James MacGregor Burns Quotes

• 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

  Relationship, Leadership, Attitude

  James MacGregor Burns (2012). “Leadership”, p.770, Open Road Media

  76 Copy quote

• 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

  Motivation, Leader, Followers

  James MacGregor Burns (2012). “Leadership”, p.37, Open Road Media

  58 Copy quote

• 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

  People, Principles, Levels

  46 Copy quote

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

  James MacGregor Burns

  Earth, Understood

  James MacGregor Burns (2012). “Leadership”, p.11, Open Road Media

  37 Copy quote

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

  James MacGregor Burns

  Change, Real, People

  James MacGregor Burns (1979). “Leadership”, HarperCollins

  42 Copy quote

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

  James MacGregor Burns

  Exercise, Practice

  38 Copy quote

• "Teachers"... treat students neither coercively nor instrumentally but as joint seekers of truth and of mutual actualization. They help students define moral values not by imposing their own moralities on them but by positing situations that pose hard moral choices and then encouraging conflict and debate. They seek to help students rise to higher stages of moral reasoning and hence to higher levels of principled judgment.

  James MacGregor Burns

  Teacher, Choices, Levels

  James MacGregor Burns (2012). “Leadership”, p.772, Open Road Media

  21 Copy quote

• 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

  Goal, Leader, Purpose

  James MacGregor Burns (1978). “Leadership”, Harpercollins

  22 Copy quote

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

  James MacGregor Burns

  Leadership, Technique, Ethics

  James MacGregor Burns (1978). “Leadership”, Harpercollins

  29 Copy quote

• 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

  Self, People, Leader

  James MacGregor Burns (1978). “Leadership”, Harpercollins

  17 Copy quote

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

  James MacGregor Burns

  Play, Leader, Conflict

  James MacGregor Burns (2012). “Leadership”, p.397, Open Road Media

  11 Copy quote

• Let us face reality. The framers (of the Constitution) have simply been too shrewd for us. They have outwitted us. They designed separate institutions that cannot be unified by mechanical linkages frail bridges(or) tinkering. If we are to turn the founders upside down we must directly confront the Constitutional structure they erected.

  James MacGregor Burns

  Reality, Bridges, Tinkering

  15 Copy quote

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

  James MacGregor Burns

  Class, Violence, Revolution

  James MacGregor Burns (2012). “Leadership”, p.390, Open Road Media

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Dog, Hot, Stories

  9 Copy quote

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