Life and Career Skills

"The golden rule for every business man is this: "Put yourself in your customer's place."

-Anonymous

"Commit to CANI! -- Constant And Never-ending Improvement"

-Anonymous

"As a manager the important thing is not what happens when you are there, but what happens when you are not there."

-Anonymous

"A good manager is a man who isn't worried about his own career but rather the careers of those who work for him. My advice: Don't worry about yourself. Take care of those who work for you and you'll float to greatness on their achievements. You don't manage people; you manage things. You lead people."

-Anonymous

"The first task of a leader is to keep hope alive."

-Anonymous

"The man who follows a crowd will never be followed by a crowd."

-Anonymous

"Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too."

-Anonymous

"A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way."

-Anonymous

"It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead -- and find no one there."

-Anonymous

"Leadership is not a position. You are not a leader because you have the title of manager. Leadership is something that we earn from followers on a day to day basis."

-Anonymous

"Outstanding leaders appeal to the hearts of their followers -- not their minds."

-Anonymous

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things"

-Anonymous

"Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results."

-George S. Patton

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."

- Dwight Eisenhower

"A leader is a dealer in hope."

- Napoleon Bonaparte

"I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?"

-Benjamin Disraeli

"The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it."

- Elaine Agather

"Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too."

- Robert Half

"Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men -- the other 999 follow women."

- Groucho Marx

"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet. "

-Theodore M. Hesburgh

"The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it." 

-Theodore Roosevelt

"Compassion and building teamwork will be two of the most important characteristics business leaders will need for success a decade from now."

-Anonymous

"Leaders grow; they are not made."

-Peter F. Drucker

-Lance Secretan

"Blessed is the leader who seeks the best for those he serves."

-Anonymous

"Leadership is not magnetic personality—that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not "making friends and influencing people"—that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations."

-Robert L. Payton, American philanthropic

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worse when they despise him....But of a good leader who talks little when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, "We did it ourselves.""

-Anonymous

"An army of a thousand is easy to find, but, ah, how difficult to find a general."

-Anonymous

"Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men."

-Lao Tzu

"Leadership is action, not position"

- Donald H. McGannon

"Leadership is getting people to work for you when they are not obligated."

-Fred Smith

"A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune."

- Anon

"Leadership should be more participative than directive, more enabling than performing."

-Mary D. Poole

"The main characteristics of effective leadership are intelligence, integrity, loyalty, mystique, humor, discipline, courage, self sufficieny and confidence."

-James L. Fisher

"Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes."

-Peter Ferdinand Drucker

"When the leadership is right and the time is right, the people can always be counted upon to follow—to the end and at all costs."

-Harold J. Seymour

"A good leader can't get too far ahead of his followers."

-Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Forethought and prudence are the proper qualities of a leader."

-Tacitus

"Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve."

-Tom Landry

"Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that gives their work meaning."

-Warren Bennis

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."

-John F. Kennedy

"Leadership: the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. "

-Dwight D. Eisenhower

-Anonymous

"A good leader is not the person who does things right, but the person who finds the right things to do."

-Anthony T. Dadovano

"The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on."

-Walter Lippmann

-Charles S. Lauer