Organisational Leadership Quotes

A typical response when starting a change journey and engaging organisational leaders, it is not us, it is the employees below me that have the problem with change and improvement

Every entrepreneur should spend time with all their employees, individually and collectively. It is the only way to understand what they want, what is in it for them, what they are hoping to achieve, and what they aspire to become.

If you do not change employee behaviour, you will not get organisational change and performance improvement"​

Organisational change adoption must be made easier than keeping the old ways

Many leaders get to the top of an organisation with skills less associated to leadership, but more the ability to eliminate greater competition on the way

Constructive feedback is leadership gift and driver of organisational behavioural change

Deluded leaders and the ‘yes men’ that follow are barriers to successful organisational change" Peter F Gallagher Change Management Handbook - The Leadership of Change Volume 3

From my experience, I see a high number of change initiatives fail, so why is it that change experts and leadership coaches continually praise organisations for their great efforts?

There are 3 groups of employees in any change journey: ‘Advocates’, ‘Observers’ and ‘Rebels’. Each reacts differently to organisational change and will have different levels of resistance

The micro facial expression of contempt when engaging leaders about preparing for their organisation's change is often the norm, matched only by their leadership of change knowledge

Fixed mindset leaders will quickly contaminate an organisation by killing growth and creativity, as well as promoting incompetence based on their likeness. This cycle will be replicated unless shareholders intervene ruthlessly

While delivering organisational change or improvements, one cannot be sure whether the main challenge is narcissistic and deluded leaders or the sheep that follow in abundance" Peter F Gallagher Change Management Handbook - The Leadership of Change Volume 3

Organisational change leadership is about effectively and proactively articulating the vision, modelling the new way and intervening to ensure sustainable change

The change question all leaders should be able to answer Do you have a change vision, are you aligned on your strategic objectives, are you a high performing team and does you team have change leadership skills to lead the change or improvement that your organisation is facing?

Change Agents with organisation credibility, Change Management skills and the desire to improve an organisation can greatly enhance Change Adoption and Benefits Delivery

[Team player vs team builder] Players focus on the wins and the loses. Builders focus on the team and future of the vision. Let's move our members from team player to team builder.

It doesn’t matter which continent I am working in; I typically encounter three-employee change standpoints: Advocates, Observers and Rebels. However, to successfully implement organisational change management, we must engage, communicate and entice these three employee groups to get buy-in, change adoption and benefits realisation

Telling people what to do is showmanship. Showing people how to do it is leadership.

Develop a compelling change vision that inspires employees with purpose and is aligned to the organisation’s strategy, values and beliefs

Every organisation, not just business, needs 1 core competence: Tactical execution

We have to accept that much of reality is ineffable and so to understand it we can't rely on words alone.

When your team member makes a request, take it seriously. Those who make an effort of asking cares about your organisation, those who don't ask don't care.

It’s through diverse opinions and perspectives that a dynamic organisation can drive innovation and create its competitive advantage.

Rethink Your Success Mindset: Times are getting tougher. We need tougher mindsets to ensure that we go beyond survive to thrive.

It is very unprofessional for a professional to declare another professional an unprofessional without professional expertise.

It's great to have opinions, however opinions do better by WORK not by WORD. Don't just say it, show it.

A leaders job is to ELEVATE the team, not delegate the team. Elevate your team to take initiative because real leadership is when you can create a culture of self-leadership within your team

Connection and teamwork are very much intertwined. If you can't connect with a person be a team player. If a person does not show teamwork connect with them. All engagement is centered around relationships

Even the best Mindset will become contaminated and eventually blunted in a toxic organisational culture.

Strategy has no value if your culture and leadership mindset are wrong

ReThink your success mindset: In life, the stuff that really matters most, is invisible, but palpable.

Rethink Your Success Mindset: With the right mindset, everything that you experience, along your journey towards success, is a blessing.

