Top 23 Quotes & Sayings by Robert Townsend

A good leader needs to have a compass in his head and a bar of steel in his heart.

If you have to have a policy manual, publish the 'Ten Commandments.'

Don't hire a master to paint you a masterpiece and then assign a roomful of schoolboy artists to look over his shoulder and make suggestions.

It's a poor bureaucrat who can't stall a good idea until even its sponsor is relieved to see it dead and officially buried.

Managers must have the discipline not to keep pulling up the flowers to see if their roots are healthy.

We know there is a problem with communication but we are not going to discuss it in front of the entire staff.

Due to budget cutbacks, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.

Is what I'm doing or about to do getting us closer to our objective?

A leader is not an administrator who loves to run others, but someone who carries water for his people so that they can get on with their jobs.

An idea's worth is directly proportional to the opposition created.

Compromise is usually bad. It should be a last resort. If two departments or divisions have a problem they can't solve and it comes up to you, listen to both sides and then pick one or the other. This places solid accountability on the winner to make it work. Condition your people to avoid compromise.

If people are coming to work excited. . . if they're making mistakes freely and fearlessly. . . if they're having fun. . . if they're concentrating on doing things rather than preparing reports and going to meetings-then somewhere you have leaders.

"Top" management is supposed to be a tree full of owls-hooting when management heads into the wrong part of the forest. I'm still unpersuaded they even know where the forest is.

Getting there isn't half the fun - it's all the fun.

Consultants are people who borrow your watch and tell you what time it is, and then walk off with the watch.

If you don't do it excellently, don't do it at all. Because if it's not excellent, it won't be profitable or fun.

A good manager doesn't try to eliminate conflict; he tries to keep it from wasting the energies of his people. If you're the boss and your people fight you openly when they think that you are wrong - that's healthy.

The artist must conceive with warmth yet execute with coolness.

It's been my experience that the people who gain trust, loyalty, excitement, and energy fast are the ones who pass on the credit to the people who have really done the work. A leader doesnt need any credit... He's getting more credit than he deserves anyway.

The world is divided into two classes of people: the few people who make good on their promises (even if they don't promise as much), and the many who don't. Get in Column A and stay there. You'll be very valuable wherever you are.

Make every decision as if you owned the company.

When you get right down to it, one of the most important tasks of a leader is to eliminate his people's excuse for failure.

To keep an organization young and fit, don't hire anyone until everybody's so overworked they'll be glad to see the newcomer no matter where he sits.