David Brooks Quotes

The twin sister to autonomy and freedom is responsibility and accountability. You cannot have one with out the other. If someone is given an area of responsibility, not only must they be set free to do it, they must also be held accountable for what they do. Accountability clarifies freedom. In the teams and companies where you see boundary confusion, power struggles, control, over-reaching of one's line of responsibility, you will also see lapses in accountability as well.

You need a lot of things in any organization, but one of the critical things is trust. When you lose trust and you feel betrayed, and it's not a matter of judgment.

Trust is the glue that holds an org together & the lubricant that moves it forward.

Ninety-nine percent of leadership failures are failures of character.

If you want to find out how strong a company's ethics are, don't listen to what its people say, watch what they do.

I believe no amount of business school training or work experience can teach what is ultimately a matter of personal character. Businesses are not dishonest or greedy, people are. Thus, a business, successful or not, is merely a reflection of the character of its leadership.

It's time for our business and political leaders to help redefine morality beyond sex, drugs, and rock and roll to include lying, hypocrisy, and callous indifference to those in need.

Let me just say this, and I want to say this to the televison audience: I made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service

You have to be a political leader, willing to lose an election if you want to do what's right.

Few things are more damaging to our democracy than a military officer who doesn't have the moral courage to stand up for what's right or the moral fiber to step aside when circumstances dictate.

People will not follow a leader with moral incongruities for long. Every time you compromise character you compromise leadership. The foundation of firm leadership is character.

I have learned that the ethics of the so-called markets can be different from what we learn at school. In day-to-day life you have stimulus to behave unethically, but in the long term it always pays off to be ethical.

Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.

I have certain beliefs about how people should treat employees and how companies should be run, but I was really surprised though this process to learn that those beliefs are actually good business.

If you pretend that business is beyond morality, that's the kind of morality you get.

I sometimes wonder how some people can live with themselves in some of the big companies today. So many far-reaching decisions are based on how they will affect the next shareholders' meeting.

Leaders must understand that some people will inevitably sell out to the evil side. Don't waste your time wondering why; spend your time discovering who.

I have nothing else to say other than I wasn't corrupt, unfair, or greedy. I was smart when it came to making decisions for my company, and I wasn't greedy. I gave to others in charity and donated money to fund programs. I have nothing else to say.

Sometimes being a leader isn’t about winning. Sometimes it’s about doing what’s right, instead of what’s powerful.

We need to educate students to be critical agents, to learn how to take risks, engage in thoughtful dialogue, and taking on the crucial issue what it means to be socially responsible.

When we lack integrity, we use power to control. When we lead with integrity, we use power to bless.

A person may be qualified to do greater good to mankind and become more beneficial to the world, by morality without faith than by faith without morality.

Every organization needs to be introspective, transparent, and honest with itself. This only works if everyone is unified on the goals and purposes of the organization and there is trust within the team. High-performing, successful organizations build cultures of introspection and trust and never lose sight of their purpose.

Trust is equal parts character and competence... You can look at any leadership failure, and it's always a failure of one or the other.

You have to do what you think is the right thing, but just make sure it’s the right thing in the long run, and not just for the moment.