Abraham Zaleznik Quotes & Sayings

Leaders are active instead of reactive, shaping ideas instead of responding to them. Leaders adopt a personal and active attitude toward goals. The influence a leader exerts in altering moods, evoking images and expectations, and in establishing specific desires and objectives determines the direction an organization takes. The net result of this influence is to change the way people think about what is desirable, possible, and necessary. In other words, leaders are visionaries and managers operate within those established visions. — Abraham Zaleznik

Keep focused on the substantive issues. To make a decision means having to go through one door and closing all others. — Abraham Zaleznik

Imagination in business is the ability to perceive opportunity. — Abraham Zaleznik

Leadership requires using power to influence the thoughts and actions of other people. — Abraham Zaleznik

Vision, the hallmark of leadership, is less a derivative of spreadsheets and more a product of the mind called imagination. — Abraham Zaleznik

If you want to understand entrepreneurs, you have to study the psychology of the juvenile delinquent. They don't have the same anxiety triggers that we have. — Abraham Zaleznik