Top Down Leadership Quotes & Sayings

As Donilon [President Obama's security advisor] would tell me, Obama said: Here's the deal. I want this hunt for Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to come to the front of the line. I worry that the trail has gone cold. This has to be our top priority and it needs leadership in the tops of your organizations. You need to ensure that we have expended every effort to take down the top leadership of al Qaeda, especially these two individuals. And I want regular reports on this *to me* and I want them starting in thirty days.
Donilon followed up and drove and drove the point home with a memo, which the president signed. He sent it to each of those present. It read: 'In order to ensure that we have extended every effort - directly provide to me a detailed operational plan for locating and bringing to justice Osama bin Laden. — Mark Bowden

I've always believed that culture is defined and created from the top down, but it comes to life from the bottom up. This meant that I had to build our culture by working with the leadership group (i.e., the owner, general manager, and executives), the coaching staff, and the football team. To strengthen the culture among the leadership group, it was important to reiterate to the owner, team president, and general manager the shared beliefs, values, and expectations that we had discussed in depth when I was interviewing for the head coaching position. It was important to have collaborative conversations on a regular basis to discuss the changes we were making and why we were making them. — Jon Gordon

Change from the top down happens at the will and whim of those below. — Peter Block

Leadership must be established from the top down. — Sam Nunn

The company was quite hierarchical. I often think it was like a pyramid with Robert at the top and lots of us paying homage to him. I try to turn the pyramid upside down so that I'm at the bottom and bubbling away and encouraging people and energizing them so that they are all empowered so that they can do what they need to do, now that's the dream. — Janet Holmes A Court

[Ella Baker]'s second defining characteristic was her dislike of top-down leadership ... 'She felt leaders were not appointed but the rose up. Someone will rise. Someone will emerge'. It was an attitude Baker shared with some of the older women in the movement. — Gail Collins

Leadership is simply the ability of an individual to coalesce the efforts of other individuals toward achieving common goals. It boils down to looking after your people and ensuring that, from top to bottom, everyone feels part of the team. — Frederick W. Smith

Top-down leaders, by withholding power from those in the ranks, deprive them of the ability to use the expertise and information vested in them to respond directly and with speed to customer concerns. — Sally Helgesen