”We have two choices every day: We can feel good about ourselves, or we can feel lousy about ourselves. Why would anyone choose the latter?” - Norman Vincent Peale, the great minister of positive thinking
The book titled ‘The Heart of a Leader’ is yet another interesting book from the shelves of Ken Blanchard. The author needs no introduction. He is the author of forty plus books that includes blockbuster international best seller ‘The One Minute Manager’. He is a trustee emeritus of the board of trustees. He was inducted into Amazon’s Hall of Fame as one of the top twenty-five best-selling authors of all time. The book contains excellent quotes with elaborative illustrations and examples. Most of the quotes belong to the author. His ideas and insights are well punched.
The book unveils the leadership lessons Ken Blanchard learnt throughout his career as a teacher and leader. It equips the tools and techniques to excel as a true leader with a great heart and offers invaluable ideas and insights and emphasizes on ethics and values for achieving excellence.
Influencing is easier said than done as influence is an art. The book begins with the heart of leader. It provides ideas and insights about the art of influence. Ken Blanchard was deeply influenced with several quotations since his childhood. When he started teaching and writing in the field of leadership and management, it was second nature for him to use sayings to help people remember key points. The book contains several quotations. We shall look at the same.
Quotes:
1. “The key to developing people is to catch them doing something right.” – Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
2. “Don’t wait until people do things exactly right before you praise them.” - Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
3. “What we give our attention to, grows.” – Ken Blanchard
4. “People who produce good results feel good about themselves.” – Ken Blanchard
5. “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” – Rick Tate
6. “It never hurts to toot your own horn once in a while.” – Ken Blanchard
7. “No one of us is as smart as all of us.” – Ken Blanchard, Don Carew, and Eunice Parisi-Carew
8. “Get your ego out of the way and move on.” – Ken Blanchard, Sheldon Bowles, Don Carew, and Eunice Parisi-Carew
9. “Things not worth doing are not worth doing well.” – Ken Blanchard, William Oncken, and Hal Burrows
10. “Success is not forever and failure is not fatal.” – Ken Blanchard and Don Shula
11. “Never punish a learner.” – Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
12. “When you stop learning you stop growing.”
13. “When you stop learning, you stop leading.” – Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller
14. “Leadership is a high calling” – Ken Blanchard
15. “In life what you resist, persists.” – Werner Erhard
16. “Don’t work harder – work smarter.”
17. “Nice guys may appear to finish last, but usually they are running in a different race.” – Ken Blanchard and Norman Vincent Peale
18. “In managing people, it is easier to loosen up than tighten up.” – Ken Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi, and Drea Zigarmi.
19. “Anything worth doing does not have to be done perfectly – at first.”
20. “What motivates people is what motivates people.”
21. “Life is all about getting As”
22. “Creating Raving Fans; satisfied customers are not good enough.” – Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles
23. “If you want to know why your people are not performing well, step up to the mirror and take a peek.”
24. “Managing only for profit is like playing tennis with your eye on the scoreboard and not on the ball.” – Ichak Adizes, Corporate Expert and Author
25. “If you want your people to be responsible, be responsive to their needs.” – Ken Blanchard, Bill Hybels, and Phil Hodges
26. “It’s more important as a manager to be respected than to be popular.” – Ken Blanchard and Don Shula, Everyone’s a Coach
27. “People with humility don’t think less of themselves, they just think of themselves less.” – Ken Blanchard and Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Ethical Management
28. “Never give in! Never give in! Never give in! Never!” – Winston Churchill
29. “Trying is just a noisy way of not doing something.”
30. “Good thoughts in your head that are not communicated mean “squat.”
31. “You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life, but your final reward will be heartaches and tears If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.” – Dale Wimbrow, Writer
32. “Sometimes when the numbers look right, the decision is still wrong!” – Ken Blanchard and Normal Vincent Peale, The Power of Ethical Management
33. “Love is being able to say you’re sorry.” – Ken Blanchard and Margret McBride
34. “There are two statements that people don’t use enough that could change the world: “thank you” and “I’m sorry.””
