you've got to make mistakes

No one does the leader's job flawlessly, believe me. You've got to make mistakes and learn from them. Yankees manager Joe Torree got fired three times during his career. Now he's looked upon as the icon of the game. He learned some things along the way. 

In his book, Jack: Straight from the Gut, Jack Welch freely admits he made many hiring mistakes in his early years. He made a lot of decisions from instinct. But when he was wrong, he'd say, "It's my fault." He'd ask himself why he was wrong, he'd listen to other people, he'd get more data, and he'd figure it out. And he just kept getting better and better. He also recognized that it's not useful to beat other people up when they make mistakes. To the contrary, that's the time to coach them, encourage them, and help them regain their self-confidence.

Larry Bossidy

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan with Charles Burck. 2002. Crown Business, NY, NY. p. 83

know thyself

Know thyself - it's advice as old as the hills, and it's the core of authenticity. When you know yourself, you are comfortable with your strengths and not crippled by your shortcomings. You know your behavioral blind sides and emotional blockages, and you have a modus operandi for dealing with them - you draw on the people around you. Self-awareness gives you the capacity to learn from your mistakes as well as your successes. It enables you to keep growing.

Nowhere is self-awareness more important than in an execution culture, which taps every part of the brain and emotional makeup. Few leaders have the intellectual firepower to be good judges of people, good strategists, and good operating leaders, and at the same time talk to customers and do all the other things the job demands. But if you know where you're short, at least you can reinforce those areas and get some help for your business or unit. You put mechanisms in place to help you get it done. The person who doesn't even recognize where she is lacking never gets it done. 

Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan with Charles Burck. 2002. Crown Business, NY, NY. p. 81, 82

it's all about action

It’s all about action. Going out there, doing it, and taking all your negative bullshit along for the ride. It’s never going to get any better, any easier, or any more understandable. This is it, life is now and you’re never going to have a better moment than this.

Don’t know what to do or where to start? Good, that’s your first action. Find out, understand. Trawl the internet, read books, ask questions, take courses, seek advice, do whatever you need to do to unfu*k yourself and get into your life…

“Action may not bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.” – Benjamin Disraeli

Gary John Bishop

Unfu*k Yourself: Get out of your head and into your life by Gary John Bishop. Harper One. 2017. p.135

i know nothing

Give some thought to all the people who have achieved something great, only to quickly fade into obscurity. I’m sure you can think of a few, whether they’re entertainers or business people or athletes. 

In my career I’ve coached many “successful” people who came to me because their lives had gone flat, and they had become uninspired and tepid. What happened? For many of them, they got comfortable. For years, they had pushed their comfort zones to get where they wanted to be. But as soon as they chose certainty over uncertainty, they stopped achieving. They hit the wall.

Why does it happen? Because when you’ve accomplished one of your goals, when you’re rich and successful, the future naturally seems a little more certain. I’m sure we’d all feel a little more secure with a million bucks or so in the bank.

But that mindset shift is exactly what creates the environment for our ultimate undoing. When we’re no longer uncertain about money, the desire – the need even – to pursue it recedes. When we’re no longer uncertain about success, our ambition can blunt or mellow. We get to wallow in our bloated illusion of certainty. Eventually we get to do that thing called “settle.” We settle for certainty. 

That’s the kind of power that uncertainty has in our lives. It can make us or break us. It can make us rich or make us poor. It can be the key to our success or drive us in the other direction. 

For many people, it ends up being both. 

The funny thing is, no matter how much you chase certainty, you’ll never really be able to hold it or retain it. That’s because it doesn’t exist. The universe will always send us little reminders of its chaos and power, and no one is exempt from the prompting. 

Nothing is certain. You could go to sleep tonight and never wake up. You could get in your car and never make it to work. Certainty is a complete illusion. Voodoo.

Some of you might find this terrible to think about, but it’s true. No matter how hard we may try, we can never predict exactly what life will bring. Our plans will falter at some point eventually. 

By running from uncertainty in search of certainty, we’re actually rejecting the one thing in life that is guaranteed in favor of something that’s nothing more than a fantasy. 