ReThink culture, because it is the foundation of all strategic success.

ReThink Real Success: Keeping your word to others and never lying to yourself

Rethink Your Success Mindset: Gratitude is the attitude, fuel and catalyst that transforms life's challenges into wisdom.

All groups and Organisation are unique

If you want to build a high performance organization, you’ve got to play chess, not checkers.

Don't be ashamed to be high maintenance when it comes to your development.

Engage the whole community with a common purpose to build an innovative and sustainable enterprise.

Retire from work, not from life.

At the end of the day, our organisations are here for people. We must not only be about product innovations, we must also be about innovation in leadership.

Organised effort is produced through the coordination of effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite end, in a spirit of harmony.

If you need one person to change your destiny, then you have not built a very solid organisation.

The New Economy brings the need to tap people’s curiosity, quest for knowledge and understanding, in order to develop a sustainable society.

MERIT IS A PRODUCT OF KNOWLEDGE AND TRANSPARENCY

Effective leadership is purely effective listening. There will be problems in any organisation, your job is to actively listen so you can lead solutions.

In leadership, language is everything. Be careful not to use UNDERPerform when a team member MISperforms. One mistake is not under-performance

Developing ALL staff to their fullest potential, on a daily basis, is the most powerful and humane approach, to building a high-performance organisation, that positively changes the world.

We now live in a time when PEOPLE and profits must become equally valuable in the corporate leaders Mindset. Rethink your Leadership Culture to become a conscious, high performance organisation

A true leader is someone who puts the needs and interests of their team or organisation before their own and strives to create a positive and empowering environment where everyone can thrive and succeed.

Through your influence, vision, ethics and authenticity you create a better reality for your family, community and organisation, where those around you and those who follow you are inspired to dream, learn and act

Transforming a team, let alone an entire organisation, from the principles of command and control to those based on servant-leadership, from plans based on prediction to plans based on empirical, evolutionary data requires both patience and tenacity.

If your Product or Service be the Backbone of the Organisation; Production and Operations be the Brain; Business Development and Marketing is considered as the Heart of the Organisation. For a Healthy and Prospering Company both Heart and Brain are Vital and Inseparable.

It was his first definite encounter with the wary-eyed, platitudinous, evasive Labour leaders, and he realised at once the formidable barrier of inert leadership they constituted, between the discontented masses and constructive change. They seemed to be almost entirely preoccupied by internecine intrigues and the "discipline of the Party". They were steeped in Party professionalism. They were not in any way traitors to their cause, or wilfully reactionary, but they had no minds for a renascent world. They meant nothing, but they did not know they meant nothing. They regarded Rud just as in their time they had regarded Liberalism, Fabianism, Communism, Science, suspecting them all, learning nothing from them, blankly resistant. They did not want ideas in politics. They just wanted to be the official representatives of organised labour and make what they could by it. Their manner betrayed their invincible resolution, as strong as an animal instinct, to play politics according to the rules, to manoeuvre for positions, to dig themselves into positions -- and squat...

Scientists will discover a weak correlation between A and B, assuming C under D conditions. The university PR office will then post something for immediate release: ‘Scientists Find Potential Link Between A and B (under certain conditions)’. News organisations will pick it up and publish, ‘A causes B, say scientists’, which will then be read by The Internets and turned into ‘A causes B - ALL THE TIME!’ Which will then be picked up by TV shows that run stories like ‘A ... A Killer Among Us??’ All of this eventually leads to your grandma getting all weird about A.

You Are Not Your Jersey “Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.” - Colin Powell The New Zealand All Blacks (national rugby team) have a mantra: “Leave the jersey in a better place”. It means, this is not your jersey, you are part of something bigger but do your best while you wear the jersey. It provides a valuable lesson about enjoying your moment in the sun but letting go to pursue another one once your time ends. When I played in Toulouse they had the same mindset. The club only contracted a certain number of players each year and there was a set number of locker spaces. Each locker was numbered in such a way that was not associated with a jersey number and that was also the number you wore on your club sportswear. Some numbers were 00, others were 85 and mine was 71. When I joined the coach explained to me in French that this was not my number, but I was part of a tradition that spanned decades. My interpretation still remains, “You are not your jersey.

