Warren Bennis Quotes

I would assert that highly effective leaders are made more than they're born. Every leader I know who's been highly effective has worked hard at it, and they've been students of it. The more you're a student of leadership, the more you figure out what works for you and the more effective you're going to be.

Leadership development is a lifetime journey, not a quick trip.

It's important for a leader to hear about his blind spots on a regular basis so working on them is periodically top of mind.

As with any skill, you have to work at leadership. Watch how the best do it, review what you've done, and look at what you might do.

Many in positions of authority lack the capabilities to truly lead. They are not credible. They do not command genuine respect. They are not committed to serve. They are not continually learning and growing. They are not wise.

One quality of leaders and high achievers in every area seems to be a commitment to ongoing personal and professional development.

The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.

Effective leaders are made, not born. They learn from trial and error, and from experience.

The only real training for leadership is leadership.

Leadership is what you need to learn next

Great leadership is by definition relentlessly developmental.

Earn your leadership every day.

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

I think that the process of figuring out what kind of leader I wanted to be was challenging, because as an actor, you work alone, really.

Not everyone will become a great leader, but everyone can become a better leader.

In 2007, Stanford Business School Advisory committee asserted that self awareness was the most important attribute a leader should develop. The challenge for the modern entrepreneur is to take that path.

The very exercise of leadership fosters capacity for it.

The greatest presidents have been those who demonstrated astute judgment in times of crisis - often despite the advice they were getting.

Great leadership can be a difficult thing to pin down and understand. You know a great leader when you're working for one, but even they can have a hard time articulating what it is that makes their leadership so effective.

Some of our finest leaders were not intellectuals at all, and I admire them enormously because they weren't. Harry Truman wasn't.

No matter how good you think you are as a leader, my goodness, the people around you will have all kinds of ideas for how you can get better. So for me, the most fundamental thing about leadership is to have the humility to continue to get feedback and to try to get better - because your job is to try to help everybody else get better.

Making good decisions is a crucial skill at every level.

We have good soldiers but crummy generals.

Only a few good leaders have paused to reflect seriously on being leaders.

You're born with some things inside you that will allow you to lead, but I think you have to take the bull by the horns. You have to want that leadership position, and then there are things you can do to develop that.