“All I know,” Socrates once said, “is that I know nothing.” Many wise people understand this. In fact, they owe their wisdom to that very realization – that they don’t actually know a damn thing.

Because when we think we know everything, we inadvertently turn ourselves away from the unknown and, by default, whole new realms of success. The person who accepts how unpredictable and uncertain life is has no choice but to embrace it.

They’re not afraid of the uncertain; it’s just a part of life. They don’t seek out certainty because they know it doesn’t really exist. They are also the kind of people who are aware of and open to the real magic and miracles of life and what can be accomplished.

Gary John Bishop

Unfu*k Yourself: Get out of your head and into your life by Gary John Bishop. Harper One. 2017. p.103-106

leadership skills are perishable

Over my 30-year career with Lockheed Martin, I've learned that leadership skills are perishable. It takes a devotion to listening and learning to build and maintain leadership skills and effectiveness.

Marillyn Hewson

"Want to Be a Leader? Focus on These Four Traits," Linkedin. August 2, 2016. As found in 2022 Great Quotes from Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes from Leaders Who Shaped the World.

how free was free?

When I took command of Benfold, I realized that no one, including me, is capable of making every decision. I would have to train my people to think and make judgments on their own. Empowering means defining the parameters in which people are allowed to operate, and then setting them free.

But how free was free? What were the limits? 

I chose my line in the sand. Whenever the consequences of a decision had the potential to kill or injure someone, waste taxpayers' money, or damage the ship, I had to be consulted. Short of those contingencies, the crew was authorized to make their own decisions. Even if the decisions were wrong, I would stand by my crew. Hopefully, they would learn from their mistakes. And the more responsibility they were given, the more they learned.

D. Michael Abrashoff

It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy by D. Michael Abrashoff. Grand Central Publishing. 2007. p.29,30

learning his job

Never allow yourself to be offended by someone who is learning his job.

Marvin J. Ashton

'Progress through Change," General Conference. October 1979. 

joy of changing

 

It has been said by Bruce Barton that, “When we’re through changing, we’re through.” There is no age when we are too old or too young or just too middle-aged to change. Perhaps old age really comes when a person finally gives up the right, challenge, and joy of changing. We should remain teachable. How easy it is to become set. We must be willing to establish goals whether we are sixty, seventy, fifty, or fifteen. Maintain a zest for life. Never should there be a time when we are unwilling to improve ourselves through meaningful change.

Marvin J. Ashton

'Progress through Change," General Conference. October 1979. 

the cushion of advantages

A man who sits “on the cushion of advantages, goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has been put on his wits, … [learns] moderation and real skill”

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Compensation,” The Complete Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, New York: Wm. H. Wise & Co., 1929, p. 161. As found in 'Progress through Change," by Marvin J. Ashton. General Conference. October 1979. 

listening to learn

Leading companies today asks for a different level of self-awareness from CEOs. Previously they may often have succeeded by “listening to win” (focusing on comments that supported their view) or “listening to fix” (taking any opportunity to tell others how they would solve the problem). Sometimes such reflexes may be helpful, most obviously when the problem they need to solve is relatively straightforward. But more often than not, the problem before them is complex and asks that they develop a more curious stance, “listening to learn,” instead. 

This takes a different mindset. And it often goes against the grain of the way many CEOs and their reports were incentivized earlier in their careers, when they were rewarded for solving operational problems quickly and moving on. Now they may only succeed if they can hold the complexity for longer, and resist the quick answer, listening and discerning more carefully – and in a more inclusive way. 

Mark Byford

Creating the Space Complexity Demands: New Approaches for CEO Leaders by Mark Byford. EgonZehnder CEO Insights. Volume 24, September 2021.

changing fast enough

Financial Times: A frequent argument is that Germans are not capable of reforming themselves.

Angela Merkel: I would say this is utter nonsense. The people in East Germany have lived through so many changes in the last 15 years like never before in the country, and they did this often with great enthusiasm. But in the West we also have a high degree of transformations. Everyone who is able to work today does so under very different conditions. The willingness to learn new skills is very high. If you ask people what they are prepared to do in order to adapt to globalisation they say “I am willing to learn new skills”. Parents today do no longer expect there children to come and work in the family business but they urge them to go for new careers.

