Warren G. Bennis Quotes

Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.

Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.

Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery.

Great things are accomplished by talented people who believe they will accomplish them.

Leaders keep their eyes on the horizon, not just on the bottom line.

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

Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.

Our tendency to create heroes rarely jibes with the reality that most nontrivial problems require collective solutions.

People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out.

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.

There are two ways of being creative. One can sing and dance. Or one can create an environment in which singers and dancers flourish.

There is a profound difference between information and meaning.

You need people who can walk their companies into the future rather than back them into the future.