We'll have a sales leader go run engineering. A lawyer go run business development. A business development leader go run our consumer operations. We're going to train a generalist group of leaders who know how to learn and operate in collaboration teamwork. I think that's the future of leadership.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of versatile leaders who can adapt and collaborate across various sectors.
John T. Chambers highlights the necessity of developing leaders who possess a broad skill set, rather than specialization. By encouraging leaders to gain experience in different roles, he suggests that this adaptability is crucial for future leadership in a collaborative environment. It reflects the evolving nature of leadership where understanding and working together across functions is paramount for success.
In practice
In a leadership seminar, this quote could be used to inspire new managers to embrace a versatile skill set.
Our success at Cisco has been defined by how we anticipate, capture, and lead through market transitions. Over the years, I've watched iconic companies disappear - Compaq, Sun Microsystems, Wang, Digital Equipment - as they failed to anticipate where the market was heading.
Never ask your employees to do something you wouldn't be willing to do yourself.
There are two types of companies: those that have been hacked, and those who don't know they have been hacked.
It's connectivity that really makes the industrial Internet work: it's giving the right information at the right time to the right person or right machine to make the right decision.
Widening the talent pipeline sufficiently will require a generational commitment to teaching math and science, providing technical training, and mentoring young people of all backgrounds so they understand the full range of possibilities that a career in technology affords.
The basic DNA we've got to implant in leaders now is adaptability: not to get wedded to the solution to a particular problem, because not only the problem but the solution changes day to day. Creating people who are hardwired for that is going to be our challenge for the future.
The Scoutmaster who is a hero to his boys holds a powerful lever to their development but at the same time brings a great responsibility on himself. They are quick enough to see the smallest characteristic about him, whether it be a virtue or a vice.
I believe that close association with one who refuses to compromise with circumstances he does not like, is an asset that can never be measured in terms of money.
In the scheme of our national government, the presidency is preeminently the people's office.
Leadership is not rank, privileges, title or money. It is responsibility.
Character creates consistency, and if your people know what they can expect from you, they will continue to look to you for leadership.
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