James H. Boren Quotes

I was immature the way I handled the business. I saw myself as a tribune of the people.

Guidelines for bureaucrats: (1) When in charge, ponder. (2) When in trouble, delegate. (3) When in doubt, mumble.

What I have found is that, in a family business structure, sometimes what is needed is a sense of discipline rather than creativity. You have to take everyone's ideas and make it work. When you are dealing with money, there is a limitation on how creative you can be.

In politics, as in business, leadership is crucial.

Leadership is absolutely about inspiring action, but it is also about guarding against mis-action.

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.

A manager doesn't hear the cheers.

The best CEOs I know are teachers, and at the core of what they teach is strategy.

Often leaders have the best intentions, but people cannot read their minds. That's why it's important to declare yourself: Tell people why you choose to lead and the code you live by.

Leaders set a very clear path every day, in a thousand different ways, of what the people must attend to, inhibit, and keep it current in front of them.

If one has no compass, when one doesn't know where one stands and where one wants to go, one can deduce that one has no leadership or interest in shaping events.

I've put a lot of thought into being a leader.

Playing quarterback, you rely on everybody. Everybody impacts you.

A manager has to have all different sides covered.

I have to put my team in a good situation.

Put the right people in the right places, and then you trust them to do the right stuff.

The quarterback position is a role of leadership, and I feel just who I am as a person, I bring different types of leadership to the table.

Any clever person can make plans for winning a war if he has no responsibility for carrying them out.

To rule is easy, to govern difficult.

If the right people do the right things, we can walk, we can have a future. But if people don't put time into it to make it run in a right way, I don't think your team will work.

If there is such a thing as good leadership, it is to give a good example. I have to do so for all the Ikea employees.

Leaders receive and give assignments. This is an important part of the necessary principle of delegating. No one appreciates a willing volunteer more than I, but the total work cannot be done as the Lord wants it done merely by those doing the work who may be present at meetings.

I just try to be the same guy I've always been. Calm, collected, and being a good decision-maker and delivering the ball to the right guys.

I feel that a great coach is one that has a vision, sets a plan in place, has the right people in place to execute that plan and then accepts the responsibility if that plan is not carried out.

Leadership is working with goals and vision; management is working with objectives.