The care leadership strategy is simple: be a model. Commit yourself to your own personal mastery. Talking about personal mastery may open people's minds somewhat, but actions always speak louder than words. There is nothing more powerful you can do to encourage others in their quest for personal mastery than to be serious in your own quest.

You cannot have a learning organisation without a shared vision...A shared vision provides a compass to keep learning on course when stress develops.

Team learning is the Process of aligning and developing the capacity of a team to create the results its members desire. It builds on the discipline of developing a shared vision. It also builds on personal mastery, for talented teams are made up of talented individuals.

Learning is all about connections, and through our connections with unique people we are able to gain a true understanding of the world around us.

Scratch the surface of most cynics and you find a frustrated idealist — someone who made the mistake of converting his ideals into expectations.

Trusting people to be creative and constructive when given more freedom does not imply an overly optimistic belief in the perfectibility of human nature. It is, rather, belief that the inevitable errors and sins of the human condition are far better overcome by individuals working together in an environment of trust and freedom and mutual respect than by individuals working under a multitude of rules, regulations, and restraints imposed upon them by another group of imperfect individuals.

It's common to say that trees come from seeds. But how can a tiny seed create a huge tree? Seeds do not contain the resources need to grow a tree. These must come from the medium or environment within which the tree grows. But the seed does provide something that is crucial : a place where the whole of the tree starts to form. As resources such as water and nutrients are drawn in, the seed organizes the process that generates growth. In a sense, the seed is a gateway through which the future possibility of the living tree emerges.