Government is like an onion. To understand it, you have to peel through many different layers. Most outsiders never get beyond the first or second layer.
Warren G. BennisRead
If I had to reduce the responsibilities of a good follower to a single rule, it would be to speak truth to power.
Interpretation
A good follower should always have the courage to tell the truth, especially to those in power.
Warren G. Bennis emphasizes the importance of speaking up and being honest in the face of authority. This idea reflects the critical role that integrity and courage play in leadership and followership, suggesting that even those who are not in charge must contribute to accountability by challenging the status quo when necessary.
In practice
During a company meeting when discussing a controversial policy, you can use this quote to encourage team members to express their honest opinions.
Government is like an onion. To understand it, you have to peel through many different layers. Most outsiders never get beyond the first or second layer.
Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard.
To be authentic is literally to be your own author... to discover your own native energies and desires, and then to find your own way of acting on them.
The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.
Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work.
People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out.
If you don't understand that you work for your mislabeled 'subordinates,' then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny.
My desire to devolve authority has nothing to do with a wish to shirk responsibility.
Work hard to seem infallible and others will work to find our flaws. Admit our shortcomings and others will work to help us be infallible.
The worst of guardians is a cruel ruler. Beware of becoming one of them.
There is a new model of leadership in the world that rides on the premise that every single person in the organisation can be a leader. Titles are important for structure and order, but real power does not come from titles.
Power has to be insecure to be responsive.
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