ABOUT THIS POST: On my podcast, I recently discussed Peter F. Drucker’s best quotes on leadership. This was followed by a second episode about Drucker’s best quotes on management, and third episode on his humorous and profound quotes.
I created this post so that anyone listening to the podcast can grab the quotes here. Conversely, you can listen or watch the podcast here:
Listen: https://leadersmith.podbean.com/e/notable-quotables-peter-f-drucker-on-management-episode-156/
Watch: https://youtu.be/2ixB0ug6Kb0
Enjoy!
LEADERSHIP QUOTES
“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.”
“Effective people are not problem minded; they’re opportunity-minded. They feed opportunities and starve problems. They think preventively.”
“Your first and foremost job as a leader is to take charge of your own energy and then help to orchestrate the energy of those around you.”
“The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say ‘I.’ And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say ‘I.’ They don’t think ‘I.’ They think ‘we’; they think ‘team.’
They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but ‘we’ gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.”
“No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.”
“Every decision is like surgery. It is an intervention into a system and therefore carries with it the risk of shock. One does not make unnecessary decisions any more than a good surgeon does unnecessary surgery.”
“Accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer.”
“Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.”
“Leaders shouldn’t attach moral significance to their ideas: Do that, and you can’t compromise.”
“Successful leaders don’t start out asking, ‘What do I want to do?’ They ask, ‘What needs to be done?’ Then they ask, ‘Of those things that would make a difference, which are right for me?’”
“No executive has ever suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective.”
“Success? Odd as it seems, you will achieve the greatest results in business and career if you drop the word ‘achievement’ from your vocabulary and replace it with ‘contribution.’”
“An employer has no business with a man’s personality. Employment is a specific contract calling for specific performance, and for nothing else. Any attempt of an employer to go beyond this is usurpation. It is immoral as well as illegal intrusion of privacy. It is abuse of power. An employee owes no ‘loyalty,’ he owes no ‘love’ and no ‘attitudes’— he owes performance and nothing else.”
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Dr. Darin Gerdes is a tenured Professor of Management in the College of Business at Charleston Southern University He is also the host of the Leadersmith Podcast and a Co-founder of the Excellence in Leadership Institute.
All ideas expressed on www.daringerdes.com are his own.
FTC Disclosure: Whenever I refer to a book, I often add a link to Amazon (#ad) so you can purchase it easily. I may earn a few cents if you buy it, but I never recommend any books unless they are worth reading.
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