If you're interested in the job and in the kind of work that's done, you have to have an interest in who's going to fill your shoes.
Interpretation
True leadership involves caring about the future and who will carry on the work after you.
In this quote, John Paul Stevens emphasizes the importance of succession in leadership. A responsible leader shouldn't only focus on their current role but also consider who will take over and carry forward the mission. This approach fosters a culture of mentorship and ensures that the values and quality of work continue beyond one's tenure.
In practice
In a team meeting about succession planning, you could mention this quote to emphasize the importance of mentoring future leaders.
It might be added that corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their ‘personhood’ often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.
But I wound like people to think I was an honest judge and a good judge. And I always tried the reach the best result in every case.
It is not our job to apply laws that have not yet been written.
I think this country would be much better off if we did not have capital punishment.... We cannot ignore the fact that in recent years a disturbing number of inmates on death row have been exonerated.
While money is used to finance speech, money is not speech.
But I really think it's a very unfortunate part of our judicial system and I would feel much, much better if more states would really consider whether they think the benefits outweigh the very serious potential injustice, because in these cases the emotions are very, very high on both sides and to have stakes as high as you do in these cases, there is a special potential for error. We cannot ignore the fact that in recent years a disturbing number of inmates on death row have been exonerated.
I feel a real sense of duty to use the voice and the platform I've been afforded by my fame to speak out for those whose voices don't get a chance to be heard.
Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.
I would hope that American managers-indeed, managers worldwide-continue to appreciate what I have been saying almost from day one: that management is so much more than exercising rank and privilege, that it is much more than "making deals." Management affects people and their lives.
A country of a thousand war-chariots cannot be administered unless the ruler attends strictly to business, punctually observes his promises, is economical in expenditure, loves the people, and uses the labor of the peasantry only at the proper times of year.
In millions of encounters each year between the police and the public, it may be too much to expect that every officer will always get it right. But it is not too much to expect that we can put the right safeguards in place to hold officers accountable when they get it wrong.
The best way to revive a church is to build a fire in the pulpit.
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