an: From Eternal Roots to Enduring Legacy)
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Continuing to confuse career development with attaining specific positions will only limit the growth that both employees and organizations need.
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Julie Winkle Giulioni (Promotions Are So Yesterday: Redefine Career Development. Help Employees Thrive.)
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Learn to master your thoughts and watch closely what you deposit into your spirit. Speak over your life. Living in peace has transformative power.
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Germany Kent
“
Whoever convinces himself that he is not worthy of first position has doomed himself to failure from the very beginning.
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Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (Flashes of Thought)
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Leadership is an art expressed by the demonstration of characters worthy of immitation, emulation and inspiration. It is neither a title nor a postion.
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Israelmore Ayivor
“
The term 'black' was given a rebirth by the black youth revolt. As reborn, it does not refer to the particular color of any particular person, but to the attitude of pride and devotion to the race whose homeland from times immemorial was called 'The Land of the Blacks.' Almost overnight our youngsters made 'black' coequal with 'white' in respectability, and challenged the anti-black Negroes to decide on which side they stood. This was no problem for many who are light or even near-white in complexion, for they themselves were among the first to proclaim with pride, 'call me black!' Those who hate the term but hold the majority of leadership positions feel compelled to use it to protect their leadership roles.
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Chancellor Williams (Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race From 4500 B.C. To 2000 A.D.)
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When climbing and moving are positioned as the only way to really develop, the message that employees get is “step up or stagnate.
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Julie Winkle Giulioni (Promotions Are So Yesterday: Redefine Career Development. Help Employees Thrive.)
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The secret to strong leaders is that strong leaders are strong because they have been tempered by the negative. They have discovered the secret of combining the negative and the positive to PRODUCED their very own POWER plant!
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John Paul Warren
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Many people view leadership the same way they view success, hoping to go as far as they can, to climb the ladder, to achieve the highest position possible for their talent. But contrary to conventional thinking, I believe the bottom line in leadership isn't how far we advance ourselves but how far we advance others. That is achieved by serving others and adding value to their lives.
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John C. Maxwell (The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You)
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You can be in your room and lead people. Just develop your potentials and publicize them and you will see people looking for your product. That is influence; self-made leaders do not look for followers. Followers look for them.
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Israelmore Ayivor
“
You will never overcome your self righteousness if you continue to believe that God prefers you over other people. The moment you feel entitled is the moment you feel superior and distance yourself from a humble heart that believes God knows what he is doing.
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Shannon L. Alder
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In my view, leadership is the courage to take risks in defense of a position that is both legal and moral. The politician who tries to become a wise guy by becoming friends to everybody - corrupt or not - is not a leader.
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Miriam Defensor Santiago (Stupid Is Forever)
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People are weary of politicians who make promises they are either unwilling or unable to keep. Society longs for statesmen but it gets politicians. Statesmen are leaders who uphold what is right regardless of the popularity of the position. Statesmen speak out to achieve good for their people, not to win votes. Statesmen promote the general good rather than regional or personal self-interest.
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Henry T. Blackaby (Spiritual Leadership: Moving People on to God's Agenda)
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Leadership requires kindness. If the people in positions of power in the company are cruel and mean to the other employees, it puts the whole company into a fear vibration. And that repels customers. Leaders should be stern, but kind; bold, but gracious.
At Mayflower-Plymouth, we're here to help your business figure this out, and to provide holistic solutions.
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Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
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For, in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, 'holds office'; every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.
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John Fitzgerald Kennedy
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A true and safe leader is likely to be one who has no desire to lead, but is forced into a position of leadership by the inward pressure of the Holy Spirit and the press of the external situation. Such were Moses and David and the Old Testament prophets. I think there was hardly a great leader from Paul to the present day but that was drafted by the Holy Spirit for the task, and commissioned by the Lord of the Church to fill a position he had little heart for. I believe it might be accepted as a fairly reliable rule of thumb that the man who is ambitious to lead is disqualified as a leader. The true leader will have no desire to lord it over God's heritage, but will be humble, gentle, self-sacrificing, and altogether as ready to follow as to lead, when the Spirit makes it clear that a wiser and more gifted man than himself has appeared.
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A.W. Tozer
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Being others-focused instead of self-focused changes your worldview. Living in a selfless manner and seeking to help others enriches our very existence on a daily basis. Get your hands dirty once in a while by serving in a capacity that is lower than your position or station in life. This keeps you tethered to the real world and grounded to reality, which should make it harder to be prideful and forget where you came from.
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Miles Anthony Smith (Why Leadership Sucks™ Volume 1: Fundamentals of Level 5 Leadership and Servant Leadership)
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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.
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Barbara W. Tuchman
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Then, in the 1980's, came the paroxysm of downsizing, and the very nature of the corporation was thrown into doubt. In what began almost as a fad and quickly matured into an unshakable habit, companies were 'restructuring,' 'reengineering,' and generally cutting as many jobs as possible, white collar as well as blue . . . The New York Times captured the new corporate order succintly in 1987, reporting that it 'eschews loyalty to workers, products, corporate structures, businesses, factories, communities, even the nation. All such allegiances are viewed as expendable under the new rules. With survival at stake, only market leadership, strong profits and a high stock price can be allowed to matter'.
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Barbara Ehrenreich (Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America)
“
Today, more than a quarter century later, we must ask what has happened to that uplifting vision; why does it seem to be fading instead of becoming more clear? Why, per Freedom House, is democracy now “under assault and in retreat”? Why are many people in positions of power seeking to undermine public confidence in elections, the courts, the media, and—on the fundamental question of earth’s future—science? Why have such dangerous splits been allowed to develop between rich and poor, urban and rural, those with a higher education and those without? Why has the United States—at least temporarily—abdicated its leadership in world affairs? And why, this far into the twenty-first century, are we once again talking about Fascism? ONE REASON, FRANKLY, IS DONALD TRUMP. IF WE THINK OF FASCISM as a wound from the past that had almost healed, putting Trump in the White House was like ripping off the bandage and picking at the scab
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Madeleine K. Albright (Fascism: A Warning)
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Submission means that a wife acknowledges her husband’s headship as spiritual leader and guide for the family. It has nothing whatsoever to do with her denying or suppressing her will, her spirit, her intellect, her gifts, or her personality. To submit means to recognize, affirm, and support her husband’s God-given responsibility of overall family leadership. Biblical submission of a wife to her husband is a submission of position, not personhood. It is the free and willing subordination of an equal to an equal for the sake of order, stability, and obedience to God’s design. As a man, a husband will fulfill his destiny and his manhood as he exercises his headship in prayerful and humble submission to Christ and gives himself in sacrificial love to his wife. As a woman, a wife will realize her womanhood as she submits to her husband in honor of the Lord, receiving his love and accepting his leadership. When a proper relationship of mutual submission is present and active, a wife will be released and empowered to become the woman God always intended her to be.
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Myles Munroe (The Purpose and Power of Love & Marriage)
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Don’t strive to be a well-rounded leader. Instead, discover your zone and stay there. Then delegate everything else.
Admitting a weakness is a sign of strength. Acknowledging weakness doesn’t make a leader less effective.
Everybody in your organization benefits when you delegate responsibilities that fall outside your core competency. Thoughtful delegation will allow someone else in your organization to shine. Your weakness is someone’s opportunity.
Leadership is not always about getting things done “right.” Leadership is about getting things done through other people.
The people who follow us are exactly where we have led them. If there is no one to whom we can delegate, it is our own fault.
As a leader, gifted by God to do a few things well, it is not right for you to attempt to do everything. Upgrade your performance by playing to your strengths and delegating your weaknesses.
There are many things I can do, but I have to narrow it down to the one thing I must do. The secret of concentration is elimination.
Devoting a little of yourself to everything means committing a great deal of yourself to nothing.
My competence in these areas defines my success as a pastor.
A sixty-hour workweek will not compensate for a poorly delivered sermon. People don’t show up on Sunday morning because I am a good pastor (leader, shepherd, counselor).
In my world, it is my communication skills that make the difference. So that is where I focus my time.
To develop a competent team, help the leaders in your organization discover their leadership competencies and delegate accordingly.
Once you step outside your zone, don’t attempt to lead. Follow.
