Leaders Quotes

“Human systems are oddly capable of selecting or tolerating immoral and incompetent leaders because they provide a different kind of meaning elsewhere, such as social identity or ideological affiliation.”
― Jeff Eggers, Leaders: Myth and Reality

“leadership theory promotes the virtue of humility, and yet narcissists are overrepresented in senior leadership positions.”
― Jeff Eggers, Leaders: Myth and Reality

“Hitler responds to the vibration of the human heart with the delicacy of a seismograph … enabling him to act as a loudspeaker proclaiming the most secret desires, the least admissible instincts, the sufferings, and personal revolts of a whole nation …. —OTTO STRASSER (AN OPPONENT OF HITLER’S WITHIN THE NAZI PARTY)”
― Jeff Eggers, Leaders: Myth and Reality

“In 49 BCE, with the dramatic proclamation “The die is cast,” Julius Caesar made the fateful decision to cross the Rubicon River at the head of his 13th Legion. The crossing of the Rubicon was momentous because the river demarcated the boundary between Italy and the province of Gaul to the north, where Caesar was serving as governor. Suspicious of his growing power, the Senate had ordered him to disband his army and return to Rome. But Caesar, defying the Senate, decided to return not in submission but in rebellion, marching on Rome with his legion. By crossing into Italian territory with an army, Caesar had irrevocably made himself a traitor.”
― Jeff Eggers, Leaders: Myth and Reality

“even as leaders hold immense value as the symbols and custodians of meaning.”
― Jeff Eggers, Leaders: Myth and Reality

“If leadership is so dependent on people, why are we so energized by leaders who prioritize their mission over their people?”
― Stanley McChrystal, Leaders: Myth and Reality

“In the UK, it would not be until 1975 that a woman could open her own bank account, and not until 1982 that she could buy her own drink in a pub.”
― Jeff Eggers, Leaders: Myth and Reality