If you're not familiar with the name John W. Gardner click on the link to get a run down on his remarkable career. In 1990, he published the best book on leadership I have run across in my career, appropriately entitled On Leadership
. I read it years ago and had reason to pull it off the shelf the other day to find a quote that I had remembered that I wanted to pass on to a client. I think the quote is worth passing on to my readers as well:
. I read it years ago and had reason to pull it off the shelf the other day to find a quote that I had remembered that I wanted to pass on to a client. I think the quote is worth passing on to my readers as well:To exercise leadership today, leaders must institutionalize their leadership. The issues are too technical and the pace of change too swift to expect that a leader, no matter how gifted, will be able to solve personally the major problems facing the system over which he or she presides. So we design an institutional system--a government agency, a corporation--to solve the problems, and then we select a leader who has the capacity to preside over and strengthen the system. Some leaders may be quite gifted in solving problems personally, but if they fail to institutionalize the process, their departure leaves the system crippled. They must create or strengthen systems that will survive them.
John W. Gardner
from, On Leadership
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