Lead Yourself First Quotes

“Time is an unrenewable resource. You can’t get it back. All these things we’ve done to exchange information, to access information at our fingertips, have actually taken away our time for restoring the soul. You’re giving away your soul’s ability to be moved. If we’d spend more time in solitude, we’d value ourselves more.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“A critical element of effective leadership is not to let the immediate take precedence over the important,”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“The most inspiring leaders are ones who find a clarity of meaning that transcends the tasks at hand. And that meaning emerges through reflection.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“A lack of silence and solitude leads to anxiety, which leads to demonization based on differences, which leads to conflict, which leads to violence. We need to reverse the flow. We need to invite people to think about their feelings, to address them, and then come up with a creative response that builds relationships and trust.” What we need, one might say, is grace.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“In times of shared sacrifice, a leader must inspire moral courage in his followers as well as in himself. In such times the leader’s responsibilities are especially great, for a leader’s first obligation is to take care of his people. If he cannot provide for them in material ways, he must provide for their spirit. To do so requires humility: although the leader has more power than his followers, he must recognize that as to the things that govern human worth—dignity, character, decency—his station counts for nothing. He must hold the conviction that, as to these things, he is not above his followers, but among them. For only then can he speak to these things in ways that inspire his followers.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“To respect the worth of others relative to oneself is to be humble.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“Serious thinking, inspired thinking, can seldom arise from texts sent while eating lunch or driving a car. Responding to these inputs generates as much thought, and as much inspiration, as swatting so many flies. They deaden both the mind and soul.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“A leader has not only permission, but a responsibility, to seek out periods of solitude.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“A leader needs to have presence, to show up to the moment grounded in one’s self, as centered as one can be, ready to hear, to listen, to discern.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“A healthy community can have differences, Chip says, but not division. “Differences are a product of ideas. Division is a product of behavior. A community means we live together with differences, but we can’t be divided.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“Leadership, like fertilizer, contains elements that can be volatile or nurturing, depending on how one handles them.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“When a gale strikes, a leader’s place is not belowdecks, but at the helm. He should strive to maintain a measure of detachment, both from the emotion of others around him and from the crisis itself, observing it clinically, dispassionately. And he must focus his thinking strictly on the decisions he needs to make, rather than on the consequences that might follow if his decisions are wrong. This detachment and focus will afford him as much isolation as circumstances allow, and they will make him resistant to the emotional tumult around him. From there, the leader must draw upon his inner strength.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“Lincoln had stepped outside his adversity, to study it within his own mind—and by doing so he drew boundaries around it. That allowed him to place the adversity in context, thereby restoring his perspective—and with it his emotional balance.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“Praise and attention are fleeting, and then gone. The leader is left feeling empty unless she authentically connects her success with a more lasting purpose.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“There are times when even the best leaders lose their emotional balance. Leadership brings with it responsibility, and responsibility, in times of serious adversity, brings emotional turmoil and strain. In this sense responsibility is like a lever, which can upset a leader’s emotional balance when adversity presses down hard on one end. When the adversity is threatening enough or comes without warning, it can unbalance the leader at a single stroke. Even a leader as great as Lincoln was floored more than once in this way. Other times the effect is cumulative, coming after a period of sustained high tension—of pressure on one end and resistance on the other—until finally the leader’s equanimity begins to give way. The point is that every leader has her emotional limits, and there is no shame in exceeding them. What distinguishes effective leaders from inferior ones, rather, is their ability to restore their emotional balance.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“An unreflective leader is prone to volatility: he does not realize that his own anxieties are part of the fuel for his anger about some external event, and thus his response—berating employees, torching a meeting—is disproportionate to the event itself. A leader of this type finds himself apologizing frequently if he is decent, or embittering his followers if he is not.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“Nate Fick sees “a distinction between self-awareness and self-consciousness.” The latter Fick sees as something to be wary of: a mindset that is focused outward, which can lead to posturing and decisions based on how others will perceive them. But self-awareness, in Fick’s view, is something to develop: an understanding of the forces within oneself that cause one to do or feel certain things as a leader. The mindset is fundamentally introspective. The understanding that it brings usually comes only after sustained and searching thought. And thus, Fick says, “I think solitude is essential to self-awareness.” One”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“A critical element of effective leadership is not to let the immediate take precedence over the important,” George says. “Today’s world puts too much emphasis on the immediate. That’s a perpetual danger for leaders.” George emphasizes that reflection is not only for introverts. “I’m a very active, extroverted person who likes to get a lot done,” he says. “In my thirties I was going strong, doing well in my career, with one child and another on the way.” But in those days his energy was spent before he came home each day. “I’d work until seven or eight each night, eat dinner, read a magazine, and then zone out.” Around that time, however, George began a daily meditation practice, specifically transcendental meditation. He says, “I don’t know how TM works, but it does. TM allows you to slow down, to reflect. As a relaxation process, and a process for introspection, it couldn’t be better.” The”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“The most inspiring leaders are ones who find a clarity of meaning that transcends the tasks at hand. And that meaning emerges through reflection”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“Leading from good to great requires discipline—disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought and who take disciplined action. To engage in disciplined action first requires disciplined thought, and disciplined thought requires people who have the discipline to create quiet time for reflection”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“During mornings in front of the bird feeder, Tim eventually distilled his reflections down to a statement of “Team Expectations,” which he calls “the Three Cs—Character, Classroom, and Competitor.” “It’s a statement of principles, not rules. It’s an aspirational tool, not a corrective tool. It’s meant to create a culture. You need to share your vision as a leader, and get your people engaged in it.” The order of Tim’s Cs reflects his priorities as a leader. “Character” includes things like “treat everyone with respect,” “set good examples for others,” and “do what you say you will do.” “Classroom” includes “attend all classes” and “communicate with your”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

“for leaders, as for anyone else, fear converts into anger quite easily.”
― Raymond M. Kethledge, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude