Heifetz Leadership Quotes & Sayings

You've got to develop relationships. You can't do things just in a formal context. — Kenneth Chenault

When I was a boy, I thought myself a man. Now that I am a man, I find myself a boy. — Thomas Young

I think that notion of leadership is bankrupt. — 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

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

Death is merely an illusion of the departed ... Just because you cannot physically see the idea of God, doesn't mean that he or she isn't there. Just because you cannot physically see someone that isn't here, doesn't mean that they aren't there. — Lionel Suggs

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

Or maybe it's a ploy to get more sex." She gave him a look that curled his chopsticks. "Maybe it's working," she said. "Maybe I'll slip into something more comfortable," he said. "Not that Batman mask again." "Aw, c'mon, you can wear the utility belt." She thought about it. "Okay, but no stopping in the middle and shouting, 'Same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.' — Harlan Coben

I wish that all of nature's magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed. — Annie Leibovitz

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

Albert [Brooks] was rare in that he could make adults laugh. He was a prodigy. At age 15 and 16, he could make my dad laugh uncontrollably. And whenever we had parties, some of the funniest people of my generation - whether it was Billy Crystal or Robin Williams or John Belushi - would be doing shtick. — Rob Reiner

A man on his owns knows that he is best advised to leave his dumbbell neighbors alone. But let him join a political party, and he fantasizes that he has the right and the power to tell everyone on the block what to do. — Bill Bonner

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

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

The nightmare was shaped like a goddess - a beauty with a body curved to incite reckless sinning. She wore an angry pout that he knew would burn his mouth. She had hair like snow and eyes as cold and fathomless as the deepest reaches of space. How like a nightmare to seduce and terrify at the same time. — Erin Kellison

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

An accepted lover, who deserves to have been accepted, should devote every hour at his command to his mistress. — Anthony Trollope

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