Richard Branson Quotes

Well, the first quality of being a good leader is you have to be able to follow. See, a good leader can't just be the leader all the time, I have to be able to follow.

You can't manage by memo. You can't stand up there and just send out edicts. I think you just gotta really personalize your relationships.

In my mind, a good leader would say, 'OK, I need to sit down and talk to the guys who oppose me. Let me let them voice their opinions; let me get their thought process.'

I think one of the keys to leadership is recognizing that everybody has gifts and talents. A good leader will learn how to harness those gifts toward the same goal.

In a leadership role in Iraq and in running my own business, what I've learned is if you don't listen, you're going to strike out. You're going to fail miserably. The people you work with have got to know you're engaged and you're listening.

A good leader has to at some point trust those around him; otherwise, nothing constructive is going to get done.

I think that the larger and more complex the business gets, I have to listen twice as much as I speak.

Part of being a successful leader is listening and looking for opportunities to bring people together.

You have to lead by example. You have to be the calmest person in the room. You have to be very open. I think the qualities of a director are to enable and to find the best in everybody.

An effective leader is able to reach people in their natural environment and extract their experiences and knowledge about the issues that impact them.

I always say, as a leader, you've got to know when to get out of the way.

I'm learning more and more to share creativity with the crew and actors. A film crew is more powerful if you listen to them, but it does make my job more tough because I have to listen.

You can lead a team in a lot of different ways. It can be talking to somebody who is down or, during the course of a game, looking to penetrate and then dropping the ball off to someone else for an easy bucket.

The secret to success is good leadership, and good leadership is all about making the lives of your team members or workers better.

What I know about me is that, in order to lead, you also have to know how to follow.

I think a good director is a good listener.

Good leaders need to be able to connect to all of those around them. This is especially true at Whole Foods, where we have a very team-oriented culture.

I think management is about just that - managing people via man-to-man skills.

I like being a leader in real life.

I'm not really a management-type person. It doesn't suit my personality to be bossing people around.

There are leaders vocally, and there are leaders by example. I think I'm starting to become better at being a leader vocally, just talking on the court.

Leadership requires a blend of strategy, persuasion, inspiration and motivation. It is based on respect more than fear.

The most important thing I've done at work has been to surround myself with amazing people who I trust and empower fully to do stuff better than I could.

Leaders listen. Staggeringly well.

I had to learn to trust people, and I realized that success was going to be born in hiring really bright people - very self-motivated, very able to make good judgment calls day in and day out.