James M. Kouzes Quotes

#1. You can't lead others to places you don't want to go yourself. If you don't feel a burning passion for something, how in the world can you inspire and encourage others to share it?

James M. Kouzes

#2. The Kouzes-Posner First Law of Leadership: If you don't believe in the messenger, you won't believe the message. Leaders

James M. Kouzes

#3. It is striking how our language reveals the visual nature of our thoughts about the future state of affairs. When we invent the future, we try to get a mental picture of what things will be like long before we have begun the journey. Visions are our windows on the world of tomorrow.

James M. Kouzes

#4. Do what you say you will do.

James M. Kouzes

#5. There is no freeway to the future, no paved highway from here to there. There is only wilderness, uncertain terrain. There are no roadmaps, no signposts. So pioneering leaders rely upon a compass and a dream

James M. Kouzes

#6. If we're going to be authentic in our leadership, we will have to be willing to serve, and we have to be willing to suffer.

James M. Kouzes

#7. Leaders must know where they are going if they expect others to willingly join them on the journey.

James M. Kouzes

#8. If you think you're a leader and you turn around and no one is following you, then you're simply out for a walk.

James M. Kouzes

#9. Exemplary leaders know that if they want to gain commitment and achieve the highest standards, they must be models of the behavior they expect of others.

James M. Kouzes

#10. The word "story" is short for the word "history." They both have the same root and fundamentally mean the same thing. A story is a narrative on an event or series of events, just like history.

James M. Kouzes

#11. You must unite your constituents around a common cause and connect with them as human beings.

James M. Kouzes

#12. Leadership isn't the private reserve of a few charismatic men and women. It's a process ordinary people use when they're bringing forth the best from themselves and others. Liberate the leader in everyone, and extraordinary things happen.

James M. Kouzes

#13. The best way to lead people into the future is to connect with them deeply in the present.

James M. Kouzes

#14. A leader with integrity has one self, at home and at work, with family and with colleagues. He or she has a unifying set of values that guide choices of action regardless of the situation.

James M. Kouzes

#15. Only those leaders who act boldly in times of crisis and change are willingly followed.

James M. Kouzes

#16. There's nothing more demoralizing than a leader who can't clearly articulate why we're doing what we're doing.

James M. Kouzes

#17. Leadership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow.

James M. Kouzes

#18. We have to recognize that however smart we are, we're not smarter than everyone else combined ... We can't lose sight of the fact that no matter how important our own contributions are, we couldn't have gotten anywhere without the help and hard work of lots of other people.

James M. Kouzes

#19. It always takes a group of people working together with a common purpose in an atmosphere of trust and collaboration to get extraordinary things done.

James M. Kouzes