Margaret Heffernan

“I'm all for ambition and stretch goals. I set them for myself. But leadership isn't the same as cheerleading. Believing in something is a necessary but absolutely insufficient condition for making it come true.”

“The truth won't set us free - until we develop the skills and the habit and the talent and the moral courage to use it.”

“Most people have their best ideas when they take their minds away from problems they're trying to solve.”

“The vast literature concerning whistleblowers shows that, far from weird extremists, they are really quite ordinary people: male and female, young and old, junior and senior, no more nerdy or obsessive than most hard workers.”

“It is nobody's right to be waited on and nobody's fate to do the waiting.”

“Companies are bought for their revenue, customer base, technology, or people. A few great companies offer all of these, but any valuable business offers one.”

“Very few entrepreneurs start their business on the back of market research. Instead, they have tremendous zeitgeist, honed by paying attention to where they are.”

“The single hardest part of leading any organization is knowing what is going on. There's too much noise in the system, too much complexity: you absolutely depend on people speaking up and raising concerns.”

“As a mother, I work hard every day and I expect that work to be recognized and appreciated. Because I work for and with human beings, sometimes they're grateful and sometimes they aren't.”

“Speaking is what most people work on. They forget the thinking and the breathing and instead try to occupy space with sound.”

“Once you have power, you are inevitably surrounded by people who have their own agendas and will tell you whatever advances them.”

“Every organization has issues and concerns which are known about by many people who choose to remain silent.”

“I don't think a true company - one that builds sustainable value - can ever only exist online or remotely.”

“When we care about people, we care less about money, and when we care about money, we care less about people.”

“I haven't always hated McDonald's. When my kids were little and I lived in the U.S., they were as susceptible as anyone to Happy Meals and tatty toys that subsequently littered our sitting room.”

“In business, staying focused requires that you turn most opportunities down.”

“Building businesses takes tremendous stamina, and success isn't achieved without it.”

“The medical profession is - and knows itself to be - endemically conservative and conformist.”

“Business is not a science; it is not susceptible to experiments that can be controlled and replicated. Everything in business is too unpredictable for that - every business, employee, product, market is different and keeps changing.”

“Those in powerless positions aren't about to complain about bullying bosses, abusive supervisors or corrupt co-workers. There is no safe way to do so and no process that promises redress.”