Leadership flows from inner character and integrity of ambition, which inspires others to lend themselves to your organization's mission.
Interpretation
True leadership is rooted in personal integrity and character, inspiring others to commit to a shared vision.
In this quote, Frances Hesselbein emphasizes that effective leadership is not merely about authority or position, but about the depth of one's character and the integrity that drives their ambition. A leader who embodies these qualities can motivate others to embrace and support the goals of the organization, establishing a culture of trust and shared purpose.
In practice
During a team meeting, you can use this quote to emphasize the importance of character in leadership.
When people are speaking, they require our undivided attention. We focus on them; we listen very carefully. We listen to the spoken words and the unspoken messages. This means looking directly at the person, eyes connected; we forget we have a watch, just focusing for that moment on that person.
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.
Women are working for part or all of their adult lives now. The possibilities are limitless, but you need to prepare.
The real leader redefines or defines the mission in a very powerful way so that people understand it; it permeates the organization.
Leadership is not a basket of tricks or strategies or skills that you pull out. Leadership begins with the quality of the person.
Social-sector organizations have to be better managed than for-profit organizations... because they have no margin of error.
Great leaders understand that historical success tends to produce stable and inwardly focused organizations, and these outfits, in turn, reinforce a feeling of contentment with the status quo.
I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn't be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn't be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters - who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.
A leader's attitude is caught by his or her followers more quickly than his or her actions.
He who takes the oath today to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States only assumes the solemn obligation which every patriotic citizen . . . should share with him. . . . Your every voter, as surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust.
If you have to control people, you have to have an administrative force that does it. So in U.S. industry, even more than elsewhere, there's layer after layer of management - a kind of economic waste, but useful for control and domination. And the same is true in universities.
Contrary to popular wisdom, the mark of a great meeting is not how short it is or whether it ends on time. The key is whether it ends with clarity and commitment from participants.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.