23 Quotes by Ronald A. Heifetz

Knowing how the environment is pulling your strings and playing you is critical to making responsive rather than reactive moves.

Progress on problems is the measure of leadership; leaders mobilize people to face problems, and communities make progress on problems because leaders challenge them and help them to do so.

The activity of interpreting might be understood as listening for the ’song beneath the words.

And leadership then is about mobilizing and engaging the people with the problem rather than trying to anesthetize them so you can go off and solve it on your own.

To diagnose a system or yourself while in the midst of action requires the ability to achieve some distance from those on-the-ground events. We use the metaphor of “getting on the balcony” above the “dance floor” to depict what it means to gain the distanced perspective you need to see what is really happening.

When you lead people through difficult change, you take them on an emotional roller coaster because you are asking them to relinquish something – a belief, a value, a behavior – that they hold dear. People can stand only so much change at any one time.

Worry not that your child listens to you; worry most that they watch you.

Your inspiration taps hidden reserves of promise that sustain people through times that induce despair. You enable people to envision a future that sustains the best from their past while also holding out new possibilities.

Values are shaped and refined by rubbing against real problems, and people interpret their problems according to the values they hold.