Bennis Leadership Quotes & Sayings

Leaders learn by leading, and they learn bestby leading in the face of obstacles. As weather shapes mountains, problems shape leaders. — Warren G. Bennis

Leadership (according to John Sculley) revolves around vision, ideas, direction, and has more to do with inspiring people as to direction and goals than with day-to-day implementation. A leader must be able to leverage more than his own capabilities. He must be capable of inspiring other people to do things without actually sitting on top of them with a checklist. — Warren G. Bennis

Power is the basic energy needed to initiate and sustain action or, to put it another way, the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it. Leadership is the wise use of this power: Transformative leadership. — Warren G. Bennis

The new leader is one who commits people to action, who converts followers into leaders, and who may convert leaders into agents of change. — Warren G. Bennis

Great Groups need to know that the person at the top will fight like a tiger for them. — Warren G. Bennis

Coaching will become the model for leaders in the future ... I am certain that leadership can be learned and that terrific coaches ... facilitate learning. — Warren G. Bennis

The learning person looks forward to failure or mistakes. The worst problem in leadership is basically early success. — Warren G. Bennis

Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. — Warren G. Bennis

Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential. — Warren G. Bennis

A promising junior executive of IBM was involved in a risky venture for the company and managed to lose over $10 million in the gamble. It was a disaster. When Watson called the nervous executive into his office, the young man blurted out, 'I guess you want my resignation?' Watson said, 'You can't be serious. We've just spent $10 million educating you! — Warren G. Bennis

Listening to the inner voice - trusting the inner voice - is one of the most important lessons of leadership. — Warren G. Bennis

The ability to plan for what has not yet happened, for a future that has only been imagined, is one of the hallmarks of leadership. — Warren G. Bennis

Taking charge of your own learning is a part of taking charge of your life, which is the sine qua non in becoming an integrated person. — Warren G. Bennis

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders
are made rather than born. — Warren G. Bennis

Successful leadership is not about being tough or soft, sensitive or assertive, but about a set of attributes. First and foremost is character — Warren G. Bennis

More leaders have been made by accident, circumstance, sheer grit, or will than have been made by all the leadership courses put together. — Warren G. Bennis

Around the world, the generals are being ousted, and the poets are taking charge. — Warren G. Bennis

Leaders are people who believe so passionately that they can seduce other people into sharing their dream. — Warren G. Bennis

It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from followers. — Warren G. Bennis

The leaders I met, whatever walk of life they were from, whatever institutions they were presiding over, always referred back to the same failure something that happened to them that was personally difficult, even traumatic, something that made them feel that desperate sense of hitting bottom-as something they thought was almost a necessity. It's as if at that moment the iron entered their soul; that moment created the resilience that leaders need. — Warren G. Bennis

Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard. — Warren Bennis

Winston Churchill said that appetite was the most important thing about education. Leadership guru Warren Bennis says he wants to be remembered as 'curious to the end.' David Ogilvy contends that the greatest ad copywriters are marked by an insatiable curiosity 'about every subject under the sun.' — Tom Peters

People who know what they want and why they want it, and have the skills to communicate that to others in a way that gains support — Warren G. Bennis

I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation. Someone once wrote that the sound of surprise is jazz, and if there's any one thing that we must try to get used to in this world, it's surprise and the unexpected. Truly, we are living in world where the only thing that's constant is change. — Warren G. Bennis

I'd always rather err on the side of openness. But there's a difference between optimum and maximum openness, and fixing that boundary is a judgment call. The art of leadership is knowing how much information you're going to pass on - to keep people motivated and to be as honest, as upfront, as you can. But, boy, there really are limits to that. — Warren G. Bennis

Too many companies believe people are interchangeable. Truly gifted people never are. They have unique talents. Such people cannot be forced into roles they are not suited for, nor should they be. Effective leaders allow great people to do the work they were born to do. — Warren G. Bennis

The basis of leadership is the capacity of the leader to change the mindset, the framework of the other person. — Warren G. Bennis

One of the best teaching experiences Ed Schein and I had when we were teaching at MIT in the 1960s was inventing a course on leadership through film. — Warren Bennis

Leadership is the wise use of power. Power is the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it. — Warren G. Bennis

Followers who tell the truth, and leaders who listen to it, are an unbeatable combination. — Warren G. Bennis

If knowing yourself and being yourself were as easy to do as to talk about, there wouldn't be nearly so many people walking around in borrowed postures, spouting secondhand ideas, trying desperately to fit in rather than to stand out. — Warren G. Bennis

I am reminded how hollow the label of leadership sometimes is and how heroic followership can be. — Warren G. Bennis

Leadership is the capacity to turn vision into reality. — Warren Bennis

Without a terrific leader, you're not going to have a Great Group. But it is also true that you're not going to have a great leader without a Great Group. — Warren G. Bennis

Who succeeds in forming and leading a Great Group? He or she is almost always a pragmatic dreamer. They are people who get things done, but they are people with immortal longings. Often, they are scientifically minded people with poetry in their souls. — Warren G. Bennis

The leader has a clear idea of what he wants to do professionally and personally,
and the strength to persist in the face of setbacks, even failures — Warren G. Bennis

A new leader has to be able to change an organization that is dreamless, soulless and visionless ... someone's got to make a wake up call. — Warren G. Bennis

Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity — Warren G. Bennis

Servant leadership teaches us that you have to lay your cards on the table. — Warren G. Bennis

While great leaders may be as rare as great runners, great actors, or great painters, everyone has leadership potential, just as everyone has some ability at running, acting, and painting. — Warren G. Bennis

Leadership has become a heavy industry. Concern and interest about leadership development is no longer an American phenomenon. It is truly global. Though I will probably be in less demand, I wanted to move on. — Warren Bennis

The manager administers; the leader innovates. — Warren G. Bennis