The less you do, the more you will accomplish.
Only those leaders who act boldly in times of crisis and change are willingly followed.
Accepting the status quo is the equivalent of accepting a death sentence. Where there’s no progress, there’s no growth. If there’s no growth, there’s no life. Environments void of change are eventually void of life. So leaders find themselves in the precarious and often career-jeopardizing position of being the one to draw attention to the need for change. Consequently, courage is a nonnegotiable quality for the next generation leader.
The leader is the one who has the courage to act on what he sees.
A leader is someone who has the courage to say publicly what everybody else is whispering privately. It is not his insight that sets the leader apart from the crowd. It is his courage to act on what he sees, to speak up when everyone else is silent. Next generation leaders are those who would rather challenge what needs to change and pay the price than remain silent and die on the inside.
The first person to step out in a new direction is viewed as the leader. And being the first to step out requires courage. In this way, courage establishes leadership.
Leadership requires the courage to walk in the dark. The darkness is the uncertainty that always accompanies change. The mystery of whether or not a new enterprise will pan out. The reservation everyone initially feels when a new idea is introduced. The risk of being wrong.
Many who lack the courage to forge ahead alone yearn for someone to take the first step, to go first, to show the way. It could be argued that the dark provides the optimal context for leadership. After all, if the pathway to the future were well lit, it would be crowded.
Fear has kept many would-be leaders on the sidelines, while good opportunities paraded by. They didn’t lack insight. They lacked courage.
Leaders are not always the first to see the need for change, but they are the first to act.
Leadership is about moving boldly into the future in spite of uncertainty and risk.
You can’t lead without taking risk. You won’t take risk without courage. Courage is essential to leadership.
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Andy Stanley (Next Generation Leader: 5 Essentials for Those Who Will Shape the Future)
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Most such criticism and confrontation, usually made impulsively in anger or annoyance, does more to increase the amount of confusion in the world than the amount of enlightenment. For the truly loving person the act of criticism or confrontation does not come easily; to such a person it is evident that the act has great potential for arrogance. To confront one’s beloved is to assume a position of moral or intellectual superiority over the loved one, at least so far as the issue at hand is concerned. Yet genuine love recognizes and respects the unique individuality and separate identity of the other person. (I will say more about this later.) The truly loving person, valuing the uniqueness and differentness of his or her beloved, will be reluctant indeed to assume, “I am right, you are wrong; I know better than you what is good for you.” But the reality of life is such that at times one person does know better than the other what is good for the other, and in actuality is in a position of superior knowledge or wisdom in regard to the matter at hand. Under these circumstances the wiser of the two does in fact have an obligation to confront the other with the problem. The loving person, therefore, is frequently in a dilemma, caught between a loving respect for the beloved’s own path in life and a responsibility to exercise loving leadership when the beloved appears to need such leadership. The dilemma can be resolved only by painstaking self-scrutiny, in which the lover examines stringently the worth of his or her “wisdom” and the motives behind this need to assume leadership. “Do I really see things clearly or am I operating on murky assumptions? Do I really understand my beloved? Could it not be that the path my beloved is taking is wise and that my perception of it as unwise is the result of limited vision on my part? Am I being self-serving in believing that my beloved needs redirection?” These are questions that those who truly love must continually ask themselves. This self-scrutiny, as objective as possible, is the essence of humility or meekness. In the words of an anonymous fourteenth-century British monk and spiritual teacher, “Meekness in itself is nothing else than a true knowing and feeling of
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M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth)
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How to Survive Racism in an Organization that Claims to be Antiracist:
10. Ask why they want you. Get as much clarity as possible on what the organization has read about you, what they understand about you, what they assume are your gifts and strengths. What does the organization hope you will bring to the table? Do those answers align with your reasons for wanting to be at the table?
9. Define your terms. You and the organization may have different definitions of words like "justice", "diveristy", or "antiracism". Ask for definitions, examples, or success stories to give you a better idea of how the organization understands and embodies these words. Also ask about who is in charge and who is held accountable for these efforts. Then ask yourself if you can work within the structure.
8. Hold the organization to the highest vision they committed to for as long as you can. Be ready to move if the leaders aren't prepared to pursue their own stated vision.
