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181 " A business environment with an unbalanced focus on short-term results and money before people affects society at large. "
― Simon Sinek , Leaders Eat Last
182 " Few if any of the alcoholics enrolled in AA will find sobriety until they complete Step Twelve. Even if they make it through all the other eleven steps, those who do not complete Step Twelve are very likely to drink again. It is those who complete Step Twelve who overcome the addiction.Step Twelve is the commitment to help another alcoholic beat the disease. Step Twelve is all about service. And it is service that is the key to breaking our dopamine addictions in our organizations too. I’m not talking about serving our customers, employees or shareholders. I’m not talking about abstractions of people. I mean service to the real, living, knowable human beings with whom we work every day. "
183 " when the leaders of an organization listen to the people who work there. Without coercion, pressure or force, the people naturally work together to help each other and advance the company. Working with a sense of obligation is replaced by working with a sense of pride. And coming to work for the company is replaced by coming to work for each other. Work is no longer a place to dread. It is a place to feel valued. "
184 " Some of us face the very real threat of losing our livelihoods if we try something new and lose the company some money. Politics also present a constant threat—the fear that others are trying to keep us down so that they may advance their own careers. Intimidation, humiliation, isolation, feeling dumb, feeling useless and rejection are all stresses we try to avoid inside the organization. But the danger inside is controllable and it should be the goal of leadership to set a culture free of danger from each other. And the way to do that is by giving people a sense of belonging. By offering them a strong culture based on a clear set of human values and beliefs. By giving them the power to make decisions. By offering trust and empathy. By creating a Circle of Safety. "
185 " A story about tens of thousands of people struck down by their own military as they stood up for something noble does not have the same emotional impact on us as the story of one person does. We "
186 " The only thing our leaders ever need to do is remember whom they serve and it will be our honor and pleasure to serve them back. "
187 " As social animals, we feel stress when we feel unsupported. That subconscious unease, the feeling that we are responsible for ourselves and no one else is there to help, the feeling we get that most of the people with whom we work care primarily about themselves, is, to our primitive brain, quite scary. And the problem is not with the people, it is with the environment. "
188 " Weak leaders are the ones who extend the benefits of the Circle of Safety only to their fellow senior executives and a chosen few others. They look out for each other, but they do not offer the same considerations to those outside their “inner circle.” Without the protection of our leaders, everyone outside the inner circle is forced to work alone or in small tribes to protect and advance their own interests. And in so doing, silos form, politics entrench, mistakes are covered up instead of exposed, the spread of information slows and unease soon replaces any sense of cooperation and security. "
189 " When we are able to physically see the positive impact of the decisions we make or the work we do, not only do we feel that our work was worth it, but it also inspires us to work harder and do more. "
190 " Destructive Abundance happens when the players focus almost exclusively on the score and forget why they set out to play the game in the first place. "
191 " Everything about being a leader is like being a parent. It is about committing to the well-being of those in our care and having a willingness to make sacrifices to see their interests advanced so that they may carry our banner long after we are gone. "
192 " Civilizations don’t usually die from murder, to paraphrase the famous British historian Arnold Toynbee. Civilizations die from suicide. It is increasing dangers inside our organizations that threaten us most. And fortunately, those dangers are well within our control. "
193 " Leadership, true leadership, is not the bastion of those who sit at the top. It is the responsibility of anyone who belongs to the group. "
194 " There’s a growing body of evidence that the companies that are most successful at maximizing shareholder value over time are those that aim toward goals other than maximizing shareholder value,” Justin Fox and Jay Lorsch wrote in the July–August 2012 issue of the Harvard Business Review. “Employees and customers often know more about and have more of a long-term commitment to a company than shareholders do. "
195 " Good leadership is like exercise. We do not see any improvement to our bodies with day-to-day comparisons. In fact, if we only compare the way our bodies look on a given day to how they looked the previous day, we would think our efforts had been wasted. It’s only when we compare pictures of ourselves over a period of weeks or months that we can see a stark difference. The impact of leadership is also best judged over time. "
196 " Letting someone into an organization is like adopting a child. "
197 " As Bob Chapman, CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, is fond of saying, “No one wakes up in the morning to go to work with the hope that someone will manage us. We wake up in the morning and go to work with the hope that someone will lead us.” The problem is, for us to be led, there must be leaders we want to follow. "
198 " We need to know that the information we are given by others and especially our leaders, good or bad, is the truth. We need to know that when someone says something, they mean it. If we doubt their integrity, then we cannot trust them with our lives or the lives of those we love. If we doubt someone’s integrity, we would hesitate before jumping into a foxhole with them. The integrity of those in our community is, as our brain perceives it, a matter of life and death. "
199 " when we find ourselves inside a Circle of Safety, stress declines, fulfillment rises, our want to serve others increases and our willingness to trust others to watch our backs skyrockets. When these social incentives are inhibited, however, we become more selfish and more aggressive. Leadership falters. Cooperation declines. Stress increases as do paranoia and mistrust. "
200 " Integrity is not about being honest when we agree with each other; it is also about being honest when we disagree or, even more important, when we make mistakes or missteps. "