Leadership 101 - It's Quotable

Ten Quotes and Questions to ask of yourself and your leaders.

1. Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. – Japanese Proverb

Do you/your leaders have a clear vision and intention?

2. Men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up. – Henry David Thoreau

Are you/your leaders merely complaining and giving opinions . . . or enthusiastically looking to make a difference?

3. If you go on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll go on getting what you’ve always got. – Dr. Lair Ribiero

Are you/your leaders venturing out and embracing bold new ideas, or are you/they simply re-treading an old, worn tire?

4. You can outdistance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you. – Rwandan proverb

Who are you/your leaders, on the inside? What do your/their actions, behaviors and thoughts reveal about them?

5. Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. – William Jennings Bryan

Are you/your leaders choosing your/our destiny and creating it, or waiting for it to come by and carry you off to your life?

6. Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. – Voltaire

Are you/your leaders living a free and empowered life, or acting as a victim, complaining as if someone else is the cause of your/their life?

7. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. – Edgar Allen Poe (Eleonora)

Are you/your leaders limiting your/their thinking and what is possible? Everything! . . . everything in this world was created from a thought.

8. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. – Martin Luther King Jr.

Where do you/your leaders stand? Have they shown you strength and inspiration in these moments?

9. The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out. – Chinese Proverb

Are you/your leaders putting forth ideas, or striking out with words and actions, thereby revealing their cards?

10. Treat a man as he is, he will remain so. Treat a man the way he can be and ought to be, and he will become as he can be and should be. – Goethe

How are you/your leaders treating those around you? Are you relating to their magnificent possibility, or their past, filled with preconceived judgments and assumptions?