Effective leadership masterclass

is an excellent book by John Adair (isbn 0-330-34785-3). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

Every person and thing is only what it is in relation to others. [Lao Tzu]

It is this quality of doing things spontaneously and in an unselfconscious way, without regard to their effects upon other people's perceptions of oneself.

The natural badge of such inner humility towards all things is silence.

I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. [John Ruskin]

I cannot hear what you are saying because you are shouting at me. [Zulu proverb]

So many people are loath to make irrevocable decisions, are tepid in their enthusiasms. [Ordway Tead]

I do not say that the men of the 14th Army welcomed difficulties, but they grew to take a fierce pride in overcoming them by determination and ingenuity. [General William Slim]

Change and leadership are closely linked.

Leadership is of the spirit, compounded of personality and vision; its practice is an art. Management is of the mind, more a matter of accurate calculation of statistics, of methods, of time tables, and routine; its practice is a science. [General William Slim]

Leadership is bound up with culture.

As a natural leader, he [Gandhi] led by example - spinning for at least an hour every day.