Leaders must lead from what they believe. The first leadership commitment is to clarify your values, then find your voice: express them in your own style. Use dialogue to discover and affirm the values which are shared in the organization, the team. The second leadership commitment, set the example, requires you to align your personal actions with the team values: this earns you the right and the respect to lead. Teach others to do the same. People first follow the person, then the plan.
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
Inspiring Quotes …
By attitude and by action, you will earn the trust of your constituents.
Kouzes & Posner
A tree is known by its fruit.
Old Proverb
Corporations don’t make the ultimate decisions about ethics. Ethical choices
M. Euel Wade, Jr.
are made by individuals.
Character is what you do when no one’s watching.
Russell Gough
Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Abraham Lincoln
Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it’s the only thing.
Albert Schweitzer, German theologian, musician, and medical missionary
Follow the three R’s:
Dalai Lama
Respect for self
Respect for others, and
Responsibility for all your actions.
I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble.
Rudyard Kipling
Hold your head high. Look the world straight in the eye.
Helen Keller, 1880 – 1968, American author, political activist and lecturer. The first deaf/blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree
Enduring character is built with adversity and builds over time. It isn’t something you just acquire.
Neil Livingstone
I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion’s roar.
Sir Winston Churchill
If I’m not learning something new every day, I’m not doing my job.
John A. Williams
Don’t wait for people to be friendly, show them how.
Henry James
If you don’t stand up for something, you will fall for anything.
Unattributed
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
Author Unknown
If you want to feel proud of yourself, you’ve got to DO things you can be
Oseola McCarty
proud of. Feelings follow actions.
In ambiguous situations (i.e., no value has been expressed), behaviors are likely to be interpreted negatively.
Kouzes & Posner
My life is my message.
Mahatma Ghandi
Integrity is not a 99% thing, not a 95% thing. Either you have or you don’t.
Peter Scotese
Never take a person’s dignity: it is worth everything to them, and nothing to you.
Frank Barron
Never look down on anyone unless you are helping them up.
Author Unknown
People hear what we say, but they see what we do. And seeing is believing.
Unascribed
Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
Dalai Lama
Our greatest illusion is to believe that we are what we think ourselves to be.
H. F. Amiel, Swiss Philosopher, 1821-1881
The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.
Anne Frank
Some people are likeable in spite of their unswerving integrity.
Don Marquis
The time is always right to do what is right.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The most important conversation you will have is the one you have with yourself.
Unattributed
The strongest oak in the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.
Napoleon Hill, American Author
Thought is action in rehearsal.
Sigmund Freud
The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.
Ernest Hemingway
There are two great days in a person’s life – the day we are born and the day we discover why.
William Barclay
Watch your thoughts . . . they become words.
Frank Outlaw
Watch your words . . . they become actions.
Watch your actions . . . they become habits.
Watch your habits . . . they become character.
Watch your character . . . it becomes your destiny.
You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.
Jim Rohn, American Entrepreneur and Author
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
Dr. Carl Rogers
Vision without action is meaningless.
Unascribed
We judge ourselves mostly by our intentions, but others judge us by our actions.
Unascribed
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.
Aristotle
Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.
Ernest Hemingway
What we do in life echoes in eternity.
Maximus, Roman Gladiator
We must be the change we wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Ghandi
When you break a promise, more than the promise gets broken.
Unascribed
When values are clear, decisions are easy.
Roy Disney
You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.
John Wooden
You earn the right to expect others to do things by doing those things yourself.
Unascribed
Whether you think you can or think you can’t – you are right.
Henry Ford
… knows the meaning of what is sweet in life and of what is terrible and then goes out undeterred to meet what is to come.
Pericles