Don Cheadle Quotes

Leadership does not depend on being right.

As a director, you're a bit of a dictator. But I feel that you're a better director if you're open to other people's ideas. It means that it's tougher: you have to be in a choosing process; you have to put the ego aside. As long as everybody's aiming in the same direction... I'm open to my main partners in the film crew.

You must be interested in finding the best way, not in having your own way.

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.

On a film crew, you can see very quickly that some people who are working with you are stronger than you. Then you have to have the humility to listen to them. And because very often they have better ideas than yours, it can be tough on the evil ego. But it makes a better film.

The way you build trust with your team is around super-clear communication in that instant when they say, 'I will be sad if you don't do X.' You have to say, 'We're not going to do X, and here's why, and believe me, you'll be much sadder later if I let you go do it and you spend a bunch of time on it and nothing ever happens.'

I came to believe that a leader isn't good because they're right; they're good because they're willing to learn and to trust.

The beauty of having your ego checked as many times as my ego was checked in Newark made me recognize how much I needed other people who were very different than me in order to get big things done.

The way I feel about rehearsals is that the best idea wins.

One of the things I realised as I learned to manage a rehearsal room is that the best idea always has to win, and it doesn't matter where the idea comes from.

You don't just go to your bosses and say, 'This sucks. I'm supposed to be winning everything.' If you have an awesome idea or a story, or something great, you go, 'Hey, how about we do this,' but when the story is not you, you have to find a way to make it work.

As you think about developing people through their careers, you're looking for that transition from being the smartest person in the room - and caring so much about that - to being the most effective.

Superior leaders are willing to admit a mistake and cut their losses. Be willing to admit that you've changed your mind. Don't persist when the original decision turns out to be a poor one.

A good leader needs to know how to follow.

A good leader is always looking for people smarter and more experienced than they are. If you are the smartest one in the room, then you are stupid.

You should never be so high and mighty you can't listen to somebody else and learn something from them. Leadership is as much about using the ear as using the mouth.

To be an excellent leader, you have to be a superb follower.

An important mark of a good leader [is] to know you don’t know it all and never will.

If you don't agree with the direction something is going in, at least at work, you should always try it first, unless it's dangerous or damaging. But if you have an opinion about the direction your work should be taking, say it. Then back it up with proof and other solutions.

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.

I try not to have too much of an ego. I'll do anything.

I believe you can work with anybody.

The music is first and foremost everything - no egos, no attitude, nothing - it's about the music.

I'm a guy that wants the movie to work. So whatever it takes or whatever you got to do - I'm happy to do.

One of the most important things about leadership is that you have to have the kind of humility that will allow you to be coached.