Eugene V. Debs Quotes

To be honest, the fact that people trust you gives you a lot of power over people. Having another person's trust is more powerful than all other management techniques put together.

When you empower people you sign up for a life of uncertainty and change.

You have to enable and empower people to make decisions independent of you. As I've learned, each person on a team is an extension of your leadership; if they feel empowered by you they will magnify your power to lead.

Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power.

Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you're in control, they're in control.

One thing I am is a leader and if I'm not allowed to lead, then I have to follow. So then I want to be the best follower that I can.

Leadership is not rank, privileges, title or money. It is responsibility.

Even if you don't have the authorities - and frankly I didn't have the authorities for anything - if you take charge, people will follow.

He that communicates his secret to another makes himself that other's slave.

The great irony of management is that the higher up you go, the less actual control you have. When you are but a humble coder, you make the computer do exactly what you want; when you're a manager, you only hope that people understand what you want, and then trust/pray that they do it both correctly and in a timely manner.

If you are in a position to influence someone, you are a leader.

Nobody is going to delegate a lot of power to a secretary that they can't control.

So I still seized the power, but I felt that if I officially made myself the boss, in black and white, it would be too intimidating for the other producers and the other men who worked on the show. In other words, I had the power, but I gave them the title.

Responsibility walks hand in hand with capacity and power.

Being a leader doesn't mean you created something or you did something great in the past or some other person has given you any kind of authority.

Those who enjoy responsibility usually get it; those who merely like exercising authority usually lose it.

In a very real way, ownership is the essence of leadership. When you are 'ridiculously in charge,' then you own whatever happens in a company, school, et cetera.

I believe in delegating power.

It isn't worth trying to lead if your people won't follow.

Leadership doesn't amount to much unless you have followers.

Now the power is in your hands!

I was not a presider; I was a leader.

Believe me, Winston, that hat fits you perfectly. You are going gradually have to get used to me leading you.

Leaders get people to do what they otherwise wouldn’t do.

One of the signs of natural leaders of men (and women) was their readiness to take the necessary pains to keep their followers with them.