Leadership Quotes

Don’t cry because its over, Smile because it happened. Theodor Geisel aka Dr. Suess

The more you invest in a set of beliefs—the greater the sacrifice you make in the service of that conviction—the more resistant you will be to evidence that suggests that you are mistaken. You don’t give up. You double down. Malcolm Gladwell

The art of conversation lies in listening. Malcolm Forbes

If you’re going through hell, keep going. Winston Churchill

If you want to reach a goal, you must ‘see the reaching’ in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal. Zig Ziegler – Hilary Hinton “Zig” Ziglar was an American author, salesman, and motivational speaker.

The hardest thing is to take less when you can get more. Kin Hubbard – American cartoonist and humorist

If you want to be as great an artist as Matisse, you can’t paint like him. You have to be inventive, new, and original. Donald Judd, American artist, art critic, author

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain. Vivien Greene, British writer regarded as the world’s foremost expert on dolls’ houses

We first make our habits, and then our habits make us. John Dryden, poet and playwright, England’s first Poet Laureate in 1668.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. Kurt Vonnegut, American writer and humorist

The richest part of life lies in the space between absence and presence. Pico Iyer, Essayist and novelist known for his travel writing.

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on. Havelock Ellis, 19th Century English physician

Time is not measured by the passing of years but by what one does, what one feels, and what one achieves. Jawaharlal Nehru, First Prime Minister of India

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools. Sir Douglas Bader, Group Captain,Royal Air Force WWII

Stay away from negative people, they have a problem for every solution. Albert Einstein

A dream written down with a date becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true. Greg S. Reid

Happiness comes from feeling empowered to take control of your circumstances. But tragedy, can sometimes stem from getting everything you want, rather than from failing to. Anu Taranath

Nobody will give you freedom, you have to take it. Meret Oppenheim

If you aren’t prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original. Sir Ken Robinson

Logic will get you from A to B, imagination will take you everywhere. Albert Einstein Speaking of quotes, last week I inadvertently attributed Charles Dicken’s quote about the best of times to Charles Darwin, sorry about that.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer. Henry David Thoreau

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. Mahatma Gandhi

Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots. Victor Hugo

It’s good to shut up sometimes. Marcel Marceau

In the confrontation between the rock and the stream, the stream always wins, not through strength but by perseverance. H. Jackson Brown Jr.

I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them. Susan Sontag

Reprising my shameless self-promotion in case you missed it. In October, I was a guest on the Northern Trust Advisors Podcast, and I just learned that this podcast made their top ten for 2021. So exciting! Here’s a link if you want to listen to a 1.5-minute excerpt.  Rufus Miles, an American government administrator in the 20th century, is […]

If you can help people see themselves in your story, then you have a connection. Muhammad Ali

2021 ended with yet another year of living in a pandemic. As I begin this new year, I’ve been reflecting on one of The Economist’s predictions, “In 2022, we will see Covid 19 move from a pandemic to endemic.” Over the last two years, we have become so accustomed to making life and business choices […]

Seneca said about 2000 years ago, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” As this year draws to a close, ending what was once a new beginning, 2021, what new beginning awaits us in 2022? What plans, goals, intentions will you begin? Happy Holidays. Thank you for honoring me by reading my Sunday […]

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards. Vern Law

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. Robert Frost

Stop worrying about how long it will take and get started. Time will pass either way. James Clear

The hallmark of wisdom is knowing when to grit and when to quit – when to throw in the towel on an old identity and dive into a new one. Your past can weigh you down, rethinking can liberate you. Adam Grant

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man. Heraclitus

Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.  Florence Nightingale

“A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with freedom.” –– Bob Dylan

Big things often have small beginnings. Lawrence of Arabia  

We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box. Robert Fulghum

The Trouble Is, You Think You Have Time. Buddha

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. Winston Churchill As we come to the end of this challenging year, Winston Churchill reminds us, there is light at the end of this seemingly endless dark tunnel. This pandemic has […]

You’re in the left-hand seat in the cockpit now. “Your role is different,” the board member told me. “As the leader, don’t tell people what to do—instead, tell them what to think about.” Gary Burnison

The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch somebody else doing it wrong, without comment. T.H. White

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. Mark Twain

Only during hard times do people come to understand how difficult it is to be master of their feelings and thoughts. –     Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient. Unknown

“The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher.” Chinese Proverb

You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, James Stockdale

You may not always have a comfortable life, and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once. But, don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own. Michelle Obama

