How can any company know if its processes, products, people are safe? Only if everyone is watching and telling the truth. The first part can be assumed; the second cannot.
Margaret HeffernanRead
Bosses and leaders everywhere should cherish the people who bring them bad news, disappointing data or hard problems.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Leaders should value those who provide them with difficult truths and challenges.
This quote emphasizes the importance of transparency and honesty in leadership. It suggests that true leaders appreciate the individuals who deliver bad news or highlight problems, as these challenges are crucial for growth and improvement. By cherishing such people, leaders can foster a culture of open communication and trust, ultimately leading to better decision-making and organizational success.
Themes
LeadershipCommunicationTransparencyTrustHonesty
In practice
Example use cases
In a leadership seminar discussing the importance of feedback.
More from Margaret Heffernan
All quotes βMost executives I know are so action-oriented, or action-addicted, that time for reflection is the first casualty of their success.
Margaret HeffernanRead
Once you have power, you are inevitably surrounded by people who have their own agendas and will tell you whatever advances them.
Margaret HeffernanRead
If the company depends entirely on you - your creativity, ingenuity, inspiration, salesmanship or charisma - nobody will want to buy it. The risk and the dependency are too great.
Margaret HeffernanRead
Those in powerless positions aren't about to complain about bullying bosses, abusive supervisors or corrupt co-workers. There is no safe way to do so and no process that promises redress.
Margaret HeffernanRead
[For constructive conflict,] we have to resist the neurobiological drive which means that we really prefer people mostly like ourselves.
Margaret HeffernanRead
Similar quotes
My father's leadership was about more than civil rights. He was deeply concerned with human rights and world peace, and he said so on numerous occasions. He was a civil rights leader, true. But he was increasingly focused on human rights and a global concern and peace as an imperative.
Martin Luther King IiiRead
It's not my job to motivate players. They bring extraordinary motivation to our program. It's my job not to de-motivate them.
Lou HoltzRead
Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle-dusters. If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt you, try. There is no way you can govern a Chinese society.
Lee Kuan YewRead
It would be counterproductive to tell people exactly what they are supposed to do and exactly how they are supposed to do it to a point where they become more concerned about your expectations than about completing their work in a quality way.
Douglas ConantRead
For most of us, fidelity is faithfulness to an obligation, trust, or duty. For the men and women of the FBI, fidelity also means fidelity to country. It means fidelity to justice and the law, fidelity to the Constitution, fidelity to equality and liberty.
Robert MuellerRead
Firstly, you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own respecting their propriety. Secondly, you must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king; and thirdly, you must hate a Frenchman, as you do the devil.
Horatio NelsonRead