Max De Pree famous quotes

In the end, it is important to remember that we cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.
-- Max De Pree

#Leadership #Important #Needs

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.
-- Max De Pree

#Leadership #Responsibility #Reality

The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers. Are the followers reaching their potential? Are they learning? Serving? Do they achieve the required results? Do they change with grace? Manage conflict?
-- Max De Pree

#Learning #Grace #Followers

We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion.
-- Max De Pree

#Beautiful #Healing #Exercise

We can teach ourselves to see things the way they ARE. Only with vision can we begin to see things the way they CAN BE.
-- Max De Pree

#Vision #Way #Teach

We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet; and amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog has made an alliance with us.
-- Max De Pree

#Friendship #Dog #Alliances

We do not grow by knowing all of the answers, but rather by living with the questions.
-- Max De Pree

#Knowing #Listening #Answers

In some South Pacific cultures, a speaker holds a conch shell as a symbol of temporary position of authority. Leaders must understand who holds the conch-that is, who should be listened to and when.
-- Max De Pree

#Leader #Listening #Shells

Leaders should be able to Stand Alone, Take the Heat, Bear the Pain, Tell the Truth, and Do What's Right
-- Max De Pree

#Pain #Leader #Able

In most vital organizations, there is a common bond of interdependence, mutual interest, interlocking contributions, and simple joy.
-- Max De Pree

#Simple #Organization #Community

Change without continuity is chaos. Continuity without change is sloth-and very risky.
-- Max De Pree

#Change #Sloth #Chaos

The greatest thing is, at any moment, to be willing to give up who we are in order to become all that we can be.
-- Max De Pree

#Inspirational #Letting Go #Giving Up

There may be no single thing more important in our efforts to achieve meaningful work and fulfilling relationships than to learn to practice the art of communication.
-- Max De Pree

#Life #Motivational #Success

Leadership is liberating people to do what is required of them in the most effective and humane way possible.
-- Max De Pree

#People #Way #Humane

In addition to all of the ratios and goals and parameters and bottom lines, it is fundamental that leaders endorse a concept of persons. This begins with an understanding of the diversity of people's gifts and talents and skills. Recognizing diversity gives us the chance to provide meaning, fulfillment and purpose, which are not to be relegated solely to private life any more than such things as love, beauty and joy. The art of leadership lies in polishing and liberating and enabling those gifts.
-- Max De Pree

#Art #Lying #Love Is

Without forgiveness, there can be no real freedom to act within a group.
-- Max De Pree

#Teamwork #Real #Groups

We talk about the quality of product and service. What about the quality of our relationships and the quality of our communications and the quality of our promises to each other?
-- Max De Pree

#Communication #Funny Relationship #Promise

Intimacy is at the heart of competence. It has to do with understanding, with believing, and with practice. It has to do with the relationship to one's work.
-- Max De Pree

#Believe #Heart #Practice

We see a decline of civility, and, sadly, it’s often modeled by the very people from whom we have the least right to expect it.
-- Max De Pree

#People #Civility #Decline

Sometimes we think we're a little too gifted to show up, yo uknow. But none of us truly is...By avoiding risk we really risk what's most important in life---reaching toward growth, our potential, and a true contribution to a common good.
-- Max De Pree

#Thinking #Risk #Growth

The simple act of recognizing diversity in corporate life helps us to connect the great variety of gifts that people bring to the work and service of the corporation.
-- Max De Pree

#Simple #Diversity #People

Earning trust is not easy, nor is it cheap, nor does it happen quickly. Earning trust is hard and demanding work. Trust comes only with genuine effort, never with a lick and a promise.
-- Max De Pree

#Effort #Promise #Earning

When we think about the people with whom we work, people on whom we depend, we can see that without each individual, we are not going to go very far as a group. By ourselves, we suffer serious limitations. Together we can be something wonderful.
-- Max De Pree

#Thinking #Diversity #People

The key elements in the art of working together are how to deal with change, how to deal with conflict, and how to reach our potential...the needs of the team are best met when we meet the needs of individual persons.
-- Max De Pree

#Teamwork #Art #Keys

A friend of mine characterizes leaders simply like this: Leaders don't inflict pain. They bear pain.
-- Max De Pree

#Inspirational #Motivational #Pain

No question about it: potential is wrapped in great mystery. Like rainbows, which are really circles-we see only the upper halves, the horizon hides the rest-potential never reveals its entirety.
-- Max De Pree

#Circles #Rainbow #Coaching

A whale is as unique as a cactus. But don't ask a whale to survive Death Valley. We all have special gifts. Where we use them and how determines whether we actually complete something.
-- Max De Pree

#Unique #Whales #Diversity

A short term view will lead to a partial and perhaps twisted view of the whole picture. A crucial element may be missing. We may not be running the entire race. A friend of mine described a colleague as great at running the "ninety-five yard dash." That is a distinction I can do without. Lacking the last five yards makes the first ninety-five pointless. In fact, serious runners thing of it as a 110 yard dash so that no one will best them in the last few yards. You've got to think beyond the whole.
-- Max De Pree

#Friendship #Running #Thinking

To be a leader means, especially, having the opportunity to make a meaningful difference in the lives of those who permit leaders to lead.
-- Max De Pree

#Meaningful #Opportunity #Differences

Everyone in a successful organization must be willing and ready to risk. Risk is like change; it's not a choice.
-- Max De Pree

#Successful #Organization #Choices

From a leader's perspective, the most serious betrayal has to do with thwarting human potential, with quenching the spirit, with failing to deal equitably with each other as human beings.
-- Max De Pree

#Betrayal #Perspective #Leader

The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers.
-- Max De Pree

#Motivational #Followers #Outstanding

If you want the best things to happen in corporate life you have to find ways to be hospitable to the unusual person. You don't get innovation as a democratic process. You almost get it as an anti-democratic process. Certainly you get it as an antithetical process, so you have to have an environment where the body of people are really amenable to change and can deal with the conflicts that arise out of change an innovation.
-- Max De Pree

#People #Innovation #Body

Innovation is the lifeblood of an organization. Knowing how to lead and work with creative people requires knowledge and action that often goes against the typical organizational structure. Protect unusual people from bureaucracy and legalism typical of organizations.
-- Max De Pree

#Organization #Knowing #People

Leadership is much more an art, a belief, a condition of the heart, than a set of things to do.
-- Max De Pree

#Art #Heart #Belief

The leader is the servant who removes the obstacles that prevent people from doing their jobs.
-- Max De Pree

#Jobs #People #Leader

Leaders don't inflict pain - they share pain.
-- Max De Pree

#Pain #Leader #Share

Jazz, like leadership, combines the unpredictability of the future with the gifts of individuals.
-- Max De Pree

#Jazz #Individual #Unpredictability

A team of giants needs giant pitchers who throw good ideas but every pitcher needs an outstanding catcher. Without giant catchers, the ideas of the giant pitchers may eventually disappear.
-- Max De Pree

#Baseball #Team #Ideas

Leaders should leave behind them assets and a legacy.
-- Max De Pree

#Leader #Legacy #Should