You acquire more influence with young people when you give up using your power to control them...and the more you use your power to try to control people the less influence you'll have on their lives.
Interpretation
Influence is gained through trust and connection rather than through control and authority.
This quote emphasizes that true leadership involves nurturing relationships rather than exerting control. When leaders relinquish their desire to dominate others, they foster a more genuine influence that inspires young people to follow their guidance willingly, ultimately leading to more impactful connections and greater respect.
In practice
In a workshop on youth leadership, this quote can illustrate the importance of trust over authority.
It is one of those simple but beautiful paradoxes of life: When a person feels that he is truly accepted by another, as he is, then he is freed to move from there and to begin to think about how he wants to change, how we wants to grow, how he can become different, how he might become more of what he is capable of being.
In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it.
It is essential to understand that battles are primarily won in the hearts of men. Men respond to leadership in a most remarkable way and once you have won his heart, he will follow you anywhere.
It takes courage for a leader to identify and confront self-imposed barriers, to put in place the personal strategies required to unleash the energy, innovation, and commitment to self-development.
I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to everyone.'
If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.
I believe we need leaders who actually want to lead everyone.
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