It is not turbulent times that kill us, it is dealing with turbulent times with the paradigms of the past that does us in. Unknown

We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Bill Gates

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your postion falls, your ego goes with it. — Colin Powell

Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one. Brad Paisley

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not. Oscar Wilde

You don’t build a business. You build people, and people build the business. Zig Ziglar

The challenge is in the decision. Once the decision is made, you are free. Unknown

“Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.” –Babe Ruth

“The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat but no less difficult.” –Winston Churchill

“In a healthy team, conflict is frequent because candor is safe.” Margaret Heffernan

This month’s leadership quote: “There is nothing as poor as the poverty of low expectations.” —George W. Bush

This month’s leadership quote: “Jobs always outgrow people. It’s not whether, it’s when.” –Jim Alampi Elisa K Spain Are You a CEO or President of a Privately Held Business? If you are also a lifetime learner and want to learn more about my Vistage Group, click here

This month’s leadership quote: “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes… Including you.” —Anne Lamott Elisa K Spain Are You a CEO or President of a Privately Held Business? If you are also a lifetime learner and want to learn more about my Vistage Group, click here

This month’s leadership quote: “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” –T.S. Eliot Elisa K Spain Are You a CEO or President of a Privately Held Business? If you are also a lifetime learner and want to learn more about my Vistage Group, click here

This month’s leadership quote: “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” –Winston Churchill Elisa K Spain You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.

This month’s leadership quote: “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” –C.S. Lewis Elisa K Spain You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.

This month’s leadership quote: “Be stubborn about your goals, and flexible about your methods.” –Author Unknown Elisa K Spain You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.

This month’s leadership quote: “Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.” –Richard Branson You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.  

This month’s leadership quote: “Today, is only one day, in all the days that will ever be. But, what will happen in all the other days that ever come, can depend on what you do today.” –Ernest Hemingway   Are You a CEO or President of a Privately Held Business? If you are also a lifetime learner, […]

This month’s leadership quote: “I make more mistakes than anyone else I know, and sooner or later, I patent  most of them.” –Thomas A. Edison #leadership #Vistage You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here Are You a CEO or President of a Privately Held Business? If you are also a lifetime learner, and want […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Those who failed to oppose me…who readily agreed with me and accepted all my views… were those who did me the most injury.” –Napoleon Bonaparte   Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “People don’t want to hear your story, they want to hear their story through you.” –Nicholas Tremulis My husband is a big fan of Nicholas Tremulis, a Chicago musician who plays a unique mix of rock, R&B, and pop. Earlier this year, we had the opportunity to see him live in […]

This month’s leadership quote: “The best way to keep a good employee is to fire a bad one.” –Bob Thomson   Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” –Steve Jobs Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “Wisdom is knowing the right path to take; integrity is taking it.” –M.H. McKee Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” –Vince Lombardi  Head Coach, 1959-1967 Green Bay Packers Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” —Carl Brad Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” —John Quincy Adams Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “The concept of  ‘value added’ will drive more companies bankrupt than any other.” —Sam Bowers What???, you say. Value added is how we differentiate; value added is how we compete; it’s how we win. Yes and.. How much is it costing to add that extra value? Are you giving away services that […]

This month’s leadership quote: “You need to get to the future, ahead of your customers, and be ready to greet them when they arrive.” —Mark Beniodd, CEO Salesforce.com   Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “You never see a conductor play an instrument.” —Larry Steinhauer The intended leadership lesson here is leaders need to do less and lead more. And, like everything else, it depends. Sometimes the exact right thing to do is back off and let other folks lead. And sometimes, the right thing to […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Great leaders delegate success, not tasks.” —Anonymous Frequently the leaders I work with tell me they are willing to delegate, as long as they trust the person to whom they are delegating. Makes sense. And yet, what happens when the person they delegate to doesn’t deliver? For many leaders the answer is, […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Leaders are not paid to make the inevitable happen.” —Vince Langley Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “If you can’t change the people, change the people.” —Michael Canic     Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “CEO’s job is to grow it, not run it.” —Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinkos Easy to say, hard to do. Whether owner or professional CEO, the temptation is to run it, to make the important decisions, because after all, we know what to do. People often say that Steve Jobs was in […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Decide democratically, implement dictatorially.” —Peter Schutz, CEO of Porsche 1981-1986       Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.” –Jim Rohn Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” –Winston Churchill     Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “You control your future, your destiny. What you think about comes about. By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands – your own.” -Mark Victor Hansen If you haven’t tried […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.” –Khalil Gibran Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” –Albert Einstein As a Vistage Chair for over 10 years, I have been fortunate to work with many successful people. And to a person, the most successful by their nature, follow Mr. Einstein’s advice. It is part of who we […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson Mr. Emerson sums up our job as a leader in this one sentence. If we find a way to be and do this one thing, the rest takes care of itself. Why Vistage […]

