8 Leadership Quotes

1. Strategy is not the consequence of planning but the opposite, its starting point. – Henry Mintzberg
2. Run with your head the first two-thirds of a race and with your heart the final third. – Jack Daniels
3. A good team is a great place to be, exciting, stimulating, supportive, successful. A bad team is horrible, a sort of human prison. – Charles Handy
4. In adversity, remember to keep an even mind. – Horace
5. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. – Phillips Brooks
6. The secret of getting things done is to act. - Dante Alighieri
7. Constant dripping hollows out a stone. – Lucretius
8. The first great gift we can bestow on others is a good example. – Thomas Marell

Integrity – Key Ingredient for Success

Guard Your Integrity

February is Black History Month.  I was reading on Mr. Frederick Douglass and one of his quote came in front of me.  So profound and tells a lot about personal quality!  If one lacks integrity, will lack true sense of happiness and accomplishment in life. This quality in leaders and managers takes the organization to new level.  This is age of integrity and accountablity.   As a trusted advisor to your boss, friends, or to any institute, your currency is Integrity.

Frederick Douglass: I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.

Here are some selected Quotes for Leaders and Managers:

1. Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people. – Spenser Johnson
2. Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn’t blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won’t cheat, then you know he never will. – John MacDonald
3. I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence. – Frederick Douglass
4. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. It’s not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong; not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich; not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned; and not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity. – Francis Bacon

Marcus Aureliu: Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

Tweets of Wisdom

Here are some of the tweets from the people I follow on Twitter.  These tweets are incredible pearls of wisdom that we can use to direct our thoughts, actions and reflections.

1.  Mediocrity asks “Is it profitable?“. First, try asking: “Is it worthwhile? Will it matter? Is it meaningfully better?” @umairh

Profound questions one can ask! Questions we ask ourself are the key to our success. If we change the questions we ask, we can change our life.  Recently watched HBR video called Wise Leadership [video] on similar topic. This interview asks – Is profitablity the  result or ulimate goal of our business?  Check out keyword Phronesis.

2.  Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think. @Billy_Cox

Our actions are guided by our thoughts (as well as profound questions) and eventually we become what our mind dwells upon most of the time. Isn’t it questions posed by @umairh in (1) a perfect fit to initiate great thoughts?

3.  All the wisdom in the world isn’t worth a dime if it doesn’t produce results. @BrianTracy

My favorite Brian Tracy has influenced millions & millions with his wisdom. As managers, we enjoy some nice talking  to us but all talking won’t do it. We got to get results.  Wisdom does mean action or inspiring others to take action and manifest quality products that add value.

4.  A person’s character is best judged when he is in power & how he uses this power in the daily walk of #life @rlalita

This is very timely thought, we all are given authority/power in our life and work. See this quote with the perspective of 1, 2 & 3

5. Try & try again is a great philosophy so long as you use a different plan for every try. @LeadToday

This quote tells about perseverence and keeping mind open to new ways of doing things to get to the desired results.  It might be pushing the particular item to back for some time. You know some times we got to inentionaly delay the things because environment is not ready to thrive.  Remember planning also includes if things do not work out the way we expect what are our options and how would we pursue them.

6. Enlightenment is not an escape from pain but an understanding of pain & in spite of it -living with a never-ending feeling of love for life. @tonyrobbins

Its all how we define pain (or problem). Its our paradigm. Not there yet, but whatever I have grasped from reading – at a certain juncture in life, a time comes in life when one realizes that pain is medicine while comfort leads to suffering. And again, its all how one defines pain and comfort and what are thresholds per our paradigms.

7. You weren’t put here to polish up PowerPoint decks, sell disposable junk, or glad-hand. You were put here to matter, serve, and love. Start. @umairh

Finding purpose or discovering our ‘Ture North’ is what we need. We are put here to matter (do significant things that make world a better place – even for one individual), serve (without any strings attached or expectations – otherwise its business not serving) and love (without ego and selfishness). Last word is even more powerful that is  START!

If you like these tweets, please follow them on Twitter.  If you are new to Twitter, then start here http://twitter.com/ and watch this video for more info http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0xbjIE8cPM

My twitter handle is @KulveerVirk

Quotes for Project Managers

1. If you want to hear new things, you’d better spend time with people who are very different from you. – Lynda Gratton
2. Predicting the future is easy.  It’s trying to figure out what’s going on now that’s hard.  – Fritz Dressler
3. In business, you don’t get what you deserve, you get waht you negotiate. – Chester Karrass.
4. The right information cannot be extracted from the wrong data. – Russell Ackoff
5. Honesty is the best policy. – Anonymous
6. You can’t do without a “can do” attitude. – William Kane
7. If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else. – Yogi Berra

Quotes from Twitter

I am on Twitter (follow me) and its very useful tool.  I review tweets on my Nokia E71 Smartphone during my lunch break and keep myself updated.

I get to read very interesting and inspiring quotes along with information that people share on Twitter; and I also thought of sharing some quotes with my readers.  Here they are:

1. You have three choices 1) complain 2) walk the extra mile or 3) create your own highway. – Rajesh Setty/@UpbeatNow
2. When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the fire department generally uses water. @mlomb
3. If God didn’t want us to smile, he would have given us black teeth. @NarinderSingh
4. Countless studies suggest that much more often than not, people reciprocate. So give, smile, love and help. @sanderssays
5. Have courage. It permits you to accomplish things even when they take longer than you thought. That’s what life is all about. @kenblanchard

Let me know what your thoughts are and if you are on Twitter.  Thanks.

