Quotes

I was juz surfing and looking at quotes on leadership and some of the quotes I found were:

Lao Tzu
Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.

Donald H. McGannon
Leadership is action, not position.

Fred Smith
Leadership is getting people to work for you when they are not obligated.

Anon
A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.

Mary D. Poole
Leadership should be more participative than directive, more enabling than performing.

Marian Anderson
Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.

John Maxwell
The first step to leadership is servanthood.

It seems that if we are to follow the advice of all the wise people, to be a leader we need to be gentle, sacrificial, ready to spring into actions, ability to practice hegemony, courage to face the truths, a team player, meeting needs, being a servant to serve etc. Basically, you need to be PERFECT!

And these are juz a few quotes. Sometimes when ppl talk to me and tells me about what some great men say, I begin to wonder, because they say that, muz it necessarily be the correct method of doing things? Even if it is, is it relevant to the current context? For e.g. Lao Tzu says to be gentle but if u r leading a rowdy and unruly bunch, can the philosophy then work?

I came to realize quotes are good for academic work or maybe writing an essay but in life, are they really any good? Can they bring abt success when u apply the ‘right’ principle behind a quote? I dun tink so.. I tink they juz merely enhance a position that a person is speaking from, enhancing his stand and make it all sound more convincing. The amount of success a person has is limited by the quotes if he is governed by it. Quotes frame your mindset, it frames your abilities and it frames your expectations. Perhaps, they r of some good… but oh well…