Very few people are ambitious in the sense of having a specific image of what they want to achieve. Most people's sights are only toward the next run, the next increment of money.

The need for challenge, the need to burst through the constrictions of tasks and situations already seen and mastered, can affect anyone, even those enjoying the greatest gains from success.

Very few people are ambitious in the sense of having a specific image of what they want to achieve. Most people's sights are only toward the next run, the next increment of money.

I think the characteristics of really effective leaders when people are frightened and depressed are the same qualities that leaders need when people are optimistic. The difference is when people are frightened the need for these few qualities becomes much stronger because frightened people are desperate to have someone they can trust and believe in and who seems to be able to create a better future.

In the end, leadership is not intellectual or cognitive. Leadership is emotional.

The message to organizations is this: You have to increase the number of categories of contributing, or the types of career paths, which people can experience as successful. You cannot restrict esteem to the fewer and fewer who will be climbing up the management ladder. You need to have the majority of your people feeling like winners.

... there's a large core of powerlessness which is balanced against the unwritten contract that says that if you behave, you'll be okay. No wonder people pay so much attention to knowing the rules, to knowing the right people, to not making waves, to never making errors -- to not risking, trying, innovating.