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

— Philip Selznick

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Leadership

More quotes by Philip Selznick

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.

The art of the creative leader is the art of institution building, the reworking of human and technological materials to fashion an organism that embodies new and enduring values.

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It's simply to say that managers and investors alike must understand that accounting numbers is the beginning, not the end, of business valuation.

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Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.

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Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

George S. Patton War As I Knew It (1947)

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.