Employees who are controlled cannot respond caringly, you need superior knowledge and real leadership, not management. Because of this we specifically developed a selection process for leaders; we don't hire managers.
Interpretation
True leadership requires knowledge and genuine care for employees, rather than mere management control.
This quote highlights the distinction between management and true leadership, emphasizing that effective leaders need to possess deep knowledge and a genuine concern for their employees to foster a caring workforce. It suggests that a controlling management style is inadequate, advocating instead for a selection process that prioritizes leadership skills over mere managerial abilities.
In practice
In a leadership seminar to illustrate the difference between management and true leadership.
The men who have guided the destiny of the United States have found the strength for their tasks by going to their knees. This private unity of public men and their God is an enduring source of reassurance for the people of America.
If there are only three guys at the top of the organization handling things, it's the definition of a bankrupt company. In creating leaders without titles, we are going to have organizations with people at the helm putting forth their best.
The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think.
I never use the word 'I' when I interview someone. I think it's irrelevant.
Viewing the man from the genuine abolitionist ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed cold, tardy, weak and unequal to the task. But, viewing him from the sentiments of his people, which as a statesman he was bound to respect, then his actions were swift, bold, radical and decisive. Taking the man in the whole, balancing the tremendous magnitude of the situation, and the necessary means to ends, Infinite Wisdom has rarely sent a man into the world more perfectly suited to his mission than Abraham Lincoln.
If you put good people in bad systems you get bad results. You have to water the flowers you want to grow.
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