Quotes for Managers

 

Here are 6 quotes for I.T. managers from Norman R. Augustine

1. Hardware works best when it matters the least.
2. A revised schedule is to business what a new season is to an athlete or a new canvas to an artist.
3. One of the most feared expressions in modern times is ”The computer is down”.
4. It has been wisely said that the world is not interested in the storms you encountered but in whether you brought the ship in safely.
5. If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on top of each other, it can be assured that disaster is not left to chance.
6. The last 10 percent of performance generates one-third of the cost and two-thirds of the problems.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day.

Quotes for Managers

Quotes are powerful words to stir thinking process, give new perspective on things, motivate to take action.  Here are some quotes on planning and strategy that I collected from book Strategic Management by Fred David.

1. Like a product or service, the planning process itself must be managed and shaped, if it is to serve executives as a vehicle for strategic decision making. – Robert Lenz
2. Strategies for taking the hill won’t necessarily hold it. – Amar Bhide
3. Great spirits have always encountered vioulent opposition from mediocre minds. – Albert Einstein
4. A firm that continues to employ a previously successful strategy eventually and inevitably falls victim to a competitor. – Bill Cohen
5. Planning is often doomed before it ever starts, either because too much is expected of it or because not enough is put into it. – T. J. Cartwright
6. Planners should not plan, but serve as facilitators, catalysts, inquirers, educators, and synthesizers to guide the planning process effectively. – A. Hax and N. Majluf
7. Don’t recommend anything you woul not be prepared to do yourself if you were in the decision maker’s shoes. – A. J. Strickland III

Illiterate of the 21st century…

“The illiterate of the 21^st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” – Alvin Toffler

I found this quote very much true.  It is becoming more and more important in today’s work environment for employees and organizations to change their traditional mind-set and evolve. 

Have you seen people who are worried about their jobs as the technology they know is now obsolete? People had been working very hard and did not focus on upgrading their skills as market was going through change.  

I want to stress that you are in charge of your learning opportunities.  It may be soft skills, new language, new technology, new way of doing things or any combination of things that will keep us marketable in this century.  We got to be flexible in terms of learning new things, unlearning of old concepts and some times relearning of (back to basics) concepts.

Thanks and have a great day!

Positive Quotes

These words of wisdom reaffirm an optimistic view towards our life and work.  These words once said by great minds ask us to develop positive attitude, take action, believe in ourselves and make our word more beautiful place to live.

1. Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are your own fears. - Rudyard Kipling (English poet and author)
2. It is worth a thousand (British) pounds a year to have the habit of looking on the bright side of things. – Dr. Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784
3. If there were nothing wrong in the world, there wouldn’t be anything for us to do. - George Bernard Shaw
4. To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe. – Anatole France
5. Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. – Abraham  Lincoln
6. A man is what he thinks about all day long. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leadership Quotes – 2

1. No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.  – Andrew Carnegie
2. Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.  – Abraham Lincoln
3. If you only do things you know well and do comfortably, you’ll never reach higher goals.  – Linda Tsao Yang
4. Listening is a magnetic and creative force.  The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward.  – Karl Menninger

Power Quotes

1. In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out.  It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being.  We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the human spirit. – Albert Schweitzer
2. Know when to speak; for many times it brings danger to give the best advice to kings. – Robert Herrick
3. The best motivation consists of getting a player to understand that his self-interest and the team’s are inextricably bound up. – Walter Kiechel III
4. Success is not the result of sponteneous combustion.  You must set yourself on fire. – Reggie Leach
5. It’s not whether you get knocked down.  It’s whether you get up again. – Vince Lombardi

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5 points to ponder…

1. Judge your success by the degree that you’re enjoying peace, health, and love.
2. Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power, or prestige, but on relationships with people you love and respect.
3. Live a good, honorable life.  Then when you get older and think back, you’ll get to enjoy it a second time.
4. Be charitable in your speech, actions, and judgement.
5. Remember that a minute of anger denies you sixty seconds of happiness.

In 2004, my sisterly friend Seema gifted me this excellent book called “The Complete Life’s Little Instruction Book”.  It has 1560 instructions in it and all are gems.  This book has helped me a lot in aligning/adjusting my thoughts and actions.  Thanks for the gift and I would like to add one point from my side -

    6.  Give the gift of positive books, you never know how it will shape someone future.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

A Quote by Lee Iacocca

The kind of people I look for to fill top management spots are the eager beaver, the mavericks.  These are the people who try to do more than they’re expected to do – they alway reach.

Quotes for Sunday

1. The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how long that employee stays and how productive they are while they are there is determined by their relationship with their immediate supervisor. – Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman (First, Break All the Rules)
2. The primary goal is to satisfy the customer.  If you don’t know what the customer needs, go and find out.  As soon as you become customer-focused, all of the static in the teams just subsides.  It’s amazing, like magic. – Karen Gideon (VP, Amex Life Insurance)
3. Trust your people, that’s the thing.  Trust your people until they let you down.  And you’ll be quite surprised that they don’t let you down…. I haven’t been let down yet. – Alan Campbell (Production Supervisor, Kenworth Trucks)
4. Save yourself for the big decisions.  Most of the running of the organization will be done by your direct reports. – Kent Kresa (CEO, Northrop Grumman Corp.)

Have a good day!

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