Ken Blanchard

“One of the topics I'm most passionate about is servant leadership - the greatest leaders recognize that they're here to serve, not to be served.”

“I never use notes, they interfere with me.”

“For a manager to be perceived as a positive manager, they need a four to one positive to negative contact ratio.”

“Patrick Lencioni, Spencer Johnson, and Stephen Covey are great communicators.”

“Values-based business behavior is no longer simply an interesting option - it's crucial to your survival. Once you understand your mission and values, you have a strong basis for evaluating your practices and aligning them accordingly.”

“As a leader, you absolutely must expend your energy engaging your frontline employees so that they will take care of customers, who will tell stories about how great your company is to other people, who will become new customers.”

“Too often in business, only financial data is gathered - and then it is distributed only to management. Other key indicators that relate to performance areas also need to be tracked. Information on performance has to be made available to those people who can best use it - those doing the work.”

“'One Minute Mentoring' is written in the parable style Spencer Johnson and I popularized in 'The One Minute Manager.' It's an entertaining story about the mentorship between a young salesperson, Josh, and a seasoned executive named Diane. As the characters learn about mentoring, so does the reader.”

“Age is rarely a limitation to being a mentor.”

“The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.”

“Growing, for leaders, is like oxygen to a deep sea diver. Without learning and growing, leaders die in terms of their effectiveness.”

“Some people are really good at the visionary role. They're like third grade teachers who tell people the vision and values over and over and over until they get it right, right, right. But they're not implementers. If they're good leaders, they gather people around them who can take the implementation role and move it forward.”

“Managing by values - not by profits - is a powerful process that will set your business on the path to becoming what I call a 'Fortunate 500' company.”

“If people aren't clear on what business you're in, what you're trying to accomplish, your values, your goals, then shame on you. It doesn't mean you shouldn't involve them. It's just your responsibility to make sure that that's clear.”

“I absolutely believe in the power of tithing and giving back. My own experience about all the blessings I've had in my life is that the more I give away, the more that comes back. That is the way life works, and that is the way energy works.”

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”

“At Southwest, they're on a mission to democratize air travel. When they first started, the only people who could fly were relatively wealthy businesspeople, and Herb Kelleher's vision was to offer everyone the chance to visit a friend or relative during a happy and a sad time. That's a vision employees can get excited about.”

“It's been true in my life that when I've needed a mentor, the right person shows up.”

“If your employees are disengaged, and they don't take care of your customers, it doesn't matter how good your strategy is - your customers will still go somewhere else.”

“Leadership is not about you; it's about investing in the growth of others.”