Frances Hesselbein Quotes

Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do it.

Leadership is much less about what you do, and much more about who you are. If you view leadership as a bag of manipulative tricks or charismatic behaviors to advance your own personal interest, then people have every right to be cynical. But if your leadership flows first and foremost from inner character and integrity of ambition, then you can justly ask people to lend themselves to your organization and its mission.

Organizations exist to make people's strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant. And this is the work of effective leaders.

The leader for today and the future will be focused on how to be - how to develop quality, character, mind-set, values, principles, and courage.

Communication is not saying something; communication is being heard.

When you see a roadblock or challenge as an opportunity, it is amazing how you are already halfway there.

I feel passionately about how I express myself. Language is the greatest motivating force. You can phrase something positively and inspire people to do their best, or negatively and make them feel worried, uncertain, and self-conscious. You can talk at a fast pace and people will get nervous, feel afraid to bring up extraneous thoughts. But those are the very thoughts that might be most important! They might represent that person's best thinking. If you're rushed, you're simply not going to get at that extra level of thinking.

Leadership is much less about what you do, and much more about who you are.

It's not hard work that wears you out, but the repression of your true personality, and I've found a way of working that does not demand that.

The leader builds dispersed and diverse leadership - distributing leadership to the outermost edges of the circle to unleash the power of shared responsibility.

... I try ... to use my own voice in a way that shows caring, respect, appreciation, and patience. Your voice, your language, help determine your culture. And part of how a corporate culture is defined is how the people who work for an organization use language.

No matter what business you're in, everyone in the organisation needs to know why

Most of us will be remembered, in work and in life, for just a few words or deeds that made a difference to others. The way we choose to say good-bye is likely to be one of the ways we are remembered.

You should be a living practicing example of what you are preaching.

It is the quality and the character of the leader that determines the results and performance.

Dispirited, unmotivated, unappreciated workers cannot compete in a highly competitive world.

People know that pursuing a mission without achieving results is dispiriting; achieving results without a mission is meaningless.

Few leaders are born. We learn to be leaders. We learn by working with other people and working through our philosophy.

The best part of the character and quality of the leader is expressing who you are in the work you do and how you do it.

If we are to remain mission focused, as we must be if we are to be relevant in an uncertain age, the abandoning those things that do not further the mission is a leadership imperative.

... I never look at my watch if I'm talking with someone. I think that's such an insulting gesture! It suggests you're trying to gauge whether you think what they're saying is worth your time. Rushing is no way to bring out what's best in people, and I'm always looking for the best. That's what's ultimately behind my determination to take my time.

The leader beyond the millennium will not be the leader who has learned the lessons of how to do it, with ledgers of 'hows' balanced with 'its' that dissolve in the crashing changes ahead. The leader for today and the future will be focused on how to be - how to develop quality, character mind-set, values, principles, and courage.

Key to the societal significance of tomorrow's leaders is the way they embrace the totality of leadership, not just including 'my organization' but reaching beyond the walls as well.