Best 51 quotes of Max De Pree on MyQuotes

Above all, leadership is a position of servanthood.

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

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.

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.

By ourselves we suffer serious limitations. Together we can be something wonderful.

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

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.

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

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.

History can't be left to fend for itself. For when it comes to history and beliefs and values, we turn our future on the lathe of the past.

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.

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

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.

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.

Integrity in all things precedes all else. The open demonstration of integrity is essential.

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

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.

Jazz, like leadership, combines the unpredictability of the future with the gifts of individuals.

Leaders don't inflict pain - they share pain.

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

Leadership is like third grade: it means repeating the significant things.

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

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

Leaders should leave behind them assets and a legacy.

Leaders who keep promises and followers who respond in kind create an opportunity generate enormous energy around their commitment to serve others.

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.

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.

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers.

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.

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

Trust comes only with genuine effort, never with a lick and a promise.

Trust grows when people see leaders translate their personal integrity into organizational fidelity. At the heart of fidelity lies truth-telling and promise-keeping.

Understanding and accepting diversity enables us to see that each of us is needed.. It also enables us to begin to think about being abandoned to the strengths of others, of admitting that we cannot know or do everything.

Understanding the diversity of our gifts enables us to begin taking the crucial step of trusting each other.

We can accomplish more together than we can alone.

We can choose to see life as a series of trials and tribulations, or we can choose to see life as an accumulation of treasures.

We cannot avoid growing old; but we can avoid growing cold.

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.

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.

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.

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?

When things go awry, trust powers the generators until the problem is fixed.

When trust permeates a ministry, great things are possible, not the least of which is an opportunity to reach the ministry's potential.

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.