James MacGregor Burns Quotes & Sayings

Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth. — James MacGregor Burns

To elevate the goals of humankind, to achieve high moral purpose, to realize major intended change, leaders must thrust themselves into the most intractable processes and structures of history and ultimately master them. — James MacGregor Burns

"Teachers" ... treat students neither coercively nor instrumentally but as joint seekers of truth and of mutual actualization. They help students define moral values not by imposing their own moralities on them but by positing situations that pose hard moral choices and then encouraging conflict and debate. They seek to help students rise to higher stages of moral reasoning and hence to higher levels of principled judgment. — James MacGregor Burns

Such leadership occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality. — James MacGregor Burns

The practice of leadership is not the same as the exercise of power. — James MacGregor Burns

Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique. — James MacGregor Burns

In real life, the most practical advice for leaders is not to treat pawns like pawns, nor princes like princes, but all persons like persons. — James MacGregor Burns

Those who remember only that the Roosevelts served hot dogs to the royals will be fascinated by this well-researched account of an historic and ennobling relationship - a great story! — James MacGregor Burns

The ultimate test of practical leadership is the realization of intended, real change that meets people's enduring needs. — James MacGregor Burns

Leadership, in short, is power governed by principle, directed toward raising people to their highest levels of personal motive and social morality, — James MacGregor Burns

Let us face reality. The framers (of the Constitution) have simply been too shrewd for us. They have outwitted us. They designed separate institutions that cannot be unified by mechanical linkages frail bridges(or) tinkering. If we are to turn the founders upside down we must directly confront the Constitutional structure they erected. — James MacGregor Burns

Leaders are not pale reflectors of major social conflicts; they play up some, play down others, ignore still others. — James MacGregor Burns

Woodrow Wilson called for leaders who, by boldly interpreting the nation's conscience, could lift a people out of their everyday selves. That people can be lifted into their better selves is the secret of transforming leadership. — James MacGregor Burns

A revolution is an act of violence whereby one class shatters the authority of another. — James MacGregor Burns