Molding Leadership Quotes

QUALITY leadership is neither the product of one great individual nor the result of odd historical accidents. Rather, it comes from deeply bred traditions and communities that shape and mold talented and gifted persons. Without a vibrant tradition of resistance passed on to new generations, there can be no nurturing of a collective and critical consciousness—only professional conscientiousness survives.

Why are some countries able, despite their very real and serious problems, to press ahead along the road to reconciliation, recovery, and redevelopment while others cannot? These are critical questions for Africa, and their answers are complex and not always clear. Leadership is crucial, of course. Kagame was a strong leader–decisive, focused, disciplined, and honest–and he remains so today. I believe that sometimes people's characters are molded by their environment. Angola, like Liberia, like Sierra Leone, is resource-rich, a natural blessing that sometimes has the sad effect of diminishing the human drive for self-sufficiency, the ability and determination to maximize that which one has. Kagame had nothing. He grew up in a refugee camp, equipped with only his own strength of will and determination to create a better life for himself and his countrymen.

Scholars who have studied the development of leaders have situated resilience, the ability to sustain ambition in the face of frustration, at the heart of potential leadership growth. More important than what happened to them was how they responded to these reversals, how they managed in various ways to put themselves back together, how these watershed experiences at first impeded, then deepened, and finally and decisively molded their leadership.

Undoubtedly the public is becoming aware of the methods which are being used to mold its opinions and habits. If the public is better informed about the processes of its life, it will be so much the more receptive to reasonable appeals to its own interests. No matter how sophisticated, how cynical the public may become about publicity methods, it must respond to the basic appeals, because it will always need food, crave amusement, long for beauty, respond to leadership. If the public becomes more intelligent in its commercial demands, commercial firms will meet the new standards. If it becomes weary of the old methods used to persuade it to accept a given idea or commodity, its leaders will present their appeals more intelligently. Propaganda will never die out. Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos.

Here’s one answer: social media has made new forms of leadership possible for scores of people who don’t fit the Harvard Business School mold.

...the leader should reserve to himself the hiring, compensating, motivating, molding, assessing and firing of his chief lieutenants.

With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.

When seen through the lens of a servant's heart, leadership becomes not just a job but a calling. Lives are changed for the better. Next-generation leaders are molded. Along the way, the sense of destiny God planted in each individual soul finds fulfillment.

Everyone is trying to mold you to their type. You won't reach your maximize potential if you get distracted by attempting to please everyone.

Educators are instrumental mentors molding the elite leaders of tomorrow.

God picks a nobody and molds him as somebody and elevates him unto be astonished by everybody

What is a leader?” people ask me. My simple answer: “Someone unafraid to take charge. Someone people respond to and are willing to follow.” I believe that leaders must be born with a natural connection and affinity to others, which then must be encouraged and developed by parents and teachers and molded by training, experience, and mentoring. You can learn to be a better leader. And you can also waste your natural talents by ceasing to learn and grow.

A certain degree of creativity is required for upward movement, but once you hit the level you never dreamed you'd reach, the purpose and plan begins to shift. You creatively mold yourself away until you finally fit right in.

Most plans or formulas force you to fit into their molds, imposing their structures on you. You can create your own “curriculum”.

While the big events of our lives create the impetus for change, it is the moment-by- moment choices that mold and shape us.

The world around us is merely a projection of what we are. We see the world the way we are molded and not what actually out there. We are the ones who put context to the situation and take it the way we are built through experiences. It is all within us which projects the picture of our outside world. Take a moment to apply a different experience to the same situation.

The practice that molded me at Intel and saved me at Sun—that still inspires me today—is called OKRs. Short for Objectives and Key Results. It is a collaborative goal-setting protocol for companies, teams, and individuals. Now, OKRs are not a silver bullet. They cannot substitute for sound judgment, strong leadership, or a creative workplace culture. But if those fundamentals are in place, OKRs can guide you to the mountaintop.

Though leadership behavior and organizing choices can affect and mold culture, it is difficult to establish culture directly. Leaders cannot implement a new "shared belief" simply by announcing it. They can, however, cultivate a desired belief or value by modeling behaviors consistent with that belief, by basing new priorities and programs on that belief, by telling stories that showcase that belief, and by aligning organizing choices to drive the desired culture.