People know that pursuing a mission without achieving results is dispiriting; achieving results without a mission is meaningless.
Interpretation
A meaningful mission drives motivation, while achieving results without purpose leads to emptiness.
Frances Hesselbein highlights the dual importance of having a mission and achieving results. While pursuit without accomplishment can lead to disillusionment, the opposite is equally true: achieving results devoid of a clear mission can feel hollow and unfulfilling. True fulfillment comes from aligning one's achievements with a meaningful purpose.
In practice
In a motivational speech, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of aligning career goals with personal values.
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.
Clever talk can confound the workings of virtue, just as small impatiences can confound great projects.
When the uncarved wood is split, its parts are put to use. When the sage is put to use, he becomes the head.
You have a conscience, and a conscience is a valuable attribute, but not if it begins to make you think you were to blame for what is far beyond the scope of your responsibility.
Do not trust all men, but trust men of worth; the former course is silly, the latter a mark of prudence.
Those who worship God only, can get rid of anxiety of mind; others cannot.
Living out here, I have found that many creatures would prefer not to fight. But if your first instinct is to reach for your sword, you will never discover that.
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