Great leaders understand that historical success tends to produce stable and inwardly focused organizations, and these outfits, in turn, reinforce a feeling of contentment with the status quo.
John P. KotterRead
Leadership is always about change: it's not about mobilising people to do what they've always done well to continue to do it well.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Leadership involves instigating change rather than maintaining the status quo.
This quote emphasizes that true leadership is not about simply rallying people to continue performing tasks they are already proficient at, but about inspiring them to embrace and drive change. A leader's role is to guide others through transformations that enhance growth, innovation, and overall effectiveness.
Themes
LeadershipChangeTransformationInnovation
In practice
Example use cases
In a corporate training session when discussing the importance of adapting to change.
More from John P. Kotter
All quotes →We are always creating new tools and techniques to help people, but the fundamental framework is remarkably resilient, which means it must have something to do with the nature of organizations or human nature.
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Managers are trained to make incremental, programmatic improvements. They aren't trained to lead large-scale change.
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Because management deals mostly with the status quo and leadership deals mostly with change, in the next century we are going to have to try to become much more skilled at creating leaders.
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Outsiders have the intuitive ability to continually view problems in fresh ways and to identify ineffective practices and traditions.
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Those in leadership positions who fail to grasp or use the power of stories risk failure for their companies and for themselves.
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