John Landgraf Quotes

Sponsorship is sometimes about people behind the scenes who are sitting in rooms determining your assignments and your next career step, and you don't even know who they are.

The relationships we have with people are extremely important to success on and off the job.

If you don't go talk to your boss, if you don't go talk to your mentors, if you don't go talk to people who can influence where you want to be, then they don't know. And they're not mind readers.

If you can sell yourself as someone who knows how Washington works, someone who has these relationships, that's a very marketable commodity. If you're seen as someone who knows how this town works, someone who is a usual suspect in this town, you can dine out for years - that's why no one leaves.

The President is going to benefit from me reporting directly to him when I arrive.

You must develop personal contacts if you want to be successful.

You need fans in high places, I always tell people. I don't care how talented you are.

Structure is not about moving boxes around on a chart. Structure is about power.

One often needs someone smaller than oneself.

Women often are so focused on getting their jobs done well that they forget that building relationships is a key part of being a leader - and increasingly so, the higher you go.

You can't become a CEO without working hard and delivering results, but that will only take you so far. Building and leveraging strong relationships with mentors and sponsors will take you the rest of the way.

I'd never had a mentor in Hollywood. Men have always been in control of the business, and they usually mentor people who are like them - but two inches shorter.

Even after choreographing some big numbers, I didn't qualify as the top choreographer. You need to have godfathers and big people to support you for others to take you seriously.

Mentors and sponsors, particularly in the early stages of my career, were invaluable to me because they encouraged me to raise my hand and take opportunities to build my capabilities.

I joined a very male-dominated profession back in 1986. I wanted to work with big multinational Fortune 500 companies, but you don't come into the firm and automatically get those. So, quite frankly, a key to my success was that I found male mentors and male sponsors. I think some women are afraid to say that.

I've gotten to meet so many talented people!

If you are going to be successful, you have to start hanging out with the successful people.

If you know exactly what you want to be, you need to spend as much time as possible with people who are actually that already.

Social climbing and power climbing -- the two are often synonymous -- are what make Washington run. ... If there are more than two people together, if there are three, one of them is climbing.

People are least aware of others when demonstrating their own power over them.

You know what they say about bein' nice to the right people on the way up Sooner or later you gonna meet them comin' down

The people that are succeeding have often had a mentor of some kind. I think it makes a huge difference.

The thing that changes your professional life, your capabilities, your learning, your understanding, your opportunity flow, your ability to make things happen, is the center relationships you have with powerful and effective people around you in the industry, in the activity that you want to be doing.

Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering.

The vast majority of people in any organization, even quite high up, have got no idea who the real masters are.