Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Asking for other's guidance helps you see what you may not be able to see. It's always important to check your ego and ask for help.
Growing, for leaders, is like oxygen to a deep sea diver. Without learning and growing, leaders die in terms of their effectiveness.
We can't control everything in life, that's for sure, but we can reach out to the people we love to tell them we love and care about them.
Start your day with good intentions and set yourself up for a good attitude. It's not what happens to you that matters but how you respond.
The productivity of a work group seems to depend on how the group members see their own goals in relation to the goals of the organization.
It's really hard to be a servant leader because we come into this world as a baby in a self-survival mode. Life is a journey toward service.
One of the topics I'm most passionate about is servant leadership - the greatest leaders recognize that they're here to serve, not to be served.
Managing by values - not by profits - is a powerful process that will set your business on the path to becoming what I call a 'Fortunate 500' company.
Too many leaders act as if the sheep.. their people.. are there for the benefit of the shepherd, not that the shepherd has responsibility for the sheep.
Most companies spend all their time looking for another management concept and very little time following up the one they have just taught their managers.
Too many leaders act as if the sheep... their people... are there for the benefit of the shepherd, not that the shepherd has responsibility for the sheep.
The first principle of ethical power is Purpose... It is the picture you have of yourself - the kind of person you want to be or the kind of life you want to lead.
Spouses often point out each other's deficiencies. Instead, we should be each other's motivator. My husband touches my spirit, and I try my best to motivate him, too.
If your employees are disengaged, and they don't take care of your customers, it doesn't matter how good your strategy is - your customers will still go somewhere else.
I think a great leader is somebody who realizes it's not about them, it's about the people that they're serving, that they're really other-directed rather than self- directed.
Everyone knows that not all change is good or even necessary. But in a world that is constantly changing, it is to our advantage to learn how to adapt and enjoy something better.
The Hoffman Process brings forth spiritual leadership in a person. It made my spirituality come alive. Through the Hoffman Process I actually brought my faith into my daily actions.
If we want people on the front lines of companies to be responsible for making good business decisions, they must have the same information that managers use to make good business decisions.
Servant-leader ship is all about making the goals clear and then rolling your sleeves up and doing whatever it takes to help people win. In that situation, they don't work for you, you work for them.
To ensure that your work is also a play, I recommend that you develop a personal mission statement. This will help you find what it is to enjoy so much that you lose track of time when you're doing it.
There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses - only results.
Connect the dots between individual roles and the goals of the organization. When people see that connection, they get a lot of energy out of work. They feel the importance, dignity, and meaning in their job.
As a leader, you absolutely must expend your energy engaging your frontline employees so that they will take care of customers, who will tell stories about how great your company is to other people, who will become new customers.
The most important habit is solitude, quiet time. People who enter their day by taking 45 minutes or an hour for themselves - meditation, prayer, inspirational reading, taking a walk - before they go for it in the real world do best.
If people aren't clear on what business you're in, what you're trying to accomplish, your values, your goals, then shame on you. It doesn't mean you shouldn't involve them. It's just your responsibility to make sure that that's clear.
The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves." Ray Kroc "If some of today's leaders don't relearn the value of a smile, they'll be unable to fire up others' ability to find real enjoyment in their work.
Values-based business behavior is no longer simply an interesting option - it's crucial to your survival. Once you understand your mission and values, you have a strong basis for evaluating your practices and aligning them accordingly.
I absolutely believe in the power of tithing and giving back. My own experience about all the blessings I've had in my life is that the more I give away, the more that comes back. That is the way life works, and that is the way energy works.
Your customers are only satisfied because their expectations are so low and because no one else is doing better. Just having satisfied customers isn't good enough anymore. If you really want a booming business, you have to create Raving Fans.
I grew up in New England. I think I was brought up with the Puritan ethic: that if you worked really hard in life, then good would come to you. The harder you work, the luckier you get. I've come to believe that it's the smarter you work, the better.
Congratulations offer more potential than cash. The amount of available cash is limited, but managers have an unlimited supply of congratulations. It's important to pay people fairly, but managers also should heap on congratulations and feed people's souls.
At my company, we have 300 employees spread across offices all over the world, and I send them all a voicemail each morning with a message from me about why our work is important and a reminder about one of our values. I call myself our company's 'chief spiritual officer.'
Many companies claim they have core values, but typically what they're referring to are generic beliefs: having integrity, making a profit, responding to customers and so on. These values only have meaning when they're defined in terms of how people behave and are ranked to set priorities.
Too often in business, only financial data is gathered - and then it is distributed only to management. Other key indicators that relate to performance areas also need to be tracked. Information on performance has to be made available to those people who can best use it - those doing the work.
'One Minute Mentoring' is written in the parable style Spencer Johnson and I popularized in 'The One Minute Manager.' It's an entertaining story about the mentorship between a young salesperson, Josh, and a seasoned executive named Diane. As the characters learn about mentoring, so does the reader.
When you write a business fable, people get caught up in the story and don't get judgmental about what you're teaching them. If you're teaching a bunch of concepts, people get skeptical and say, 'Where'd you get that research?' But if you tell them a story, they get caught up in it while they learn.
Many people measure their success by wealth, recognition, power and status. There's nothing wrong with those, but if that's all you're focused on, you're missing the boat...if you focus on significance -using your time and talent to serve others -that's when truly meaningful success can come your way.
Your business should be defined, not in terms of the product or service you offer, but in terms of what customer need your product or service fulfills. While products come and go, basic needs and customer groups stay around, i.e., the need for communication, the need for transportation, etc. What market need do you supply?
At Southwest, they're on a mission to democratize air travel. When they first started, the only people who could fly were relatively wealthy businesspeople, and Herb Kelleher's vision was to offer everyone the chance to visit a friend or relative during a happy and a sad time. That's a vision employees can get excited about.
Some people are really good at the visionary role. They're like third grade teachers who tell people the vision and values over and over and over until they get it right, right, right. But they're not implementers. If they're good leaders, they gather people around them who can take the implementation role and move it forward.
As a servant leader the way you serve the vision is by developing people so that they can work on that vision even when you're not around. The ultimate sin of an effective servant leader is what happens when you are not there. That was the power of Jesus' leadership-the leaders He trained went on to change the world when He was no longer with them in bodily form.