"If great managers are catalysts, speeding up the reaction between the individual's talents and the company's goals, then great leaders are alchemists. Somehow they are able to transform our fear of the unknown into confidence in the future."

Marcus Buckingham Business See all quotes by Marcus Buckingham →

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“Many of us feel stress and get overwhelmed not because we're taking on too much, but because we're taking on too little of what really strengthens us.”

“Passion isn't something that lives way up in the sky, in abstract dreams and hopes. It lives at ground level, in the specific details of what you're doing every day.”

“The necessity for leaders to possess optimism and ego serves to answer the age-old question: Are leaders born or are they made? They are born. A leader is born with an optimistic disposition or she is not. If she is not, then no amount of "optimism training" is going to make her view the world in an overwhelmingly positive, opportunistic light.”

“What defines a leader is his preoccupation with the future. In his head he carries a vivid image of what the future could be, and this image drives him on.”

“Each person's greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength.”

“The great organization must not only accommodate the fact that each employee is different, it must capitalize on these differences. It must watch for clues to each employee's natural talents and then position and develop each employee so that his or her talents are transformed into bona fide strengths.”

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