In Spain an exceptionally favourable situation, more favourable than in Russia before the October 1917 revolution, there was no party or leadership capable of making a correct estimate of the situation, drawing the necessary conclusions, and the workers firmly to take power. All that was necessary in the situation was to explain to the workers the real relationship of forces, the necessary and vital steps and to show them how their leaders and organisations stood in the way. Power was in the hands of the workers, but it was not centralised or organised. Committees, Juntas or Soviets, the name does not matter, should have been organised in every factory and district, elected by the workers, housewives and all sections of the working population, including the peasants and of course the workers’ militias. These in turn should have been linked by delegates to form area, regional and an all national committee. This could have formed the framework of a new regime pushing aside the contemptible and powerless government and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat.

for the Labour Party – splendid news. That increasingly leftward bound organisation is in process of splitting, and Shirley Williams,fn31 Roy Jenkinsfn32 etc. will found a new Social Democratic Partyfn33 (this oddly repeats events in Oxford circa 1940 when I was chairman of the leftward bound Labour Club and Roy Jenkins led a group to found a new Social Democratic Club. How right he was!). It’s a pity about the Labour Party but given the whole scene the split is best. It is now official Labour policy to leave the Common Market and NATO! And unofficially are likely to abolish the House of Lords instantly and have no second chamber, abolish private schooling etc. And of course (this is perhaps the main point) to have the leadership under the control of the executive committee (and Labour activists in the constituencies) substituting party ‘democracy’ for parliamentary democracy. I blame Denis Healey and others very much for not reacting firmly earlier against the left. A crucial move was when the parliamentary party elected Michael Foot, that wet crypto-left snake, as leader instead of Denis. Now Denis and co. are left behind, complaining bitterly, to fight the crazy left. Shirley still hasn’t resigned from the party so it’s all a bit odd! ‘On your bike, Shirl,’ the lefty trade unionists shout at her!

In all these battles the Labour right has enormous reserves of political power. The Parliamentary Labour Party is overwhelmingly hostile to Jeremy Corbyn. Of the 232 Labour MPs no more than 20 can be relied on to back him. Back bench revolts, leaks, and public attacks by MPs opposed to the leadership are likely to be frequent. Some Labour left wingers hope that the patronage that comes with the leader’s position will appeal to the careerism of the right and centre MPs to provide Jeremy with the support he lacks. No doubt this will have some effect, but it will be limited. For a start it’s a mistake to think that all right wingers are venal. Some are. But some believe in their ideas as sincerely as left wingers believe in theirs. More importantly, the leading figures of the Labour right should not be seen as simply part of the Labour movement. They are also, and this is where their loyalty lies, embedded in the British political establishment. Commentators often talk as if the sociological dividing line in British politics lies between the establishment (the heads of corporations, military, police, civil service, the media, Tory and Liberal parties, etc, etc) on the one hand, and the Labour Party as a whole, the unions and the left on the other. But this is not the case. The dividing line actually runs through the middle of the Labour Party, between its right wing leaders and the left and the bulk of the working class members. From Ramsey MacDonald (who started on the left of the party) splitting Labour and joining the Tory government in 1931, to the Labour ‘Gang of Four’ splitting the party to form the SDP in 1981, to Neil Kinnock’s refusal to support the 1984-85 Miners Strike, to Blair and Mandelson’s neo-conservative foreign policy and neoliberal economic policy, the main figures of the Labour right have always put their establishment loyalties first and their Labour Party membership second. They do not need Jeremy Corbyn to prefer Cabinet places on them because they will be rewarded with company directorships and places in the Lords by the establishment. Corbyn is seen as a threat to the establishment and the Labour right will react, as they have always done, to eliminate this threat. And because the Labour right are part of the establishment they will not be acting alone. Even if they were a minority in the PLP, as the SDP founders were, their power would be enormously amplified by the rest of the establishment. In fact the Labour right today is much more powerful than the SDP, and so the amplified dissonance from the right will be even greater. This is why the argument that a Corbyn leadership must compromise with the right in the name of unity is so mistaken. The Labour right are only interested in unity on their terms. If they can’t get it they will fight until they win. If they can’t win they would rather split the party than unite with the left on the left’s terms. When Leon Trotsky analysed the defeat of the 1926 General Strike it was the operation of this kind of ‘unity’ which he saw as critical in giving the right the ability to disorganise the left. The collapse of the strike came, argued Trotsky, when the government put pressure on the right wing of the Labour movement, who put pressure on the left wing of the movement, who put pressure on the Minority Movement (an alliance of the Labour left and the Communist Party). And the Minority Movement put pressure on the CP…and thus the whole movement collapsed. To this day this is the way in which the establishment transmits pressure through the labour movement. The only effective antidote is political and organisational independence on the far left so that it is capable of mobilising beyond the ranks of the Labour Party and trade union bureaucracy. This then provides a counter-power pushing in the opposite direction that can be more powerful than the pressure from the right.

Organisations often appoint leaders for their IQ. Then, years later, sack them for their lack of EQ (Emotional Intelligence). Common Purpose argues that in the future they will promote for CQ - Cultural Intelligence.

You’ll also note a chronology to the theories, with later ones tending to supersede earlier ones. It is not, however, an exact timeline; bits and pieces of various theories still hold sway among current thinkers and some older ideas, such as trait theory, have resurfaced with renewed vigour in the light of modern science (genetic studies show that some traits associated with leaders, such as intelligence and extroversion, are highly heritable). One consequence of the chronological approach is that earlier leadership studies tend to focus on political and military figures, whereas the rise of corporate culture in the twentieth century shifts the focus of later theories to leadership in the workplace (which can be termed organisational, management or business psychology). In the corporate sphere, ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’ become ‘managers’ and ‘employees’ or ‘subordinates’.

Performance depends upon our actions an behaviors, which are activated by emotions, which are created when our MINDSET meets reality... Mindsets Matter Most

With the right Mindset...effective thinking is automatic.

With the right MINDSET, you can Survive, Thrive & Grow... Even in the Midst of turbulence and change

Diversity is a very popular business topic today while the negative side of diversity, discrimination, remains a touchy and sensitive topic. Even in organisations which follow the letter of the law in terms of not discriminating against any individuals, it is common for people to show prejudice and bias...Have the courage to stand out from your colleagues by being very open to and comfortable with all kinds of diversity amongst your colleagues and stakeholders. When you sense someone is being ignored or marginalized spend time with them and bring them into discussions encouraging them to speak up as needed.

One of the skills sought and expected by senior executives in our organisations is undoubtedly the strategic ability to think, plan and act.

So many leaders are bound by a contract to lead when it should be bound by your choice to lead

Rewarding your team members is not about stuff. Its about connecting. It's about you making the effort to appreciate them with a small token. We connect through gestures.

In an ever faster-changing world, your Strategy can the be the cause of your organisations' demise, if your leaders are unconscious, and thus not able to be suitably awake, agile, and Response-ABLE.

Smart Cs are never too senior or too important to act as Lodestones to their As. The Lodestone takes jobs off the A’s plate, frees them from the bland fodder of management and releases them from whatever ties them to the table of everyday leadership. When we think of the great organisational freedom fighters we think of our assistants–personal, executive and managerial.

This book is primarily about relationships between ultimate leaders and their many kinds of deputies. It is also about getting people into roles that are right for them, not squeezing them into roles they do not want and to which they are not best suited. We need a range of skills in leadership and we need people in the right leadership boxes at the right time, people happy to contribute to the work of the ultimate decision-taker and happy to collaborate with each other. The carnage that characterises some organisations can be caused by leadership’s failure to acknowledge what the roles really are and how they relate to each other.

Lateral leadership has much more appeal to Big Bruno than linear supremacy. The most important consideration for Bruno and Campbell was to be true to themselves and their principles. They didn’t lack the ambition or courage to have a go at the leadership role. They made an active and positive choice. So should the rest of us, wherever the leadership and its shared activity is taking place within our organisation.

Author Maya Angelou has worked with some exceptional political leaders from Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcolm X to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. In a podcast on courage and creativity for the Harvard Business Review in 2013, she said of leadership: ‘A leader sees greatness in other people. He nor she can be much of a leader if all she sees is herself.’ I can agree with this, having worked for six years with Jane Kendall, worldwide director of strategy and innovation at Saatchi & Saatchi. She sees greatness in others. A more selfless C it would be difficult to find in any organisation. Kendall has the Henry Ford secret of success: the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.

As leaders, we have to discern issues facing your organisation. The easiest way to discern is by listening. Sometimes, leadership skills translate to listening skills.

Adaptagility is the new #1 requisite for Limitless Leadership to ensure organisational success, in ever-changing times.

In the face of impending MEGATRENDS,., Adaptagility is a critical leadership skill.

Organizational Excellence' would reflect the organization's ability to make sufficient commitment to clinch and apply progressive changes in the system through updating information with applied decision making, overhauling structural responsibilities from time to time, strengthen people’s management, learning/training systems, and periodical improvisation of work process ( work flow links). With the strapping leadership of the top management, strategical partnerships are resourcefully tapped and managed which in turn reverberate impressing a positive impact on their people, customers/clientele, clientele’s business, organization's business and in turn end up contributing to the infrastructure of the nation they serve with a broader impact made on the society at large.

Limitless Leaders focus on 1. Consciously Constructive development of their people's ADAPTAGILITY capacity... to thrive in uncertainty, ever-changing, challenging, complexities, AND opportunities 2. Teamworking, connection, communication trust and collaboration 3. Limitless Leadership skills and mindsets on ALL levels of the organisation 4. A High Performance Culture, context and climate, that unleashes and engages fullest potentials and possibilities.

DevOps Evangelist An expert Consultant who can now evangelise a DevOps solution for an Enterprise. Typical tasks: Scaling DevOps capabilities across Enterprise Change Management Organisation Alignment This is a high-end Consulting role, with a heavy technology bend. At a DevOps Engineer level, it’s mostly about deep technical skills. As you evolve into a solution architect kind of role, along with the technical acumen, it’s also about leadership skills to build consensus/agreements and making a team work together.

It has become fashionable for modern workplaces to relax what are often seen as outmoded relics of a less egalitarian age: out with stuffy hierarchies, in with flat organisational structures. But the problem with the absence of a formal hierarchy is that it doesn’t actually result in an absence of a hierarchy altogether. It just means that the unspoken, implicit, profoundly non-egalitarian structure reasserts itself, with white men at the top and the rest of us fighting for a piece of the small space left for everyone else. Group-discussion approaches like brainstorming, explains female leadership trainer Gayna Williams, are ‘well known to be loaded with challenges for diverse representation’, because already-dominant voices dominate.

Our new reality calls for different, evidence-based approaches to developing leaders. The transformation and well-being of organisations, communities, nations and the world at large depend on it.

Love is therefore, an action, a behaviour, a capability.

Thinking about it from a personal and a professional perspective, they need to be the same.

love is an act of will and not a feeling.

Love is the appreciation and mutual respect of another individual or group of individuals. It’s a natural empathy and mutual understanding.

the concept of work/life balance in my view is dead and unreal.

Talent alone is not enough, although it certainly helps. To get through the door at an elite sporting organisation talent is a prerequisite. We would be naive to think any differently, but in high-stakes environments it is the interaction between grit, talent and character that critically impacts an individual’s development and growth.

● Developing your first-ever leadership strategy and don't know where to start? ● Are you stuck with a particular phase of leadership strategy? ● Having a tough time achieving corporational milestones with your robust strategy? If you're facing these questions and confused regarding canvassing a robust leadership strategy, this article can help you solve these queries. Several factors affect the development of a leadership strategy, such as the influence of decision-making processes for leadership/management, the personnel brought on board for strategy development and the resources involved. There are specific "keys" to effective leadership that help in efficient development and deployment of strategies. Professionals who want to develop robust strategies and move up in their leadership career can opt for online strategy courses. These courses aim to build concepts from the grass-root level, such as what defines a strategy leadership and others. What is a Leadership Strategy? Leadership is required for leading organisational growth by optimising the resources and making the company's procedures more efficient. A leadership strategy explicitly enlists the number of leaders required, the tasks they need to perform, the number of employees, team members and other stakeholders required, and the deadlines for achieving each task. Young leaders who have recently joined the work-force can take help of programs offered by reputable institutes for deepening their knowledge about leadership and convocating successful strategies. Various XLRI leadership and management courses aim to equip new leaders with a guided step-by-step pedagogy to canvass robust leadership strategies. What it Takes to Build a Robust Leadership Strategy: Guided Step-By-Step Pedagogy The following steps go into developing an effective and thriving leadership strategy:- ● Step 1 = Identify Key Business Drivers The first step involves meeting with the senior leaders and executives and identifying the business's critical drivers. Determining business carriers is essential for influencing the outcome of strategies. ● Step 2 = Identifying the Different Leadership Phases Required This step revolves around determining the various leadership processes and phases. Choosing the right techniques from hiring and selection, succession planning, training patterns and others is key for putting together a robust strategy. ● Step 3 = Perform Analysis and Research Researching about the company's different leadership strategies and analysing them with the past and present plans is vital for implementing future strategies. ● Step 4 = Reviewing and Updating Leadership Strategic Plan Fourth step includes reviewing and updating the strategic plan in accordance with recent developments and requirements. Furthermore, performing an environmental scan to analyse the practices that can make strategies long-lasting and render a competitive advantage. All it Takes for Building a Robust Leadership Strategy The above-mentioned step by step approach helps in auguring a leadership strategy model that is sustainable and helps businesses maximise their profits. Therefore, upcoming leaders need to understand the core concepts of strategic leadership through online strategy courses. Moreover, receiving sound knowledge about developing strategies from XLRI leadership and management courses can help aspiring leaders in their careers.

In an unprofessional organization, only a few employees are trust-worthy. In a professional organization, every employee is trustworthy.

When one person does something wrong, it's his mistake. If more than one person makes the same mistake, there is something wrong with the organizational culture.

[On action filled leadership] Telling your team what to do is showmanship. Showing people how to do it is leadership. Leading for the purpose of visual effect will not accomplish the vision.

Organisations are innovating quicker than ever. Your members need to excel from being a team player to a team builder.

I see entrepreneurship, like many other activities, as a type of mission. A mission by which we can provide better life chances and quality for both our current and future generations.

So imagine that fans of our products or services no longer simply consume and use them. Now we are creating a new opportunity for them to both participate directly in the development of the products but also benefit from a share of the profits too.

organisations often tend to see software architecture as a rank rather than a role too

Every organization has a different evolution path because their settings and scenarios are different from that of their competitors’.

The evolution path is an extrapolation of available scenarios. Once the scenarios change, the evolution path also needs to change.

Leaders have to understand that innovation is not about sourcing from Alibaba and selling on Amazon.

Leadership is the most important element in crafting a company's culture.

Retire before you expire.