It is nonsense to say that Germans are unable to change. The reason why we do not have the Transrapid high speed train in Germany is not because Germans would not accept new railways to be build. It has to do with the political environment and the very slow decision making process. In this respect politicians can change a lot to deliver changes much faster to the people. The question is not whether we are able to change but whether we are changing fast enough. There is still some convincing to be done. That is what we want to do in the campaign.

Transcript of Angela Merkel interview. Bertrand Benoit and Andrew Gowers. Financial Times.  JULY 20 2005. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World.

everything is a teacher

When we reexamine what we really want, we realize that everything that happens in our lives — every misfortune, every slight, every loss, and also every joy, every surprise, every happy accident — is a teacher, and life is a giant classroom. That’s the foundation of wisdom that spiritual teachers, poets, and philosophers throughout history have given expression to — from the Bible’s “Not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without God knowing it” to Rilke’s “Perhaps all the dragons of our life are princesses, who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.” My favorite expression of wisdom — one that I keep laminated in my wallet — is by Marcus Aurelius: “True understanding is to see the events of life in this way: “You are here for my benefit, though rumor paints you otherwise.” And everything is turned to one’s advantage when he greets a situation like this: You are the very thing I was looking for. Truly whatever arises in life is the right material to bring about your growth and the growth of those around you. This, in a word, is art — and this art called “life” is a practice suitable to both men and gods. Everything contains some special purpose and a hidden blessing; what then could be strange or arduous when all of life is here to greet you like an old and faithful friend?”

Arianna Huffington

"Why We Need Wisdom More Than Ever," by Arianna Huffington. Thrive Global. November 30, 2016. Excerpt from Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder pp. 116–130. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World.

he always GETS it right

Andy Grove once told me, over a cup of Jamocha Almond Fudge ice cream at Baskin Robbins in Los Altos, “F*@&ing Steve Jobs always gets it right.”

“Nobody’s always right,” I said.

“I didn’t say Steve IS always right. I said he always GETS it right. Like anyone, he is wrong all the time, but he insists, and not gently either, that people tell him when he’s wrong, so he always gets it right in the end.”

I thought a lot about this conversation over the next couple of years. I think Andy was exactly right: a big part of Steve Jobs’s genius came from his willingness to be proven wrong. Here’s how he described it in his own words:

Jobs: I don’t mind being wrong. And I’ll admit that I’m wrong a lot. It doesn’t really matter to me too much. What matters to me is that we do the right thing. Watch the video >>

In other words, you don’t have to grovel or pretend to be worse than you are. You just need to accept the possibility that whatever you’re saying may be wrong. Don’t be arrogant. Be curious.

Kim Scott

"How to give humble feedback," by Kim Scott. Radical Candor. Accessed August 17, 2022

who never makes a mistake

Roosevelt is no more infallible than the rest of us. Over and over again I have seen him pause when he had decided upon his line of action, and review it to see where there was a chance for mistake. Finding none, he would issue his order with the sober comment: “There, we have done the best we could. If there is any mistake we will make it right. The fear of it shall not deter us from doing our duty. The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.”

Theodore Roosevelt

1900 August, The American Monthly Review of Reviews, Volume 22, Number 2, Theodore Roosevelt by Jacob A. Riis, Start Page 181, Quote Page 184, Column 2, Published by The Review of Reviews Company, New York. (Google Books Full View). As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World. See also "The Person Who Never Makes a Mistake Will Never Make Anything," Quote Investigator. December 16, 20214. 

This was a popular phrase widely in circulation at the time of Theodore Roosevelt's statement. Here are some of my favorites:

