Robert Townsend famous quotes

A leader is not an administrator who loves to run others, but someone who carries water for his people so that they can get on with their jobs.
-- Robert Townsend

#Leadership #Running #Jobs

If you don't do it excellently, don't do it at all. Because if it's not excellent, it won't be profitable or fun.
-- Robert Townsend

#Fun #Excellence #Excellent

Consultants are people who borrow your watch and tell you what time it is, and then walk off with the watch.
-- Robert Townsend

#Business #People #Watches

If people are coming to work excited. . . if they're making mistakes freely and fearlessly. . . if they're having fun. . . if they're concentrating on doing things rather than preparing reports and going to meetings-then somewhere you have leaders.
-- Robert Townsend

#Leadership #Fun #Mistake

It's been my experience that the people who gain trust, loyalty, excitement, and energy fast are the ones who pass on the credit to the people who have really done the work. A leader doesnt need any credit... He's getting more credit than he deserves anyway.
-- Robert Townsend

#Motivational #Loyalty #People

A good manager doesn't try to eliminate conflict; he tries to keep it from wasting the energies of his people. If you're the boss and your people fight you openly when they think that you are wrong - that's healthy.
-- Robert Townsend

#Fighting #Thinking #People

An idea's worth is directly proportional to the opposition created.
-- Robert Townsend

#Ideas #Opposition

When you get right down to it, one of the most important tasks of a leader is to eliminate his people's excuse for failure.
-- Robert Townsend

#Leadership #Failure #People

The world is divided into two classes of people: the few people who make good on their promises (even if they don't promise as much), and the many who don't. Get in Column A and stay there. You'll be very valuable wherever you are.
-- Robert Townsend

#Class #Two #People

Due to budget cutbacks, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.
-- Robert Townsend

#Business #Tunnels #Light

Don't hire a master to paint you a masterpiece and then assign a roomful of schoolboy artists to look over his shoulder and make suggestions.
-- Robert Townsend

#Artist #Suggestions #Looks

Compromise is usually bad. It should be a last resort. If two departments or divisions have a problem they can't solve and it comes up to you, listen to both sides and then pick one or the other. This places solid accountability on the winner to make it work. Condition your people to avoid compromise.
-- Robert Townsend

#Business #Mistake #Two

To keep an organization young and fit, don't hire anyone until everybody's so overworked they'll be glad to see the newcomer no matter where he sits.
-- Robert Townsend

#Organization #Luck #Matter

Managers must have the discipline not to keep pulling up the flowers to see if their roots are healthy.
-- Robert Townsend

#Flower #Roots #Discipline

"Top" management is supposed to be a tree full of owls-hooting when management heads into the wrong part of the forest. I'm still unpersuaded they even know where the forest is.
-- Robert Townsend

#Top Management #Tree #Owl

It's a poor bureaucrat who can't stall a good idea until even its sponsor is relieved to see it dead and officially buried.
-- Robert Townsend

#Ideas #Poor #Sponsors

A good leader needs to have a compass in his head and a bar of steel in his heart.
-- Robert Townsend

#Inspirational #Heart #Leader

Make every decision as if you owned the company.
-- Robert Townsend

#Decision #Company #Ifs

Is what I'm doing or about to do getting us closer to our objective?
-- Robert Townsend

#Time #Focus #Priorities

Getting there isn't half the fun - it's all the fun.
-- Robert Townsend

#Fun #Half

If you have to have a policy manual, publish the 'Ten Commandments.'
-- Robert Townsend

#Policy #Ten Commandments #Manuals

We know there is a problem with communication but we are not going to discuss it in front of the entire staff.
-- Robert Townsend

#Business #Communication #Management

The artist must conceive with warmth yet execute with coolness.
-- Robert Townsend

#Art #Artist #Coolness