Bill’s Curated Quotes – February 2024

“Leadership is a Performing Art.”

Lee Thayer

Two men, Lee Thayer, who penned over 20 books on leadership and was a mentor to me in the latter part of his life, and two-star General Martin Krause, who I served as an aide to in the army in the beginning of the Viet Nam war, helped shape my understanding of Leadership. I am a believer that Leaders are made and not born as such. Much of my business life was centered around “Being the Boss”. It took years for me to gain understanding of what it meant to be the Leader, which is slightly different than being the Boss.

As a Leader, I had to learn three basic principles:

1 – How to pick staff that can get things done through others.

2 – How to ask the right questions of your staff to ensure we are on track to accomplish our agreed upon mission and objectives.

3 – Knowing when to talk and when to keep quiet.

Of those three skills, the hardest for me was learning when to listen and when to keep quiet. You will gain a better understanding of your company’s performance, regardless of its size, if you talk less and listen more.

This is the first part of why Leadership really is “A Performing Art”.

Onward!