• 1832: It has been justly observed, that he who never makes an effort, never risks a failure, and, “In great attempts ’tis glorious to fail!” (The New Sporting Magazine)
• 1859: We learn wisdom from failure more than from success: we often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and he who never made a mistake, never made a discovery. (Samuel Smiles)
• 1897: THE INFALLIBLE MAN - There was a man who never made, A blunder in his life; He loved a girl, but was afraid, If she became his wife, That he or she might rue the day, That brought them bliss; and so, He put the happiness away, That wedded lovers know. (The Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo)
• 1903: The man who does things makes many mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all—doing nothing. (Poor Richard Junior’s Philosophy)
• 1903: ‘He who never does anything wrong, seldom, if ever, does anything right,’ and a man whom I know you particularly admire expresses the same thing when he says, ‘A man who never makes mistakes, never makes anything.’ All the wise men of all ages have called attention to the one trait in which all humanity is alike, namely the liability to make mistakes. (Leo Tolstoy)

dig deep

What counts, in the long run, is not what you read; it is what you sift through your own mind; it is the ideas and impressions that are aroused in you by your reading. It is the ideas stirred in your own mind, the ideas which are a reflection of your own thinking, which make you an interesting person.

Book education cannot accomplish this by itself. It needs the supplement and the stimulus of the exchange of ideas with other people. In particular, it means learning from other people. There is no human being from whom we cannot learn something if we are interested enough to dig deep...

I... began to meet a great variety of people. Knowing my own deficiencies, I made a game of trying to make people talk about whatever they were interested in and learning as much as I could about their particular subject. After a while I had acquired a certain technique for picking their brains. It was not only great fun but I began to get an insight into many subjects I could not possibly have learned about in any other way. And, best of all, I discovered vast fields of knowledge and experience that I had hardly guessed existed.

This, I think, is one of the most effective and rewarding forms of education. The interest is there, lurking somewhere in another person. You have only to seek for it. It will make every encounter a challenge and it will keep alive one of the most valuable qualities a person has - curiosity. 

Eleanor Roosevelt

You Learn by Living by Eleanor Roosevelt. Westminster Press. 1983. p.8. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World. 

x days

You might find the prospect of modeling intellectual rigor for your team or organization daunting. How do you do it with so many demands on your time? For starters, I heartily recommend you dedicate time each month to learning about your business and engaging in unstructured thinking. It’s hard to think, read, and learn when endless meetings clog up your day. I developed a practice of sitting down with my calendar at the beginning of each fiscal year and asking my assistants… to designate two or three days each month as “X” days, during which they wouldn’t schedule any meetings. I’d spend some of those days alone thinking about our businesses. On other X days I’d make impromptu trips to learn about our businesses or pay a surprise visit to a facility. I’d also designate twelve additional days as “growth days,” holding intensive sessions with leadership teams to help them think through various growth or operations initiatives. My staff had to hold these growth days on their calendars as well so that we didn’t have to reconcile our calendars in the event we wanted to schedule a meeting (team members got these days back to use as they pleased if we wound up not holding a meeting that included them). Sometimes I had to schedule meetings on an X day, but anticipating that this would happen, I set aside more of these days at the beginning of the year than needed. 

David M. Cote

Winning Now, Winning Later: How Companies Can Succeed in the Short Term While Investing for the Long Term. HarperCollins Leadership. 2020. p. 20

the coward that dare not know

There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.

W.E.B. Du Bois

Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept. Taylor & Francis. 2017 edition.  As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World. 

be a learner

Ultimately, I realized that what’s most important is to be a learner. Many people know a lot about a little, but there are only a few people who know a little about a lot and can see the company broadly. This was critical to the idea of why I eventually became CEO.

Kenneth C. Frazier

"On Leadership: An Interview with Kenneth C. Frazier, President and CEO of Merck & Co., Inc.," by Ann C Mulé, Veta T. Richardson, and Brent Thomas. Association for Corporate Council. 2017. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World.

what you don't know

Don't be intimidated by what you don't know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently. 

Sara Blakely

Start With You: How Badass Executives Are Transforming Their Lives (And Business) In Just 12 Quarters by Peter C. C. Fuller. Page Publishing. 2018. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World. 

there's nothing new in human nature

There's nothing new in human nature. The only thing that changes are the names we give things. If you want to understand the twentieth century, read the lives of the Roman emperors, all the way from Claudius to Constantine.... And go back to old Hammurabi, the Babylonian emperor. Why, he had laws that covered everything, adultery and murder and divorce, everything.

Those people had the same troubles as we have now. Men don't change. The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know. 

Harry S. Truman

Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman by Merle Miller. RosettaBooks. 2018. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World.