Clayton Christensen Quotes

The whole issue of how women's management styles are viewed is an incredibly interesting subject.

Most leadership strategies are doomed to failure from the outset. As people have been noting for years, the majority of strategic initiatives that are driven from the top are marginally effective - at best.

I would assert that highly effective leaders are made more than they're born. Every leader I know who's been highly effective has worked hard at it, and they've been students of it. The more you're a student of leadership, the more you figure out what works for you and the more effective you're going to be.

One mediocre general is better than two good ones.

We have had imperfect leaders in the past, and we will have imperfect leaders in the future.

The best of all Rulers is only a shadowy presence to his subjects. Next comes the ruler they love and praise; Then comes one they fear; And then one with whom they take liberties.

Writing a book is like torture that you don't know, but after it's done and there it is. It's a joy like unlike anything else, I think it's the closest that a man can come to knowing what is feels like to have a baby.

Leaders develop their styles as they interact with their constituencies. They move toward the style that seems most effective in dealing with the mixture of elements that make up their constituencies.

Here's the truth about telling stories with your life. It's going to sound like a great idea, and you're going to get excited about it, and then when it comes time to do the work, you're not going to want to do it. It's like that with writing books, and it's like that with life. People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen. But joy costs pain.

Often they [writers on the study of management] have a point of view based upon intuition and experience. They then offer a cadence of two-paragraph examples carefully selected to "prove" their theory, and then they write "one size fits all" books. The message is, "If you'd do what these companies did, you'd be successful too."

Most writers want to share their essay or book much too quickly. Those who accept the pain of hard work and revising are those who get published.

I write books to relieve ­myself of pain. That's the prime motivator to write. Period.

Whether there are innately female leadership styles... is not really the right question. It is more important to ask why there has been so little attention paid to women leaders over the years as well as why the styles of leading more often exhibited by women are particularly useful at this critical moment in history.

I think that you can't choose leadership. You have to deal with the leadership that the people respond to.

Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet

Without leadership, command is a hollow experience, a vacuum often filled with mistrust and arrogance.

The practice of leadership is not the same as the exercise of power.

As a speaker, I can inspire people to change but as a writer I can guide people to change. That's why books are so important. As a pastor, though, I can be a part of creating the change the world so desperately needs.

Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.

I don't believe we can get very far, with leaders who write off half the nation as a bunch of victims who never take responsibility for their own lives.

This is all about having great leaders who can drive agile innovation and agile decision-making.

The ablest and most effective leaders do not hold to a single style; they may be highly supportive in personal relations when that is needed, yet capable of a quick, authoritative decision when the situation requires it.

If people disobey, don't ask what is wrong with them, ask what's wrong with their leaders.

In the study of management, unfortunately, many writers have been so anxious to articulate a theory in the form of, "If you do this, this will result," that they never go through this careful effort.

Rule books tell people what to do. Frameworks guide people how to act. Rule books insist on discipline. Frameworks allow for creativity.