This obsession with leadership... It's not neutral; it's American, this idea of the heroic leader who comes in on a white horse to save the day. I think it's killing American companies.

The prime occupational hazard of a manager is superficiality.

A leader has to be one of two things: he either has to be a brilliant visionary himself, a truly creative strategist, in which case he can do what he likes and get away with it; or else he has to be a true empowerer who can bring out the best in others.

Management and leadership are not separate spheres. The two skills work together in the larger realm of “communityship.

The great myth is the manager as orchestra conductor. It's this idea of standing on a pedestal and you wave your baton and accounting comes in, and you wave it somewhere else and marketing chimes in with accounting, and they all sound very glorious. But management is more like orchestra conducting during rehearsals, when everything is going wrong.

Learning is not doing; it is reflecting on doing.

Most of the time, strategies should not be formulating strategy at all; they should be getting on with implementing strategies they already have.