Conflict is the primary engine of creativity and innovation. People don't learn by staring into a mirror; people learn by encountering difference.

Knowing how the environment is pulling your strings and playing you is critical to making responsive rather than reactive moves.

I think that notion of leadership is bankrupt.

The activity of interpreting might be understood as listening for the 'song beneath the words.

If you find what you do each day seems to have no link to any higher purpose, you probably want to rethink what you're doing.

Your behavior reflects your actual purposes.

And leadership then is about mobilizing and engaging the people with the problem rather than trying to anesthetize them so you can go off and solve it on your own.