35. “Without a change in your behavior, just saying, “I’m sorry” is not enough.” – Ken Blanchard and Margret McBride
36. “Good religion is like good football; it isn’t talk, it’s action.” – Ken Blanchard and Don Shula, Everyone’s a Coach
37. “Take what you do seriously but yourself lightly.” – Ken Blanchard and Terry Waghorn, Mission Possible
38. “Character is following through on decisions.” – Ken Blanchard, Jim Ballard, and Fred Finch, Customer Mania!
39. “The trouble with being in a rat race is that even if you win the race, you’re still a rat.” – Lily Tomlin, actress and comedian
40. “The cure for too much to do is solitude and silence.” – Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges, The Servant Leader
41. “Think Big! Act Big! Be Big!” – Norman Vincent Peale
42. “Real communication happens when people feel safe.”
43. “Without vision, the people perish.” – Proverbs 29:18
44. “Vision is knowing who you are, where you’re going, and what will guide your journey.” – Ken Blanchard and Jesse Stoner, Full Steam Ahead!
45. “Vision is a lot more than putting a plaque on the wall. A real vision is lived, not framed.” – Ken Blanchard and Jesse Stoner, Full Steam Ahead!
46. “All good performance starts with clear goals.” – Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, The One Minute Manager
47. “Different strokes for different folks.” – Ken Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi, and Drea Zigarmi, Leadership and The One Minute Manager
48. “Different strokes for the same folks.” – Ken Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi, and Drea Zigarmi, Leadership and the One Minute Manager
49. “If God had wanted us to talk more than listen, He would have given us two mouths rather than two ears.” – Ken Blanchard, We Are the Beloved
50. “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” – John Lennon
51. “If you don’t seek perfection, you can never reach excellence.” – Ken Blanchard and Don Shula, Everyone’s a Coach
52. “People without information cannot act responsibly. People with information are compelled to act responsibly.” – Ken Blanchard, John P. Carlos, and Alan Randolph, Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute
53. “Let people bring their brains to work, and let them use their knowledge.” – Ken Blanchard and Jesse Stoner, Leading at a Higher Level
54. “There is only power in empowerment if you are a self-leader.” – Ken Blanchard, Susan Fowler and Laurence Hawkins, Self-Leadership and The One Minute Manager.
55. “A river without banks is a large puddle.” – Ken Blanchard, John P. Carlos, and Alan Randolph, Empowerment Take More Than a Minute
56. “Leadership is not just what happens when you’re there; it’s what happens when you’re not there.” – Ken Blanchard and Marc Muchnick, The Leadership Pill
57. “Your game is only as good as your practice.” – Ken Blanchard and Don Shula, Everyone’s a Coach
58. “Football is a game of errors. The team that makes the fewest errors in a game usually wins.” – Paul Brown
59. “All empowerment exists in the present moment.”
60. “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
61. “Perpetual prosperity comes to those who help others.” – Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, Big Bucks!
62. “Inquire within”
63. “People in organizations need to develop a fascination for what doesn’t work.”
64. “Choose work you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.” – Confucius
65. “Winning coaches make their teams audible-ready.” – Ken Blanchard and Don Shula, Everyone’s a Coach
66. “People are OK; it’s their behavior that’s a problem sometimes.” – Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, The One Minute Manager
67. “Consistency isn’t behaving the same way all the time.” – Ken Blanchard and Don Shula, Everyone’s a Coach
68. “This is the first time in the history of business that you can be great at what you’re doing today and be out of business tomorrow.” – Ken Blanchard and Terry Waghorn, Mission Possible
69. “The only job security you have today is your commitment to continuous personal improvement.”
70. “When you know what you stand for, you can turn around on a dime and have five cents change.”
71. “Share the cash, then share the congratulations.” – Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, Gung HO!
72. “There is no pillow as soft as a clear conscience.” – John Wooden, former UCLA head basketball coach and Hall of Fame member
73. “It is surprising how much you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.” – Abraham Lincoln
74. “Positive thinkers get positive results because they are not afraid of problems.” – Ken Blanchard and Normal Vincent Peale, The Power of Ethical Management
75. “Early in life, people give up their health to gain wealth … In later life, people give up some of their wealth to regain health!
