Top 84 Quotes & Sayings by Mary Parker Follett
Explore popular quotes and sayings by Mary Parker Follett.
Last updated on December 23, 2024.
In the small group then is where we shall find the inner meaning of democracy, its very heart and core.
Fear of difference is fear of life itself.
We must face life as it is and understand that diversity is its most essential feature.
I do not think that we have psychological and ethical and economic problems. We have human problems, with psychological, ethical and economical aspects, and as many others as you like.
Many people tell me what I ought to do and just how I ought to do it, but Few have made me want to do something.
There are three ways of dealing with difference: domination, compromise, and integration. By domination only one side gets what it wants; by compromise neither side gets what it wants; by integration we find a way by which both sides may get what they wish.
Democracy is not brute numbers; it is a genuine union of true individuals...the essence of democracy is creating. The technique of democracy is group organization.
It seems to me that whereas power usually means power-over, the power of some person or group over some other person or group, it is possible to develop the conception of power-with, a jointly developed power, a co-active, not a coercive power.
One of the greatest values of controversy is its revealing nature. The real issues at stake come into the open and have the possibility of being reconciled.
the leader releases energy, unites energies, and all with the object not only of carrying out a purpose, but of creating further and larger purposes. And I do not mean here by larger purposes mergers or more branches; I speak of larger in the qualitative rather than the quantitative sense. I mean purposes which will include more of those fundamental values for which most of us agree we are really living.
Idealism and realism meet in the actual.
Leader and followers are both following the invisible leader - the common purpose. The best executives put this common purpose clearly before their group. While leadership depends on depth of conviction and the power coming therefrom there must also be the ability to share that conviction with others, the ability to make purpose articulate. And then that common purpose becomes the leader.
We are not wholly patriotic when we are working with all our heart for America merely; we are truly patriotic only when we are working also that America may take her place worthily and helpfully in the world of nations . . . Interdependence is the keynote of the relations of nations as it is the keynote of the relations of individuals within nations.
Responsiblity is the great developer of men.
the point of educating instead of blaming seems to me very important. For nothing stultifies one more than being blamed. Moreover, if the question is, who is to blame?, perhaps each will want to place the blame on someone else, or on the other hand, someone may try to shield his fellow-worker. In either case the attempt is to hide the error and if this is done the error cannot be corrected.
Coercive power is the curse of the universe, coactive power, the enrichment and advancement of every human soul.
Concepts can never be presented to me merely, they must be knitted into the structure of my being, and this can only be done through my own activity.
The state accumulates moral power only through the spiritual activity of their citizens.
... good intentions are not sufficient to solve our problems.
We should never allow ourselves to be bullied by an either-or. There is often the possibility of something better than either of these two alternatives.
Experience may be hard but we claim its gifts because they are real, even though our feet bleed on its stones.
we certainly do not want to abolish power, that would be abolishing life itself, but we need a new orientation toward it.
Give your difference, welcome my difference, unify all difference in the larger whole - such is the law of growth. The unifying of difference is the eternal process of life - the creative synthesis, the highest act of creation, the at-onement.
The most successful leader of all is the one who sees another picture not yet actualized. He sees the things which are not yet there... Above all, he should make his co-workers see that it is not his purpose which is to be achieved, but a common purpose, born of the desires and the activities of the group.
Part of the task of the leader is to make others participate in his leadership. The best leader knows how to make his followers actually feel power themselves, not merely acknowledge his power.
Leadership is not defined by the exercise of power but by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led. The most essential work of the leader is to create more leaders.
It is not opposition but indifference which separates men.
Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim.
In crowds we have unison, in groups harmony. We want the single voice but not the single note; that is the secret of the group.
... orders come from the work, not work from the orders.
All polishing is done by friction.
The best leader does not ask people to serve him, but the common end. The best leader has not followers, but men and women working with him.
Leader and followers are both following the invisible leader-the common purpose.
The divorce of our so-called spiritual life from our daily activities is a fatal dualism.
We have thought of peace as passive and war as the active way of living. The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest cure compared to the task of reconciling our differences ... From War to Peace is not from the strenuous to the easy existence; it is from the futile to the effective, from the stagnant to the active, from the destructive to the creative way of life ... The world will be regenerated by the people who rise above these passive ways and heroically seek, by whatever hardship, by whatever toil, the methods by which people can agree.
The manager cannot share his power with division superintendent or foreman or workman, but he can give them opportunities for developing their power.
The insight to see possible new paths, the courage to try them, the judgment to measure results - these are the qualities of a leader.
It is possible to conceive conflict as not necessarily a wasteful outbreak of incompatibilities, but a normal process by which socially valuable differences register themselves for the enrichment of all concerned.
And the most successful leader of all is one who sees another picture not yet actualized. He sees the things which belong in his present picture but which are not yet there.
The unifying of opposites is the eternal process.
The conflict of chemistry we do not think reprehensible. If we could look at social conflict as neither good nor bad, but simply a fact, we should make great strides in our thinking.
We are sometime truly to see our life as positive, not negative, as made up of continuous willing, not of constraints and prohibition.
I am convinced that any feeling of exaltation because we have people under us should be conquered, for I am sure that if we enjoy being over people, there will be something in our manner which will make them dislike being under us.
Management is the art of getting things done through people.
That is always our problem, not how to get control of people, but how all together we can get control of a situation.
Conflict is resolved not through compromise, but through invention.
Imitation is for shirkers, like-minded-ness for the comfort lovers, unifying for the creators.
The leader is one who can organize the experience of the group ... and thus get the full power of the group. The leader makes the team. This is pre-eminently the leadership quality - the ability to organize all the forces there are in an enterprise and make them serve a common purpose.
we should think not only of what the leader does to the group, but also of what the group does to the leader.
The ignoring of differences is the most fatal mistake in politics or industry or international life: every difference that is swept up into a bigger conception feeds and enriches society; every difference which is ignored feeds on society and eventually corrupts it.
While leadership depends on depth of conviction and the power coming therefrom, there must also be the ability to share that conviction with others.
Democracy is self-creating coherence.
Most people are not for or against anything; the first object of getting people together is to make them respond somehow, to overcome inertia.
There is no such thing as vicarious experience.
Another idea that is changing is that the leader must be one who can make quick decisions. The leader to-day is often one who thinks out his decisions very slowly.
Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Differences must be integrated, not annihilated, not absorbed.
the best leaders try to train their followers themselves to become leaders. ... they wish to be leaders of leaders.
Majority rule rests on numbers; democracy rests on the well-grounded assumption that society is neither a collection of units nor an organism but a network of human relations.
What people often mean by getting rid of conflict is getting rid of diversity, and it is of the utmost importance that these should not be considered the same.
if you wish to train yourself for higher executive positions, the first thing for you to decide is what you are training for. Ability to dominate or manipulate others? That ought to be easy enough, since most of the magazines advertise sure ways of developing something they call 'personality.' But I am convinced that the first essential of business success is the capacity for organized thinking.
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