Ronald A. Heifetz Quotes

Most people instinctively follow a dominant trend in an organization or community, without critical evaluation of its merits. The herd instinct is strong.

Your behavior reflects your actual purposes.

I think that notion of leadership is bankrupt.

In the heat of leadership, with the adrenaline pumping, it is easy to convince yourself that you are not subject to the normal human frailties that can defeat ordinary mortals. You begin to act as if you are indestructible. But the intellectual, physical, and emotional challenges of leadership are fierce. So, in addition to getting on the being and assess the tolls those changes are taking. If you don't, your seemingly indestructible self can self-destruct. This, by the way, is an ideal outcome for your foes-and even friends who oppose your initiative- because no one has to feel responsible for your downfall.
_________
When you take "personal" attacks personally, you unwittingly conspire in one of the common ways you can be taken out of action-you make yourself the issue.
Attacks may be personal, understand that they are basically attacks on positions you represent and the role you are seeking to play

Stay diagnostic even as you take action.

But to practice leadership, you need to accept that you are in the business of generating chaos, confusion, and conflict

And leadership then is about mobilizing and engaging the people with the problem rather than trying to anesthetize them so you can go off and solve it on your own.

Knowing how the environment is pulling your strings and playing you is critical to making responsive rather than reactive moves.

Your inspiration taps hidden reserves of promise that sustain people through times that induce despair. You enable people to envision a future that sustains the best from their past while also holding out new possibilities.

Your silence creates a vacuum for others to fill The key is to stay present and keep listening. The silence of holding steady is different from the silence of holding back.

You stay alive in the practice of leadership by reducing the extent to which you become the target of people's frustrations. The best way to stay out of range is to think constantly about giving the work back to the people who need to take responsibility. Place the work within and between the factions who are faced with the challenge, and tailor your interventions so they are unambiguous and have a context.

To diagnose a system or yourself while in the midst of action requires the ability to achieve some distance from those on-the-ground events. We use the metaphor of "getting on the balcony" above the "dance floor" to depict what it means to gain the distanced perspective you need to see what is really happening.

The improvisational ability to lead adaptively relies on responding to the present situation rather than importing the past into the present and laying it on the current situation like an imperfect template.

Exercising adaptive leadership is about giving meaning to your life beyond your own ambition.

Progress on problems is the measure of leadership; leaders mobilize people to face problems, and communities make progress on problems because leaders challenge them and help them to do so.

Yesterday's adaptations are today's routines.

The activity of interpreting might be understood as listening for the 'song beneath the words.

Worry not that your child listens to you; worry most that they watch you.

When you lead people through difficult change, you take them on an emotional roller coaster because you are asking them to relinquish something - a belief, a value, a behavior - that they hold dear. People can stand only so much change at any one time.

What happened has hurt us. Now you have to work this out.