Kenneth Chenault Quotes

Great companies in the way they work, start with great leaders.

My feeling is if you're going to be a leader, you have to carefully assess where people are and where people want to go.

There's a conventional wisdom that says that strategic thinking is much more important than relationship building, which doesn't seem to be nearly as highly valued as it should be, based on what some of the leaders that I've spoken with have said to me.

Very often, we think of leadership being at the very top of an organisation. I think what's unique about ABG is that we have a very strong cadre of leaders across the organisation who are highly empowered and therefore play a very major role in the growth and evolution of the organization.

As for whether I am a 'new age guru', I am not at all. I help companies build employees who lead without a title and become high performers.

I try to find, celebrate and teach leaders how to build platforms that will inspire others.

Most leadership strategies are doomed to failure from the outset.

Rotary provides training at all levels so that those who have been selected for leadership positions have the opportunity to learn and apply leadership principles to their jobs.

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.

I believe the director's primary role is to create an atmosphere where his company can be created.

If I look myself as a manager, I have lot more to learn.

A CEO needs to build their own team.

Too many talk about a company's leadership, referring to the senior most executives in the organization. They are just that: senior executives. Leadership doesn't automatically happen when you reach a certain pay grade. Hopefully you find it there, but there are no guarantees.

Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power.

Because management deals mostly with the status quo and leadership deals mostly with change, in the next century we are going to have to try to become much more skilled at creating leaders.

I used to think my job as a CEO meant managing metrics and meeting goals, but I've realised now that's it's about managing my board and employees.

I think in any organization you want your manager to have a strong opinion. You don't want them to just say, 'Yes, sir' to things they don't believe in.

The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them.

Good leaders need a positive agenda, not just an agenda of dealing with crisis.

The Leadership Training Institute of America is a cultural think tank providing training and opportunity in leadership development and cultural dynamics.

I think that the best training a top manager can be engaged in is management by example.

I think directors should be confident in their leadership capabilities. I think directors should be confident in what they want to do.

Management's job is to convey leadership's message in a compelling and inspiring way. Not just in meetings, but also by example.

I recognize we will pay more attention when we have different leadership.

And I'd say one of the great lessons I've learned over the past couple of decades, from a management perspective, is that really when you come down to it, it really is all about people and all about leadership.