This month’s leadership quote: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” –George Bernard Shaw We discussed this quote in my Vistage groups this month, and of course each of us had a recent story to tell. What we discovered was for most of us, our failures to communicate […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.” –Warren Bennis The challenge of course is gaining this self-awareness. Identifying our genius Learning how we show up to others and the impact we have Learning when to lead from the front […]

This month’s leadership quote: “I love listening. It’s one of the only spaces where you can be still, and moved, at the same time.” –Nayyirah Waheed Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “Be decisive. Right or wrong, make a decision. The road of life is paved with flat squirrels who couldn’t make a decision.” -Unknown   Why Vistage Works Elisa K. Spain

This month’s leadership quote: “A leader that won’t listen to others will eventually be surrounded by people that have nothing to say.” -Andy Stanley When you ask most leaders if they listen, they will say yes. And yet, when you ask most employees if their boss listens, few say yes. Why is this? Here’s my […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different. When you assume negative intent, you’re angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed.” -Indra Nooyi, Chairman/CEO Pepsi   […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Courage is not limited to the battlefield. The real tests of courage are much quieter. They are the inner tests, like enduring pain when the room is empty or standing alone when you’re misunderstood.” -Charles Swindoll For me, the leadership lesson here is courage of our convictions. The courage to stand […]

    This month’s leadership quote: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” -C.S. Lewis Enough said. When we focus outwardly on others, especially our team and their success, we simply become more successful ourselves. I’ve watched this time and time again with the leaders I work with. Those who […]

  This month’s leadership quote: “We should try to be the parents of our future, rather than the offspring of our past.” -Miguel de Unamuno The best way I know to live Miguel’s quote is by being intentional. For some of us, it is setting goals and deciding what we want for the future. For […]

  This month’s leadership quote: “Today you will get something that was not guaranteed. One more day. Out of which to create the ‘you’ that works for you. And to decide what that day will be, and who you will be. You can write one more blank check, and let others fill in the amount; […]

  This month’s leadership quote: “One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.” -Gilbert K. Chesterton Another way to say this, the higher we rise in an organization, the less we see. The challenge for leaders, therefore, is to spend time in the valley. Easy to say; harder to do. […]

  This month’s leadership quote: “Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought.” — Albert Szent-Györgyi Albert Szent-Györgyi lived from September 16, 1893 – October 22, 1986 and was a Hungarian physiologist. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1937. He is credited with discovering vitamin C and […]

  This month’s leadership quote: “If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.” -Jack Welch When things are going well, it’s easy to become complacent, even arrogant. We become married to a point of view. After all, we built our business based on these […]

  This month’s leadership quote: “What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” -Dwight Eisenhower   Mother Theresa, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin and other great leaders, past and present, all had the same 24 hours in a day that we do. And, yet we yearn for more time. “If only […]

  This month’s leadership quote: “Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.” -Dale Carnegie We can always count on Dale Carnegie to remind us, attitude is everything.  In his books and in this quote Dale reminds us…when we take the time to celebrate what is, in ourselves and others, happiness is the […]

  This month’s leadership quote: “If we only focus on fixing what’s wrong, we forget to notice and build what is good and strong.” -Rebecca Wilkinson So often in our quest to be better, both as people and in our companies, we forget this advice. No question, sometimes fixing is what is required, technology becomes […]

  This month’s leadership quote: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -Mark Twain   Elisa K. Spain

  This month’s leadership quote: “Compete with things to come – not with things that were.” -Carlos Rizowy  So easy to look in the rear view mirror and ask ourselves, what’s coming? And, what Carlos reminds us is that what we see in the rear view mirror are only the things that are present now. […]

  This month’s leadership quote: “Innovation is hard because ‘solving a problem people didn’t know they had’ and ‘building something no one needs’ look identical at first.” -Aaron Levine Steve Jobs is noted for “solving a problem people didn’t know they had” time after time, first with the Mac, then ITunes, the IPhone, the IPad, etc. […]