76. “Am I a servant leader or a self-serving leader?” Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges, The Servant Leader
77. “Ducks quack. Eagles soar.”
78. “Eagles flourish when they’re free to fly.”
79. “Take responsibility for making relationships work.”
80. “New today, obsolete tomorrow.”
81. “G.O.L.F stands for Game of Life First.” – Ken Blanchard, The One Minute golfer (formerly Playing the Great Game of Golf)
82. “Leadership is not something you do to people. It’s something you do with people.” – Ken Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi, and Drea Zigarmi, Leadership and The One Minute Manager
83. “Don’t settle for less than a Fortunate 500 company.” – Ken Blanchard and Michael O’Connor, Managing by Values.
84. “Take time to identify core values.”
85. “Core values must be communicated.” – Ken Blanchard and Jesse Stoner, Full Steam Ahead!
86. “Walk you talk.”
87. “Embody the values.” – Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller, The Secret
88. “Knowing where you are going is the first step to getting there.” – Ken Blanchard, We Are the Beloved
89. “Purpose can never be about achievement; it is much bigger.” – Ken Blanchard and Terry Waghorn, Mission Possible
90. “Purpose has to do with one’s calling – deciding what business you are in as a person.” – Ken Blanchard and Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Ethical Management
Takeaways:
• Praise must be specific, objective and genuine. Praise quickly and criticize slowly.
• People want to know how well they are doing.
• Believe in synergy.
• Leaders must constantly look at the big picture.
• Always encourage the learners.
• Continually learning and upgrading skills is essential.
• Always work smarter, not harder.
• What motivates one person may not motivate another.
• Engage students by providing answers to the questions that are likely to be asked in the examinations. Follow the three-pronged approach: performance planning when goals and objectives are set, day-to-day coaching when ongoing feedback is given, and performance evaluation when overall performance is determined.
• Differentiate yourself from your competition.
• Successful organizations today have a triple bottom line – very much like a three-legged stool - Raving Fan customers, gungo ho people, and financial strength.
• Don’t wait to apologize as it will be perceived as weakness.
• Solitude and silence give us some space to reform our innermost attitudes toward people and events.
• Real communication is a product of trust.
• Leaders today must have a strong vision and positive beliefs that support that vision.
• It takes courage to create a vision, and it takes courage to act on it. The most powerful dream a leader can have is a vision of perfection. Dreams lift us up.
• Better aim at the bull’s-eye because if you miss it, the chances are high you’ll still hit the target.
• People with information are empowered to make responsible decisions and help the organization succeed.
• Self-leaders become partners with their leaders. They develop the ability to pick up the ball and run with it.
• The true test of leadership is to win the trust and respect of the team, keep motivation running high, and help it reach new heights.
• To learn from the past is good, but to live there is a waste. To plan for the future is good, but to live there is a waste. You are happiest and most productive in life when you are living in the present.
• Consistency does not mean behaving the same way all the time. It actually means behaving the same way under similar circumstances.
• Goals are for the future; values are for now. Goals are set; values are lived. Goals change; values are rocks you can count on.
• If you want to build credibility, follow this rule: first cash, then congratulations.
• Nothing can get leaders off track more quickly than a big head and false pride.
• If people don’t have any problems, then they are in the graveyard.
• The writer and motivational speaker, Wayne Dyer said, “There are two kinds of people in this world: ducks and eagles.” Ducks quack a lot and make all kinds of noise. Eagles go about their business and soar above the crowd.
• Follow MBV. MBV stands for managing by values. There are three MBV steps: identifying core values, communicating core values, and aligning values and practice. All are important.
• Remember that rules can be imposed, but values cannot.
Conclusion:
The book is worth reading for learning leadership lessons needed for this century. It is useful to leaders, managers and practitioners who can learn lessons from the rich experience of Ken Blanchard. It is an inspiring and motivational book that walks the talk. The book is worth investing your precious time. You can gift this book to your employees to motivate them.
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