Everyone you know and all the people you meet have the potential to be someone important in the lives of others.

The person who does only what he must when he is in the mood or when it's convenient isn't going to be successful.

Cats do what cats do, ducks do what ducks do, and eagles do what eagles, do. If you take a duck and ask it to do an eagles' job, shame on you. As a leader, your job is to help your ducks to become better ducks and your eagles better eagles - to put individuals in the right places and help them reach their potential.

No matter your title, people will not follow you if they don’t trust you. Whether you are just taking over a team or working to implement large-scale change within one, you are guaranteed to run into resistance if you haven’t taken time to establish a foundation with the people you oversee before turning their worlds upside down.

By choosing to embrace and practice good values every day, you choose the higher course in life. And your life goes in a direction that you will always feel good about. You may not always get what you desire, but you will always be the person you desire to be.

If you don't have the ability to see when to stand up and the conviction to do it, you'll never be an effective leader.

The best way a mentor can prepare another leader is to expose him or her to other great people.