  December’s leadership quote: “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” -Jack Welch While personal growth and development is lifelong, it is only through developing others that we achieve measurable results in our businesses. As a Vistage chair and leadership […]

  This month’s leadership quote: “Of the many, many things about which we are unclear, or of which we are unaware, our impact upon others is at or near the top.” -Larry Cassidy, Vistage Master Chair Today’s blogpost is offered by guest blogger Larry Cassidy, fellow Vistage Master Chair and author of this month’s quote. Larry has […]

  This month’s leadership quote: “Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games” -Babe Ruth Not only don’t yesterday’s home runs win today’s games, the way we got to yesterday’s home run may not work today. While the past can be our teacher, it can also delude us. When we have been successful in the past, we […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Your peer group are people with similar dreams, goals and worldviews. They are people who will push you in exchange for being pushed, who will raise the bar and tell you the truth.  They’re not in your business, but they’re in your shoes.  Finding a peer group and working with them, […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Success is when you add value to yourself.  Significance is when you add value to others” -John Maxwell I have heard it said, that the time to “give back” is in the later phase of our lives. This quote is a reminder that giving back is really a lifelong habit; a […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.” -Joel A. Barker When leaders focus solely on vision and strategy and not on action, put simply, nothing gets done. Successful leaders know that a vision is a destination that […]

  This month’s leadership quote: “We must lose sight of the shore,if we do in fact, hope to discover something new.“ -Gary Belmonti Today’s quote came from one of my Vistage CEO group founding members. We have been on a transformation journey in this group and Gary is a member of the guiding team. Our group launched […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.“ -Chinese Proverb We are often reminded that the key to successful leadership is successful delegation. And yet, many of us struggle with making delegation stick. I hear responses, like It takes too long; I may as […]

As my regular readers know, I collect quotes, share them here and on my website. Typically I publish one quote a month, but this month you get a bonus quote. The last few weeks I have been on the theme about leading change. The quote below from Steve Jobs is a wonderful reminder that ideas only […]

This month’s leadership quote: “You can tell whether a person is clever by his/her answers. You can tell whether a person is wise by his/her questions.“ -Naguib Mahfouz In Vistage we chairs encourage our members to stay in a questioning mode. This is probably the most important ingredient in effectively getting to the resolution of […]

This month’s leadership quote: “It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed.” -Harvey S. Firestone As leaders, we truly have only one job: to develop others. The success of our organizations rests entirely in the hands of the people who build our products and deliver the service to our customers. So, we […]

                This month’s leadership quote: “Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.” -Bruce Lee When I read this quote at my Vistage Key Executive meeting this month, we had a lively conversation about “what does it mean to be like water?” Here is […]

                     This month’s leadership quote: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” -Albert Einstein Typically when we discover a problem, we bring together the same team that was involved when we first launched the new product, new division, new whatever, that led to the problem […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Leadership:  The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower As human beings, we tend to choose to lead or follow. The role we choose is function of both our style and our circumstance. Even those of us who […]

This month’s leadership quote: “If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution.” -Albert Einstein How often do we jump in and start solving things before we know what the problem is? When we process issues in Vistage, the […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.” -Warren Bennis The challenge of course is gaining this self-awareness. Identifying our genius Learning how we show up to others and the impact we have Learning when to lead from the front […]

This month’s leadership quote: “Create goals, not for what you’ll achieve, but for who you get to be in the process.” Occasionally, I hear from people who say, “I don’t have goals and frankly, I don’t see the point”. While setting achievement goals is somewhat personality driven, the value is there for all of us […]

This month’s leadership quote:   Vision without execution is hallucination.  — Thomas A. Edison When leaders focus solely on vision and strategy and not on execution, put simply, nothing gets done. Successful leaders know that a vision is a destination that their team can rally around. They also know that while the vision is their job, it is a […]

This month’s leadership quote:  The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.  — William Jones How many times do we notice something, point it out and then regret it later, wishing we had kept quiet. In our quest for excellence, sometimes we forget that perfection and excellence are not the same. Excellence sometimes […]

Once again, I am taking a brief pause from the Leadership View series for the monthly quote. The series will return next week with Leadership View #12. This month’s leadership quote:  Leadership is not magnetic personality — that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not ‘making friends and influencing people’ — that […]

