A manager is not a person who can do the work better than his men; he is a person who can get his men to do the work better than he can.
Interpretation
A good manager excels at empowering and enabling their team rather than outpacing them in work performance.
This quote emphasizes the essence of effective leadership, which lies not in the ability to outperform one's subordinates, but in cultivating their strengths and guiding them to achieve superior results. It highlights that successful management is about fostering a collaborative environment where team members feel motivated and capable, ultimately leading to better overall performance.
In practice
This quote can be used in a leadership training workshop to illustrate the key qualities of a good manager.
Leadership is simply the ability of an individual to coalesce the efforts of other individuals toward achieving common goals. It boils down to looking after your people and ensuring that, from top to bottom, everyone feels part of the team.
Fear of failure must never be a reason not to try something.
If you look historically, what creates growth and wealth is innovation and investment, and increase in scale - more customers.
Information about the package is as important as the package itself.
When I left Dortmund, I said it's not important what people think when you come in but what they think when you leave.
The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years.
One is too small a number to achieve greatness. No accomplishment of real value has ever been achieved by a human being working alone.
Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what are we going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.
We deal, unfortunately, every single day with leaders of countries who are responsible for actions we find either objectionable or abhorrent, whether it's Vladimir Putin, whether it's Xi Jinping, whether it's any others on a long list of people I can name. But we find ways to deal with them.
When a president makes life and death decisions, he should draw strength and wisdom from broad and deep experience with the reasons for and the risks of committing our children to our defense. For no matter how many others are involved in the decision, the president is a lonely man in a dark room when the casualty reports come in.
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