If you are the master be sometimes blind, if you are the servant be sometimes deaf.
—Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American Inventor, Philosopher
Managing is like holding a dove in your hand. Squeeze too hard and you kill it, not hard enough and it flies away.
—Tommy Lasorda (1927–2021) American Baseball Player, Coach
Every time I appoint someone to a vacant position, I make a hundred unhappy and one ungrateful.
—Louis XIV of France (1638–1715) King of France
Make your top managers rich and they will make you rich.
—Robert S. Johnson (1920–98) American Military Leader
For a manager to be perceived as a positive manager, they need a four to one positive to negative contact ratio.
—Ken Blanchard (b.1939) American Author, Management Consultant
Most management-speak is, as Schrijvers points out, Panglossian balderdash designed to lull the weak and credulous
—Anonymous
Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
Managers thinking about accounting issues should never forget one of Abraham Lincoln’s favorite riddles: How many legs does a dog have, if you call a tail a leg? The answer: Four, because calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.
—Warren Buffett (b.1930) American Investor
One cannot manage too many affairs: like pumpkins in the water, one pops up while you try to hold down the other.
—Chinese Proverb
Are you a serial idea-starting person? The goal is to be an idea-shipping person.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
There is an enormous number of managers who have retired on the job.
—Peter Drucker (1909–2005) Austrian-born Management Consultant
If way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst.
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English Novelist, Poet
Instead of forming new words I recommend to you any kind of artful management by which you may be able to give cost to old ones
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
Managers have traditionally developed the skills in finance, planning, marketing and production techniques. Too often the relationships with their people have been assigned a secondary role. This is too important a subject not to receive first line attention.
—William Hewlett (1913–2001) American Engineer, Inventor, Businessperson
So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
—Peter Drucker (1909–2005) Austrian-born Management Consultant
There is no class of men so difficult to be managed in a state as those whose intentions are honest, but whose consciences are bewitched.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
The ability to manage well doesn’t make much difference if you’re not even in the right jungle.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
I don’t know about you, but where I went to school, Money Management 101 wasn’t offered. Instead we learned about the War of 1812, which of course is something I use every single day.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
You manage things, you lead people. We went overboard on management and forgot about leadership. It might help if we ran the MBAs out of Washington.
—Grace Hopper (1906–92) American Naval Officer, Mathematician
Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Effective people stay out of Quadrants III and IV because, urgent or not, they aren’t important. They also shrink Quadrant I down to size by spending more time in Quadrant II…Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
Note to salary setters: Pay your people the least possible and you’ll get from them the same.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Management is nothing more than motivating other people.
—Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) American Businessperson
In the words of Max DePree: “Management has a lot to do with answers. But leadership is a function of questions. And the first question for a leader always is: ‘Who do we intend to be?’ Not ‘What are we going to do?’ but ‘Who do we intend to be?'”
—Max De Pree (1924–2017) American Businessman
Not to watch your workmen is to lose your money.
—Spanish Proverb
The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.
—Peter Drucker (1909–2005) Austrian-born Management Consultant
When a management team with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.
—Warren Buffett (b.1930) American Investor