When you get right down to it, one of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people’s excuse for failure.
Robert Townsend (1920-1998) American business executive and author
Further Up the Organization (1984)
Quotations about:
manager
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Never push loyal people to the point where they don’t give a damn.
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
(Attributed)
A close variant, sometimes identified with Drucker: "Never push a loyal person to the point where they no longer care."
The leader holds his position purely because he is able to appeal to the conscience and to the reason of those who support him, and the boss holds his position because he appeals to fear of punishment and hope of reward. The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech, Binghamton, New York (24 Oct 1910)
Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right. Both roles are critical, but they differ profoundly. I often observe people in top positions doing the wrong things well.
Warren Bennis (1925-2014) American scholar, business consultant, author
Why Leaders Can’t Lead, ch. 2 (1989)
Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes. Problems are extracted from messes by analysis. Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes.
Russell L. Ackoff (1919-2009) American organizational theorist, consultant, management scientist
“The future of operational research is past,” The Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol 30, pp.93-104. (1979)
I do not deny that most managers lack a good deal of information that they should have, but I do deny that this is the most important informational deficiency from which they suffer. It seems to me that they suffer more from an overabundance of irrelevant information.
Russell L. Ackoff (1919-2009) American organizational theorist, consultant, management scientist
“Management Misinformation Systems,” Management Sciences (Dec 1967)
An excellent master is always better than an excellent law. Let your laws be ever so good, if the lawmakers are bad, all will come to nothing.
Thomas Brooks (1608-1680) English Puritan divine, writer
Heaven on Earth (1654)
I admire men of character, and I judge character not by how men deal with their superiors, but mostly how they deal with their subordinates, and that, to me, is where you find out what the character of a man is.
Norman Schwarzkopf (1934-2012) American military leader
Journal-World (27 March 1991)
