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The formal administrative design can never adequately or fully reflect the concrete organization to which it refers, for the obvious reason that no abstract plan or pattern can—or may, if it is to be useful—exhaustively describe an empirical totality. At the same time, that which is not included in the abstract design (as reflected, for example, in a a staff and-line organization chart) is vitally relevant to the maintenance and development of the formal system itself.

— Philip Selznick

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The most important thing about organizations is that, though they are tools, each nevertheless has a life of its own.

The institutional leader, then, is primarily an expert in the promotion and protection of values.

It has been well said that the effective leader must know the meaning and master the techniques of the educator.

The term “leadership” connotes critical experience rather than routine practice.

Leadership, pure and simple, is the assumption of responsibility for the pursuit of excellence in group life.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Philip Selznick (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.