7. Find your people. If you are going to push back against the system or push leadership forward, it's wise not to do so alone. Build or join an antiracist cohort within the organization.
6. Have mentors and counselors on standby. Don't just choose a really good friend or a parent when seeking advice. It's important to have on or two mentors who can give advice based on their personal knowledge of the organization and its leaders. You want someone who can help you navigate the particular politics of your organization.
5. Practice self-care. Remember that you are a whole person, not a mule to carry the racial sins of the organization. Fall in love, take your children to the park, don't miss doctors' visits, read for pleasure, dance with abandon, have lots of good sex, be gentle with yourself.
4. Find donors who will contribute to the cause. Who's willing to keep the class funded, the diversity positions going, the social justice center operating? It's important for the organization to know the members of your cohort aren't the only ones who care. Demonstrate that there are stakeholders, congregations members, and donors who want to see real change.
3. Know your rights. There are some racist things that are just mean, but others are against the law. Know the difference, and keep records of it all.
2. Speak. Of course, context matters. You must be strategic about when, how, to whom, and about which situations you decide to call out. But speak. Find your voice and use it.
1. Remember: You are a creative being who is capable of making change. But it is not your responsibility to transform an entire organization.
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Austin Channing Brown (I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness)
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We are committed to involving as many people as possible, as young as possible, as soon as possible. Sometimes too young and too soon! But we intentionally err on the side of too fast rather than too slow. We don’t wait until people feel “prepared” or “fully equipped.” Seriously, when is anyone ever completely prepared for ministry?
Ministry makes people’s faith bigger. If you want to increase someone’s confidence in God, put him in a ministry position before he feels fully equipped.
The messages your environments communicate have the potential to trump your primary message. If you don’t see a mess, if you aren’t bothered by clutter, you need to make sure there is someone around you who does see it and is bothered by it. An uncomfortable or distracting setting can derail ministry before it begins. The sermon begins in the parking lot.
Assign responsibility, not tasks.
At the end of the day, it’s application that makes all the difference. Truth isn’t helpful if no one understands or remembers it.
If you want a church full of biblically educated believers, just teach what the Bible says. If you want to make a difference in your community and possibly the world, give people handles, next steps, and specific applications. Challenge them to do something. As we’ve all seen, it’s not safe to assume that people automatically know what to do with what they’ve been taught. They need specific direction. This is hard. This requires an extra step in preparation. But this is how you grow people.
Your current template is perfectly designed to produce the results you are currently getting.
We must remove every possible obstacle from the path of the disinterested, suspicious, here-against-my-will, would-rather-be-somewhere-else, unchurched guests. The parking lot, hallways, auditorium, and stage must be obstacle-free zones.
As a preacher, it’s my responsibility to offend people with the gospel. That’s one reason we work so hard not to offend them in the parking lot, the hallway, at check-in, or in the early portions of our service. We want people to come back the following week for another round of offending!
Present the gospel in uncompromising terms, preach hard against sin, and tackle the most emotionally charged topics in culture, while providing an environment where unchurched people feel comfortable.
The approach a church chooses trumps its purpose every time.
Nothing says hypocrite faster than Christians expecting non-Christians to behave like Christians when half the Christians don’t act like it half the time.
When you give non-Christians an out, they respond by leaning in. Especially if you invite them rather than expect them. There’s a big difference between being expected to do something and being invited to try something.
There is an inexorable link between an organization’s vision and its appetite for improvement. Vision exposes what has yet to be accomplished. In this way, vision has the power to create a healthy sense of organizational discontent. A leader who continually keeps the vision out in front of his or her staff creates a thirst for improvement. Vision-centric churches expect change. Change is a means to an end. Change is critical to making what could and should be a reality.
Write your vision in ink; everything else should be penciled in. Plans change. Vision remains the same. It is natural to assume that what worked in the past will always work. But, of course, that way of thinking is lethal. And the longer it goes unchallenged, the more difficult it is to identify and eradicate. Every innovation has an expiration date. The primary reason churches cling to outdated models and programs is that they lack leadership.
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Andy Stanley (Deep and Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend)