Titles Don't Make Leaders Quotes

I've heard that the best way to help poor people is to make sure you don't become one of them

Genuine, authentic leadership infuses meaning into your life, because you know that your efforts count and that you are serving the needs of others as well as your own.

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today. Why isn't anything happening in the senate? Why do the senators sit there without legislating? Because the barbarians are coming today. What laws can the senators make now? Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating. Why did our emperor get up so early, and why is he sitting at the city's main gate on his throne, in state, wearing the crown? Because the barbarians are coming today and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader. He has even prepared a scroll to give him, replete with titles, with imposing names. Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas? Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts, and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds? Why are they carrying elegant canes beautifully worked in silver and gold? Because the barbarians are coming today and things like that dazzle the barbarians. Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual to make their speeches, say what they have to say? Because the barbarians are coming today and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking. Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion? (How serious people's faces have become.) Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly, everyone going home so lost in thought? Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come. And some who have just returned from the border say there are no barbarians any longer. And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians? They were, those people, a kind of solution

don’t be swayed by degrees or past positions. See how people live and serve within your community before you give them a title, especially the title of elder. Let them prove themselves in your community of faith by being faithful with task-oriented jobs before moving them into ministry positions. Make sure they are servants before they become leaders.

Don't get me wrong, loyalty is an admirable quality. But the number of years one has been around does not automatically equate with being a good leader, any more than does merely having the title of manager or vice president. And certainly the things we acquire- fine cars, nice homes- are not measures of our leadership ability. Leadership, more than anything else, is about the way we think. It's a moment-to-moment disciplining of our thoughts. It's about practicing personal accountability and choosing to make a positive contribution, no matter what out role or "level".

[...]Many of those friends were self-declared socialists - Wester socialists, that is. They spoke about Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Salvador Allende or Ernesto 'Che' Guevara as secular saints. It occurred to me that they were like my father in this aspect: the only revolutionaries they considered worthy of admiration had been murdered.[...]ut they did not think that my stories from the eighties were in any way significant to their political beliefs. Sometimes, my appropriating the label of socialist to describe both my experiences and their commitments was considered a dangerous provocation. [...] 'What you had was not really socialism.' they would say, barely concealing their irritation. My stories about socialism in Albania and references to all the other socialist countries against which our socialism had measured itself were, at best, tolerated as the embarrassing remarks of a foreigner still learning to integrate. The Soviet Union, China, the German Democratic Republic, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cuba; there was nothing socialist about them either. They were seen as the deserving losers of a historical battle that the real, authentic bearers of that title had yet to join. My friends' socialism was clear, bright and in the future. Mine was messy, bloody and of the past. And yet, the future that they sought, and that which socialist states had once embodied, found inspiration in the same books, the same critiques of society, the same historical characters. But to my surprise, they treated this as an unfortunate coincidence. Everything that went wrong on my side of the world could be explained by the cruelty of our leaders, or the uniquely backward nature of our institutions. They believed there was little for them to learn. There was no risk of repeating the same mistakes, no reason to ponder what had been achieved, and why it had been destroyed. Their socialism was characterized by the triumph of freedom and justice; mine by their failure. Their socialism would be brought about by the right people, with the right motives, under the right circumstances, with the right combination of theory and practice. There was only one thing to do about mine: forget it. [...]But if there was one lesson to take away from he history of my family, and of my country, it was that people never make history under circumstances they choose. It is easy to say, 'What you had was not the real thing', applying that to socialism or liberalism, to any complex hybrid of ideas and reality. It releases us from the burden of responsability. We are no longer complicit in moral tragedies create din the name of great ideas, and we don't have to reflect, apologize and learn.

As adults, we can also protect ourselves from vulnerability with cool. We worry about being perceived as laughing too loud, buying in, caring too much, being too eager. We don’t wear hoodies as often, but we can use our titles, education, background, and positions as handles on the shields of criticism, cynicism, cool, and cruelty: I can talk to you this way or blow you off because of who I am or what I do for a living. And, make no mistake, when it comes to this shield, handles are also fashioned out of nonconformity and rejection of traditional status markers: I dismiss you because you’ve sold out and you spend your life in a cubicle or I’m more relevant and interesting because I rejected the trappings of higher education, traditional employment, etc. DARING GREATLY: TIGHTROPE WALKING, PRACTICING SHAME RESILIENCE, AND REALITY CHECKING Over the course of one year, I interviewed artists, writers, innovators, business leaders, clergy, and community leaders about these issues, and how they stayed open to the constructive (albeit difficult-to-hear) criticism while filtering out the mean-spirited attacks.

We’ve been thinking the same thoughts for so long that our thinking feels like a deeply ingrained habit that we believe we have no control over. Because we’ve run our old story and our historical mental programs for so many years, they’ve become automatic and unconscious. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have power over them. And it doesn’t mean we can’t change them into habits of mind that serve our leadership potential. We can! We have absolute dominion over our thoughts. And the more personal responsibility you take for every one of your thoughts, the more powerful a thinker—and a leader—you will become. One thing that makes us fully human is our ability to think about our thinking, you know. Right now, in this very moment, you can sit quietly and inquire about the beliefs that run and thoughts that fill your mind each day. And as you spend more time in silent inquiry, you will build greater awareness of the thoughts you think. And with greater awareness around the ones that no longer serve you, you can make better choices. And with better choices, of course, you will experience better results. As you know better, you can do better.

You don't need a title to be a leader, and having a title doesn't make you one.

Having a title only doesn’t make one a leader; talented people without a title don’t follow blindly, they practice leadership via influence.

Has your perception of being gay changed? One hundred percent. I now think it’s the biggest blessing. I feel bad for my straight friends. For example, they have to deal with the expectation of marriage and kids by a certain age. To some degree, they probably have to continue to adhere to those expectations I’ve held myself to—of being a professional of a certain kind. Achieving a certain kind of success as externally defined, rather than internally defined. Which, when you come out, you unshackle yourself from. Straight men are wonderful, but a lot of them keep each other at arm’s length. They don’t get too close, aren’t that friendly, feel they’ve got to be a certain idea of what it means to be “macho” and a “man.” And a man is solid and not that nice. If they have an emotion, it’s anger and no other emotions besides that. Being gay has helped me understand that, no, being friendly is great. You should be friendly to everybody, you should make relationships with people: straight men, women, nonbinary people, whomever. It’s helped me understand how to not be judgmental. It’s helped me understand how to try to make my own way in life and not to find success according to money or a title, but according to fulfillment. Empirically speaking, when I look at straight men in the world, so many of them seem boxed in by toxic masculinity and this idea of being strong, tough, and not vulnerable. And that’s bullshit. Being gay helps you get out of that toxic masculine vortex and start thinking, What are my values? What kind of person do I want to be? For most, that helps us be friendlier, more open, more positive, more inclined to be supportive of people, and less inclined to judge. Being gay has shaped who I am in a huge way and made me a more positive and optimistic person; someone who can deal with people better, who can be more mature, and more self-confident. I am also a white guy though. I am a beneficiary of that privilege, too, and it behooves me not to put this all on homosexuality as if I get to claim minority status and not recognize the rest of my privilege.

Leadership begins with the courage to believe in a better future and the commitment to make it happen." "A leader inspires not by words alone, but by living the values they wish to see in others." "True leaders don’t just create followers; they cultivate more leaders." "Effective leadership is about creating an environment where people feel safe to express themselves and innovate." "Leadership is not a title but a series of actions rooted in accountability and trust." "A great leader balances strength with humility, authority with empathy." "Leaders see beyond obstacles; they envision possibilities and guide others towards them." "Leadership is knowing when to take the lead and when to step back, allowing others to shine." "In moments of crisis, true leaders rise with resilience, guiding their teams through uncertainty." "The essence of leadership is empowering others to discover their own potential and purpose.

When you don’t prepare for breakpoints—don’t warn the team, don’t thoughtfully restructure the org around roles first and individuals second, don’t add new managers, don’t reassess your meetings and communication tools, don’t give people access to training or coaches, don’t actively work to preserve your culture—then the consequences are clear: In their quest to keep people happy, I’ve seen leaders build their org around existing employees instead of first figuring out what the optimal structure should be and fitting their team into those roles. Then roles and responsibilities overlap, there’s a ton of redundancy in the upper levels, they have to invent weird new titles for people, and nobody knows what they should be working on. Work slows to a crawl. Employees complain that the culture is dead. People start to quit. Panic sets in and it can feel like a full-blown crisis.

Religious knowledge of Jesus Christ comes from five principle written sources. The earliest of these are a number of letters penned by Paul—who didn’t know Jesus personally—twenty to thirty years after Jesus’s death. The remainder come much later, from the Gospels of the New Testament. These were four books written anonymously forty to sixty years after Jesus’s death. None of the authors knew Jesus, lived in Judea, or spoke his language. “These anonymous works were circulated for decades before they were finally given titles, each taken from the names of men with links to Jesus, confusing many into thinking that these were the actual authors. Specifically, these anonymous works became known as the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. “Most theologians pull different passages from different books to make their points, and don’t treat them as separate works, written at different times. But because they are, and because the authors didn’t know Jesus, there are any number of significant conflicting accounts between them. This is inevitable since none of them were written by eyewitnesses. The information came from the oral tradition, from stories handed down for decades, since no one took careful notes of what Jesus said at the time he said it.   “In four of these five accounts, Jesus never calls himself god or considers himself god. Nor do any of his disciples.” The AI paused for effect. “He and his followers did claim that he was the messiah, however. In fact, Christ is the Latin translation of the Hebrew word for messiah. But at the time of Christ, the messiah wasn’t considered a divine figure. Rather, this term simply referred to a great leader, in King David’s line, who would rule the Jewish people with God’s blessing, a role Jesus believed he would fulfill. And passages of the New Testament do, indeed, refer to him as King of the Jews.

We all need to start demonstrating leadership, Blake, regardless of our titles. It’s no longer an excuse to say you don’t have a high rank so you don’t need to take ownership for the results of the organization. To succeed, everyone now must see themselves as part of the leadership team. You just don’t need formal authority to lead anymore—only a desire to be involved and the commitment to making a positive difference.

It turns out, even when offered big titles and bigger salaries, people would rather work at a place in which they feel like they belong. People would rather feel safe among their colleagues, have the opportunity to grow and feel a part of something bigger than themselves than work in a place that simply makes them rich.

Those who don’t make time for daily exercise must eventually make time for daily illness, you know

All leadership begins with self-mastery. You can't lead others until you can first lead yourself.

The people who change the world around them rarely act from a sense of obligation. In fact, the people who act as leaders almost always act from a sense of incredible opportunity. They don't interact with the world around them because they have to. They do so because they want to.

It turns out, even when offered big titles and bigger salaries, people would rather work at a place in which they feel like they belong. People would rather feel safe among their colleagues, have the opportunity to grow and feel a part of something bigger than themselves than work in a place that simply makes them rich. This is what happens when human beings, even engineers, are put in an environment for which we were designed. We stay. We remain loyal. We help each other and we do our work with pride and passion.

You don't need a title to be a leader in life. And the simple fact of having a title won't make you a leader.

Influence and inspiration come from the person, not the position.

At the heart of every successful organization is a title-less person.

You don't need a title to be a leader in life. And the simple fact of having a title won't make you a leader.

Genuine leaders make things better not just for themselves but for others, whether or not their contribution results in financial reward or popular recognition. (...) most people I think of leaders are untitled (...) they achieve greatness by working quietly in their organizations and communities, in their own lives, and in helping those around them.