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Warren Bennis Quotes

Warren Gamaliel Bennis was an American scholar, organizational consultant and author, widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of Leadership studies.

Bennis was University Professor and Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and Founding Chairman of The Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California."His work at MIT in the 1960s on group behavior foreshadowed -- and helped bring about -- today's headlong plunge into less hierarchical, more democratic and adaptive institutions, private and public," management expert Tom Peters wrote in 1993 in the foreword to Bennis' An Invented Life: Reflections on Leadership and Change.Management expert James O'Toole, in a 2005 issue of Compass, published by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, claimed that Bennis developed "an interest in a then-nonexistent field that he would ultimately make his own -- leadership -- with the publication of his 'Revisionist Theory of Leadership' in Harvard Business Review in 1961." O'Toole observed that Bennis challenged the prevailing wisdom by showing that humanistic, democratic-style leaders are better suited to dealing with the complexity and change that characterize the leadership environment. Wikipedia  

✵ 8. March 1925 – 31. July 2014
Warren Bennis: 11 quotes1 like

Famous Warren Bennis Quotes

“Leaders encourage reflective backtalk. Norbert Wiener told me, “I never know what I say until I hear the response.” Leaders know the importance of having someone in their lives who will unfailingly and fearlessly tell them the truth.”

Warren Bennis

Warren G. Bennis (2009) On Becoming a Leader. p. 190
2000s

“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.”

Warren Bennis

Warren Bennis, cited in: Dianna Daniels Booher (1991) Executive's portfolio of model speeches for all occasions. p. 34
1990s

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”

Warren Bennis

Peter Drucker, and Warren Bennis, as quoted in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989) by Stephen R. Covey, p. 101
1980s

“The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.”

Warren Bennis

Warren G. Bennis; As cited in: Mark Fisher (1991) The millionaire's book of quotations. p. 15
1990s

“Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.”

Warren Bennis

Warren Bennis cited in: Cecil O. Kemp, Jr. (2000) Wisdom Honor & Hope: The Inner Path to True Greatness. p. 207
2000s

“The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.”

Warren Bennis

Bennis (1989, p. 45), cited in: Terrence Mech, ‎Gerard B. McCabe (1998) Leadership and Academic Librarians. p. 56
1980s

“A new leader has to be able to change an organization that is dreamless, soulless and visionless … someone's got to make a wake up call.”

Warren Bennis

Warren Bennis, in Reinventing Leadership : Strategies to Empower the Organization (2005), by Warren G. Bennis and Robert Townsend, p. 91
2000s

“We have more information now than we can use, and less knowledge and understanding than we need. Indeed, we seem to collect information because we have the ability to do so, but we are so busy collecting it that we haven’t devised a means of using it. The true measure of any society is not what it knows but what it does with what it knows.”

Warren Bennis

Warren G. Bennis (1990) Why leaders can't lead: the unconscious conspiracy continues. p. 143
1990s

Warren Bennis Quotes about people

“Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens, people feel centered and that gives their work meaning.”

Warren Bennis

Warren Bennis (1999) Managing People Is Like Herding Cats. p. 89
1990s

“Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing. Both roles are crucial, and they differ profoundly. I often observe people in top positions doing the wrong things well.”

Warren Bennis

Bennis Warren and Burt Nanus (1985) Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge. Harper and Row. p. 21
1980s

“The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born — that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born. And the way we become leaders is by learning about leadership through life and job experiences, not with university degrees.”

Warren Bennis

Warren Bennis (1999) Managing People Is Like Herding Cats. p. 163
1990s

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