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Making good judgments when one has complete data, facts, and knowledge is not leadership - it's bookkeeping
Dee Hock
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Interpretation

What this quote means

True leadership involves making decisions with incomplete information, rather than just relying on data and facts.

Dee Hock's quote emphasizes that leadership transcends merely managing data and information. Effective leaders often must navigate uncertainty and ambiguity, relying on intuition, vision, and values rather than just analyzing complete sets of facts. This highlights that leadership is about guiding and inspiring others in complex situations, not just about being able to record and manage data accurately, which is the role of bookkeeping.

Themes

LeadershipDecision-MakingDataFactsJudgmentInfluence

In practice

Example use cases

In a leadership seminar, to illustrate the importance of intuition in decision-making.

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Money motivates neither the best people, nor the best in people. It can move the body and influence the mind, but it cannot touch the heart or move the spirit; that is reserved for belief, principle, and morality.
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We are now at a point in time when the ability to receive, utilize, store, transform and transmit data - the lowest cognitive form - has expanded literally beyond comprehension. Understanding and wisdom are largely forgotten as we struggle under an avalanche of data and information.
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If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself - your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers.
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You learn nothing form your successes except to think too much of yourself. It is from failure that all growth comes, provided you can recognize it, admit it, learn from it, rise above it, and then try again.
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It is not making better people of others that management is about. It's about making a better person of self. Income, power, and titles have nothing to do with that.
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Never hire or promote in your own image. It is foolish to replicate your strength and idiotic to replicate your weakness. It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom.
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