Ronald A. Heifetz Quotes & Sayings

To diagnose a system or yourself while in the midst of action requires the ability to achieve some distance from those on-the-ground events. We use the metaphor of "getting on the balcony" above the "dance floor" to depict what it means to gain the distanced perspective you need to see what is really happening. — Ronald A. Heifetz

The activity of interpreting might be understood as listening for the 'song beneath the words. — Ronald A. Heifetz

I think that notion of leadership is bankrupt. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Your silence creates a vacuum for others to fill The key is to stay present and keep listening. The silence of holding steady is different from the silence of holding back. — Ronald A. Heifetz

What people resist is not change per se, but loss. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Conflict is the primary engine of creativity and innovation. People don't learn by staring into a mirror; people learn by encountering difference. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Leadership is a difficult practice personally because it almost always requires you to make a challenging adaptation yourself. What makes adaptation complicated is that it involves deciding what is so essential that it must be preserved going forward and what of all that you value can be left behind. Those are hard choices because they involve both protecting what is most important to you and bidding adieu to something you previously held dear: a relationship, a value, an idea, an image of yourself. — Ronald A. Heifetz

But to practice leadership, you need to accept that you are in the business of generating chaos, confusion, and conflict — Ronald A. Heifetz

Yesterday's adaptations are today's routines. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Exercising leadership is an expression of your aliveness ... But when you cover yourself up, you risk losing something as well. In the struggle to save yourself, you can give up too many of those qualities that are the essence of being alive, like innocence, curiosity, and compassion. — Ronald A. Heifetz

You stay alive in the practice of leadership by reducing the extent to which you become the target of people's frustrations. The best way to stay out of range is to think constantly about giving the work back to the people who need to take responsibility. Place the work within and between the factions who are faced with the challenge, and tailor your interventions so they are unambiguous and have a context. — Ronald A. Heifetz

You cannot expect people to seriously consider your idea without accepting the possibility that they will challenge it. Accepting that process of engagement as the terrain of leadership liberates you personally. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Your inspiration taps hidden reserves of promise that sustain people through times that induce despair. You enable people to envision a future that sustains the best from their past while also holding out new possibilities. — Ronald A. Heifetz

In the heat of leadership, with the adrenaline pumping, it is easy to convince yourself that you are not subject to the normal human frailties that can defeat ordinary mortals. You begin to act as if you are indestructible. But the intellectual, physical, and emotional challenges of leadership are fierce. So, in addition to getting on the being and assess the tolls those changes are taking. If you don't, your seemingly indestructible self can self-destruct. This, by the way, is an ideal outcome for your foes-and even friends who oppose your initiative- because no one has to feel responsible for your downfall.
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When you take "personal" attacks personally, you unwittingly conspire in one of the common ways you can be taken out of action-you make yourself the issue.
Attacks may be personal, understand that they are basically attacks on positions you represent and the role you are seeking to play — Ronald A. Heifetz

The improvisational ability to lead adaptively relies on responding to the present situation rather than importing the past into the present and laying it on the current situation like an imperfect template. — Ronald A. Heifetz

And leadership then is about mobilizing and engaging the people with the problem rather than trying to anesthetize them so you can go off and solve it on your own. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Progress on problems is the measure of leadership; leaders mobilize people to face problems, and communities make progress on problems because leaders challenge them and help them to do so. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Mental health professionals have said for a long time that individuals cannot adapt well to too many life changes at once. If you suffer a loss in the family, change jobs, and move all within a short time, the chances are your own internal stability may break down, or show signs of serious strain. — Ronald A. Heifetz

If you find what you do each day seems to have no link to any higher purpose, you probably want to rethink what you're doing. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Knowing how the environment is pulling your strings and playing you is critical to making responsive rather than reactive moves. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Attention is the currency of leadership. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Your behavior reflects your actual purposes. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Most people instinctively follow a dominant trend in an organization or community, without critical evaluation of its merits. The herd instinct is strong. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Exercising adaptive leadership is about giving meaning to your life beyond your own ambition. — Ronald A. Heifetz

What happened has hurt us. Now you have to work this out. — Ronald A. Heifetz

When you lead people through difficult change, you take them on an emotional roller coaster because you are asking them to relinquish something - a belief, a value, a behavior - that they hold dear. People can stand only so much change at any one time. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Values are shaped and refined by rubbing against real problems, and people interpret their problems according to the values they hold. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Stay diagnostic even as you take action. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Worry not that your child listens to you; worry most that they watch you. — Ronald A. Heifetz