Leadership Quotes
1) "He knew who he was..." [1]
It helps to "define one's self." Doing so influences personal relationships, team collaboration, and individual conviction. But "finding one's self" is ill-defined and personal, so you need to find the answer on your own. And "who you are" may change, so when can you be confident that you've found a version of "yourself" that is static and reliable? The show "The Wire" states, "A man's gatta have a code." Maybe having a "code," or guiding principles, changes the pursuit of "who one is" into a pursuit of "who one wants to be." The latter seems more stable even as objectives change...
2) "I’ve seen people who are not comfortable with setting the point of view, and there are others who are extraordinarily gifted at doing this, and people want to work for them..." [1]
"Setting the point of view" often means you need to accept failures, yours and others', that result from the set perspective. The potential of creating situations where others fail makes me cautious in setting the point of view... When should you decide that a point of view is worth setting?
3) "I want you to know deliberately that I’ve gone more abstract on this because I need to get this out, and I need your help in making it more concrete...” [1]
In a previous job, I came up with lots of ideas about how to improve company software and how to make useful utilities. However, I think abstractly and it helped when others shared their perspective on practical software development solutions. Both sides in the team helped when developing new ideas, though balancing different perspectives is non-trivial. I want to target ways to improve team collaboration and so I can better simplify abstract ideas into action items.
4) "What I was really being asked to do was to help connect a set of talented people to a bigger goal, a bigger program and help them move forward to even bigger contributions... is a car about just a driving experience or is it about safe and efficient transportation, and your family, and freedom? And so the higher the calling, the higher the compelling vision that you can articulate, then the more it pulls everybody in." [2]
I need to work with an objective. With no vision, there is no passion. I've thought that success and progress cannot be measured unless by comparing against a larger goal. The question, "Is my time worthwhile?", is granted the answer: "Yes, because I am closer to my goal."
5) Don’t manage your career. Follow your dream and contribute..." [2]
A dream might be a source of passion. Passion is motivation. Motivation is action. Directed action is progress toward a goal. And if progress toward a goal makes effort feel worthwhile, then maybe pursuit of a dream becomes a positive feedback loop inspiring greater action and growth.
6) "I don’t have separate buckets of my life, like my family life or my personal life or my work life. I just have one integrated schedule..." [2]
I'm inspired to live my personal and professional life with the same principles and passions because it unifies and simplifies the direction for my life. It seems valid to question whether interests and passions can burn out, though I've always found that progress toward a goal often intensifies my passion. I see that passion burnout comes more when repeated distractions prevent me from pursuing what I find worthwhile.