Robert Townsend 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.

True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers not the enrichment of the leaders.

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

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.

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.

Getting there isn't half the fun, it's all the fun.

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

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

The artist must conceive with warmth yet execute with coolness.

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.