No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.
Interpretation
True leadership involves collaboration and sharing credit rather than seeking personal glory.
Andrew Carnegie emphasizes that effective leadership is not about individual accomplishment or recognition, but rather about empowering others and working as a team. A leader must be willing to share responsibilities and the success that comes with it, understanding that collaboration leads to greater achievements than solitary efforts can provide.
In practice
In a motivational speech about teamwork, I would use this quote to illustrate the importance of collaboration.
Give me the life of the boy whose mother is nurse, seamstress, washerwoman, cook, teacher, angel, and saint, all in one, and whose father is guide, exemplar, and friend. No servants to come between. These are the boys who are born to the best fortune.
To kill a man will be considered as disgusting [in the twentieth century] as we in this day consider it disgusting to eat one.
It is not the rich man's son that the young struggler for advancement has to fear in the race for life, nor his nephew, nor his cousin. Let him look out for the dark horse in the boy who begins by sweeping out the office.
You are what you think. So just think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big and live big.
Speculation is a parasite feeding upon values, creating none.
Don't be content with doing only your duty. Do more than your duty. It's the horse that finishes a neck ahead that wins the race.
Great leaders never accept the world as it was and always work for the world as it should be
I can't tell you how many resumes we get from business schools across the country from black women and black men and Hispanic women, men, etcetera, who say I'm interested in working for your company because they can see someone at the top who looks like them.
It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion
I adapt my idea of football to my players, not adapt my players in my idea of football. It's important because there are others players that must play. The players are the most important things in football. I adapt my idea within my players.
Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.
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.
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