So I went looking for quotes about wisdom and found so many good ones that I’ll post the rest next week.

The thing about wisdom is that it transcends street smarts and learning. As Sandra Carey says, “Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.”

Wisdom, like charity, begins at home; Gian Carlo Menotti put it this way, “A man only becomes wise when he begins to calculate the approximate depth of his ignorance.”

Anon clarifies that advice and takes it a step further, “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

Plato said, “Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.” Maybe that explains all those talking heads and sound bites that pass for wisdom these days.

Once you achieve even a modicum of wisdom you can’t count on it being permanent. Kahlil Gibran understood that when he said, “Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.”

But, as usual, at least for me, it’s Lao Tzu who really hits the nail on wisdom’s head, “Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.” Sadly, it seems that the higher you go the fewer people take the time for enlightenment.

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Post from: Leadership Turn

C. Northolt Parkinson said, “The man whose life is devoted to paperwork has lost the initiative. He is dealing with things that are brought to his notice, having ceased to notice anything for himself.” And sometimes he doesn’t even do that.

Initiative means doing, not just noticing; Henry Ford understood that when he said, “You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.”

Initiative is what moves you forward; it’s what gets you off your butt so you can accomplish whatever you choose.

Several hundred years ago Johann Wolfgang von Goethe put it this way, “Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.” Or you can follow the less poetic version from Zig Ziglar, “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” (Personally I prefer Goethe; beauty in words doesn’t dilute the meaning.)

Initiative doesn’t stay with one person, no matter the position, nor does it end when the original action is complete. As Lao Tzu put it 4500 years ago, “What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.” And butterflies go on to live another whole life.

All actions should be valued, whether great or small. After all, without the humble caterpillar there would be no butterfly.

But my favorite view of initiative comes from Holbrook Jackson when he said, “Genius is initiative on fire.”

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People crave power relative to their image of themselves. What seems like a small amount to you may be enormous to another.

According to Margaret Thatcher, “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”

Alice Walker warns that “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”

Of course, a lot of people have just quit thinking, so they don’t have to worry about their power.

Francis Bacon tells us that “Knowledge is power,” but doesn’t mention that knowledge requires more than book-leaning and texting.

Napoleon said “Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.” Wow, he would make a great hedge fund manager, don’t you think?

Abraham Lincoln warns that “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

Sadly, most have failed the test.

As usual, the best wisdom about power is old.

In the mid 1600s Blaise Pascal said, “Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just,” but it will be a cold day in hell when that happens.

But It was Lao Tzu who best summed up power 2500 years ago when he said, “He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.”

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Friday we lost one of the few people left in the world that people trusted without question.

Friday Walter Cronkite died.

I became a thinking adult watching him deliver the news starting in 1962 and when he stepped down in 1981 I stopped watching TV news—I wanted intelligence and objectivity, not image and opinions.

How can those of us who are familiar with Cronkite convey what he did for us? How do we explain to a generation that thinks bloggers, Howard Stern and morning TV are viable news sources what Walter Cronkite gave us?

Walter Cronkite understood the meaning behind Lao Tzu’s words, “To lead the people, walk behind them.”

Here are a few of his comments that I especially like…

“I feel no compulsion to be a pundit.”

“In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story.”

“I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that.”

“We are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders.”

“America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.”

“I want to say that probably 24 hours after I told CBS that I was stepping down at my 65th birthday, I was already regretting it. And I regretted it every day since.”

I hope all of you will click the link and read more about this truly unique man; our country would be different without him.

I know of no better words with which to end today then as Cronkite ended each of his news shows—

“And that’s the way it is.”

Image credit: CBS on YouTube

Post from: Leadership Turn

Jim Stroup at Managing Leadership describes it well.

“Initially the gurus told us that leadership was a superlative individual characteristic reserved to the elite, then a democratically distributed attribute accessible by all… first to vision, then decisiveness, then courage, then team-building skills, then forcefulness, then empathy. It’s about looking inward to one’s core self. No, it’s about communication and connecting with others.”

The list of leadership fashions is actually much longer than Jim’s list; different looks are marketed by different leadership houses and each has a name designer at the helm with more junior designers doing much of the actual work. Every so often one of these junior people leaves and starts her own house and so the industry grows.

Along with the major houses are the small independent designers who may be aligned philosophically with a larger house, but put their own spin on the product.

Just as fashionistas drive the cutting edge (which can be pretty weird) in clothes, anoint designers, models and wearers as icons and then trash them for being out of touch or too <whatever>, so, too, do leaderistas drive what’s fashionable in leadership, hold icons up for adulation, dump them from their pedestals when their feet soften and switch when more trendy designs comes along.

The greatest difference is that fashion products are made of real stuff, while leadership products are built of words.

Consider Lao Tzu, who, 2500 years ago said,

“The superior leader gets things done with very little motion. He imparts instruction not through many words but through a few deeds. He keeps informed about everything but interferes hardly at all. He is a catalyst, and though things would not get done well if he weren’t there, when they succeed he takes no credit. And because he takes no credit, credit never leaves him.”

and

“As for the best leaders,
the people do not notice their existence…
When the best leader’s work is done,
the people say, “We did it ourselves!”
To lead the people, walk behind the.”

In 1987 The Leadership Challenge presented the 5 Practices of Leadership

• Model the Way
• Inspire a Shared Vision
• Challenge the Process
• Enable Others to Act
• Encourage the Heart

These days the hot terms are thought leadership and servant leadership.

If you’re getting tired of the leaderistas go back to Lao Tzu’s Tao Teh Ching; I have a copy that, measured in inches, is 4.5×3x3/8 in an easily readable font.

It will rev up your brain, sink into your MAP, juice your leadership abilities and add peace to your soul—not bad for a book you can put in your pocket.

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Post from: Leadership Turn

Bennet Simonton, when commenting on a recent post, said, “I like your Lao Tzu quote, by the way. I also like these two.”

“The consummate leader cultivates the moral law and strictly adheres to its methods and discipline.
The moral law causes people to be in complete accord with their ruler so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.” –Sun Tzu 400-320 BC (I’m not a lover of the Art of War. Leaders aren’t (shouldn’t be?) rulers.)

“You Should Value People Most, Yourself As Leader The Least.” –Mencius 400BC (Love this one. Any ideas on how to sell this to today’s oversize corporate egos?)

What’s your favorite description of a leader?

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Post from: Leadership Turn

There’s a common thread that runs through leadership teachings starting at least 2500 years ago with Lao Tzu, who said,

The superior leader gets things done with very little motion. He imparts instruction not through many words but through a few deeds. He keeps informed about everything but interferes hardly at all. He is a catalyst, and though things would not get done well if he weren’t there, when they succeed he takes no credit. And because he takes no credit, credit never leaves him.

and

As for the best leaders,
the people do not notice their existence…
When the best leader’s work is done,
the people say, “We did it ourselves!”
To lead the people, walk behind them

Fast forward to 1987 and you have The 5 Practices of leadership from The Leadership Challenge,

• Model the Way
• Inspire a Shared Vision
• Challenge the Process
• Enable Others to Act
• Encourage the Heart

Today the hot terms are thought leadership and servant leadership.

The thread that runs through all this is that leadership is all about ‘them’, not about ‘me’—another reason that ‘politician’ and ‘leader’ are an oxymoron.

The other common thread is that leadership isn’t about what you do.

Leadership is about your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™); it’s who you are.

Leadership is open to all, no matter what you do, at work or personally, you have opportunities to lead.

So the real question isn’t do you practice leadership, it’s are you a leader or a meader?

Which do you work for? Which are you?

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Post from: Leadership Turn