James MacGregor Burns Quotes

#1. Those who remember only that the Roosevelts served hot dogs to the royals will be fascinated by this well-researched account of an historic and ennobling relationship - a great story!

James MacGregor Burns

#2. In real life, the most practical advice for leaders is not to treat pawns like pawns, nor princes like princes, but all persons like persons.

James MacGregor Burns

#3. Leaders are not pale reflectors of major social conflicts; they play up some, play down others, ignore still others.

James MacGregor Burns

#4. The practice of leadership is not the same as the exercise of power.

James MacGregor Burns

#5. Such leadership occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.

James MacGregor Burns

#6. Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth.

James MacGregor Burns

#7. Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique.

James MacGregor Burns

#8. Woodrow Wilson called for leaders who, by boldly interpreting the nation's conscience, could lift a people out of their everyday selves. That people can be lifted into their better selves is the secret of transforming leadership.

James MacGregor Burns

#9. The ultimate test of practical leadership is the realization of intended, real change that meets people's enduring needs.

James MacGregor Burns

#10. A revolution is an act of violence whereby one class shatters the authority of another.

James MacGregor Burns

#11. To elevate the goals of humankind, to achieve high moral purpose, to realize major intended change, leaders must thrust themselves into the most intractable processes and structures of history and ultimately master them.

James MacGregor Burns

#12. Leadership, in short, is power governed by principle, directed toward raising people to their highest levels of personal motive and social morality,

James MacGregor Burns