Debra L. Reed Quotes

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.

When building a strong team, you need a strong leader.

There are good leaders who actively guide and bad leaders who actively misguide. Hence, leadership is about persuasion, presentation and people skills.

True leadership isn't about having an idea. It's about having an idea and recruiting other people to execute on this vision.

I think one of the keys to leadership is recognizing that everybody has gifts and talents. A good leader will learn how to harness those gifts toward the same goal.

It's through a leader's actions - what he or she does and says on a daily basis - that the essence of great leadership becomes apparent.

Leadership is one of sports' intangibles. Guys can score, guys can fight, guys can skate faster than anybody else. But not everybody can say, 'Follow me.'

The most important thing I've done at work has been to surround myself with amazing people who I trust and empower fully to do stuff better than I could.

Leaders must establish common purpose and build trust within an organization.

Leadership is an individual sport, one that has to be fine-tuned to each of the people that reports to you. Leaders also need to provide the direction, energy, encouragement and inspiration for each person who reports directly to the leader as well as for the overall organization.

Good leaders make people's strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant.

You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.

I look at power as the ability to get people motivated and to get them to do things that maybe they don't think are important but, in the end, are in pursuit of something greater than themselves.

A good leader should focus on making sure everyone is being given the tools to do their job, not just expecting - poof! - that they're going to produce great work.

There's no way a director can communicate with every single person on the set and yet they need to motivate and instill an ambition to want to do their best work.

Great leaders help their people see how they can directly impact the company's objectives and their own personal goals.

In the end, leadership comes down to consistency and strong, confident action upon which the team can rely - and this doesn't mean imposing a bunch of rules.

You have to enable and empower people to make decisions independent of you. As I've learned, each person on a team is an extension of your leadership; if they feel empowered by you they will magnify your power to lead.

Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It's about impact, influence and inspiration. Impact involves getting results, influence is about spreading the passion you have for your work, and you have to inspire team-mates and customers.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

Leaders lead. They don't divide; they don't create a climate that is poisonous.

When you're leading, don't talk.

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.

In 13 years of doing my day job, I've learned a few things about motivating people. It's about setting a vision and, as long as everyone knows why they're doing what they're doing, you achieve that vision.