John Leo Quotes

I know how irritating it is when a producer puts his hand in everything.

In the workplace, many people become helicopter managers, hovering over their employees in a well-intentioned but ill-fated attempt to provide support. These are givers gone awry - people so desperate to help others that they develop a white knight complex and end up causing harm instead.

I like poking my nose into other people's lives.

I know as a manager you have to abide by the chairman's decisions. But his decisions were this team, that team, this player, that player. The chairman is a control freak.

I can be just a touch controlling!

I drive girls crazy because I might call them 20 times in one day and then the next day not once.

A busybody's work is never done.

a meddling, officious, incompetent little puppy.

The most closed, control freak, administration I have ever covered.

My mom was extremely supportive of me, but it could err on the side of... I mean, there's supportive, and then there's just full-on over-hovering.

It's what I do best - pry into people's business and mind their business. I can't help myself. I can't even go through the grocery line of the grocery store without talking to people and then giving them my opinion.

I have an ex that's just all up in my business every day.

Shredder is about as evil as it gets. He is a man fueled by jealousy and rage. At the same time, he doesn't micromanage, so his gang is free to do what they want.

Management by Walking Around

The subordinate's job is not to reform or reeducate the boss, not to make him conform to what the business schools or the management book say bosses should be like. It is to enable a particular boss to perform as a unique individual.

Ferguson, as a manager, and Ken, as a director, are very similar. One's a great manager, the other a great director, but both have a lot of humanity and a lot of humility. They always give you the energy... with Ferguson when we played a game it was like it was his first game - he's so passionate and gives you ambition every time. And Ken works the same way - they're very similar.

Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.

Donald Trump runs the country like he ran "The Apprentice." The premise of "The Apprentice" is a crazy rich guy has his daughter and his son oversee celebrities doing tasks. And then they come back to him, and they tell him how they did. So in every episode he's like, how did - how'd Meatloaf do, Ivanka? And then she says, Meatloaf really did a great presentation. And then he makes some impulsive decision about who to fire based on not being there, not really even understanding anything.

I'm not the type of guy to go out and just say, 'Hey, I'm raising my fist to do this and do that.' I don't think I'm that type of guy. I wasn't a leader the way other people may have wanted me to be.

Keeping quiet and letting the others do the talking. That may be Angela Merkel's method, but it's not mine.

It is true that my predecessor did not object, as I do, to pictures of one's golf skill in action. But neither, on the other hand, did he ever bean a Secret Serviceman.

Marketing management is now tribal leadership.

I suppose even Dictators have their chummy moments, when they put their feet up and relax with the boys, but it was plain from the outset that if Roderick Spode had a sunnier side, he had not come with any idea of exhibiting it now. His manner was curt. One sensed the absence of the bonhomous note. ... Here he laid a hand on my shoulder, and I can't remember when I have experienced anything more unpleasant. Apart from what Jeeves would have called the symbolism of the action, he had a grip like the bite of a horse. "Did you say 'Oh yes?'" he asked. "Oh no," I assured him.

I used to be very hands-on, but lately I've been more hands-off and I plan to become more hands-on and less hands-off and hope that hands-on will become better than hands-off, the way hands-on used to be.

I never talk about being leaders and all the rest of it. I can only remember one or two occasions in my life when I actually issued orders, and I felt thoroughly miserable after doing it.