Leadership View #10: Take the higher risk / higher reward job. Much like when choosing investments, the higher risk choices lead to higher returns. And much like with investments, intentionality is the key. If you truly want the higher reward (or greater leadership role) and are willing to take the risk to modify both your […]

Once again, I am taking a brief pause from the Leadership Series for the monthly quote. The series will return next week with Leadership View #8. This month’s leadership quote:  Most people need repetition more than instruction. I had a clear reminder of the importance of repetition last month. One of my Vistage members noticed we […]

Once again, I am taking a brief pause from the 45 Years of Leadership series for the monthly quote. The series will return next week with Marsh’s Leadership View #5. This month’s leadership quote:  Our job as marketers and leaders is to create vibrant pockets, not to hunt for mass. – Seth Godin  This quote comes from Seth’s Super […]

As it is time for my monthly leadership quote, I am taking a brief pause from the 45 Years of Leadership series.  The series will return next week with Marsh’s Leadership View #2. This month’s leadership quote:  What you do speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you say – Ralph Waldo Emerson  We say we provide a […]

This month’s leadership quote:  To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions — Benjamin Franklin  Benjamin Franklin certainly modeled the prerequisite to living his quote, that is, to stay curious.  When we remain curious, we can see the opportunities and avoid jumping to possibly erroneous conclusions. His inventions were all a result of curiosity, trial […]

  This month’s leadership quote: What we do today, right now, will have an accumulated effect on all our tomorrows. — Alexandra Stoddard What if we each turned this into an “I” statement? What I do today, right now, will have an accumulated effect on all of my tomorrows… Here are my questions to consider: What can […]

Today’s blog post is offered by guest blogger Rick Landuyt, Vistage member and CEO of RFIDeas, One of the Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America.   It’s a dream until you write it down, then it becomes a goal. Stretch goals were explicitly designed to push people to think differently about the tasks at hand. Suppose your revenue […]

This month’s leadership quote: There are only two ways to influence human behavior, you can manipulate it or you can inspire it. Simon Sinek Simon Sinek is well known for his Ted Talk, How Great Leaders Inspire Action. If you haven’t seen it, it is worth the 18 minute investment. Bottom line, when you start with “Why”, […]

This month’s leadership quote: Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can. — Dr. Paul Tournier Today’s blogpost  is offered by guest blogger Mary Lore, Vistage speaker and author of Managing Thought. Mary’s book and program are all about managing thought and getting the results we want. In my experience, a lot of leaders think “positive […]

This month’s leadership quote: The best way to predict the future is to invent it — Peter Drucker. Love this quote on so many levels. First and foremost it speaks to the importance of having a vision. When I presented this quote at my Vistage CEO meeting this month, one of my “inventor” members, just smiled. For […]

This month’s leadership quote: We cannot become what we need to be, by remaining what we are – – Max Depree When faced with anything new that is significant in our business or our life… a new role, a new competitor, a new technology, most of us humans, first resist. And, it is what we do next […]

This month’s leadership quote: Giving people permission to fail is more important than giving them the tools to succeed. In my experience as a leadership coach, many, if not most leaders, struggle with this one. We often know the answer and are quick to give it. Or, even step in when we see the situation “going south”. And, […]

This month’s leadership quote:  I am part of all whom I have met. – Alfred Lord Tennyson. One of the greatest lessons I have learned since becoming a Vistage Chair is this one. How many times do we as leaders say to ourselves,  “I am different, they are different, that is the reason we cannot communicate.” What if […]

This month’s leadership quote:  The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities. – Stephen Covey We often hear time management tips about taking time to plan your schedule. What we often hear is to prioritize what is on the schedule. What Stephen Covey reminds us with this quote, is to pause, choose our […]

This month’s leadership quote: We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.  – Dhammapada We hear quotes like this  from Vistage speakers, about the power of positivity, about trusting the universe and focusing on what we want to accomplish, about being mindful of […]

This month’s leadership quote:  “Those who failed to oppose me… who readily agreed with me and accepted all my views…were those who did me the most injury.”  -Napoleon Bonaparte As leaders,  how do we avoid the trap of responding only to those who agree with us? What do we do each day to encourage our […]

This month’s leadership quote:  “The way you do anything, is the way you do everything.” Boaz Rauchwerger, Vistage speaker, attributes this quote to his Mom in his December 5, 2011 newsletter.  The point, she says, is to be excellent at everything. For me, as a leadership coach, this quote raises broader leadership questions: Is the […]