Management Quotes
Top 50 Management Quotes
No 1 (Best quote!)![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-drucker.jpg)
The simple part is knowing what to do. The part that is not easy is getting others to do it,
- Peter Drucker, pictured right, (1909-2005), American
management writer.
So Drucker says in On The Profession Of Management (2003 edition):
Management is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their
strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant.
![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-iacocca.jpg)
Therefore, Lee Iacocca, pictured right, the American boss of Chrysler 1978-92, says:
Management is nothing more than motivating other people.
No 2![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-fayol.jpg)
To manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, to command, to co-ordinate and to control,
- Henri Fayol, pictured right, General and Industrial
Management (1916).
No 3![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-emerson.jpg)
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great,
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
American writer and philosopher, pictured right.
![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-confucius.jpg)
Confucius (551-479 BC),, pictured right, the
Chinese philosopher, also says:
Be sincere and men will trust you.
![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-voltaire.jpg)
But Voltaire (1694-1778), pictured
right, the French writer and philosopher, warns:
It is a vice to trust all and equally a vice to trust none.
No 4![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-deming.jpg)
The job of management is not supervision, but leadership.
- W. Edwards Deming, pictured right,
Out of the Crisis (1982)
![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-collins.jpg)
Jim Collins, pictured right, in Good to Great (2001) agrees:
The best people don’t need to be managed. Guided, taught, led - yes. But not tightly managed.
No 5![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-drucker.jpg)
The ultimate test of management is performance.
- Peter Drucker, pictured right, in Management: Tasks, Responsibilities,
Practices (1973)
There is the same quote referring to “business performance” in Drucker’s The Practice of Management, 1954.
No 6![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-roosevelt-eleanor.jpg)
It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.
- Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962),
American human rights campaigner, pictured right.
![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-sophocles.jpg)
Sophocles (496-406 BC), the Greek playwright, pictured right, also comments:
What you cannot enforce, do not command.
No 7![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-mintzberg.jpg)
Management is a practice that has to blend a good deal of craft (experience) with a certain amount of art
(insight) and some science (analysis).
- Henry Mintzberg, pictured right, in Managers, Not MBA’s
(2005)
So Mintzberg said in his 1987 Harvard Business Review article, Crafting Strategy:
Managers are craftsmen and strategy is their clay
No 8![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-james.jpg)
The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
- William James (1842–1910)
American philosopher, pictured right.
No 9![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-roddick.jpg)
I think that business practices would improve immeasurably if they were guided by ‘feminine’
principles—qualities like love and care and intuition.
- Anita Roddick (1942–2007),
founder of the British cosmetics retailer, The Body Shop, pictured right.
![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-bennis.jpg)
No 10![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-nanus.jpg)
Managers are the people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing.
- Warren Bennis, pictured right above, and Burt
Nanus, pictured right, in Leaders (1985).
![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-covey.jpg)
Stephen Covey
(pictured right) in The
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989) says something similar:
Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines if the ladder is leaning
against the right wall.
![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-blanchard.jpg)
No 11
The best minute I spend is the one I invest in people.![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-johnson-spencer.jpg)
- Kenneth Blanchard, pictured right above, and
Spencer Johnson, pictured right, The One Minute Manager
(1982).
No 12![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-follett.jpg)
People do not like to be ordered even to take a holiday.
- Mary Parker Follett, pictured right ,
Dynamic Administration
(1941)
No 13![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotesmate.jpg)
It’s great therapy for the troops to see their manager as a human being,
- Ken Matejka, pictured right, in Why This Horse Won’t Drink
(1991)
No 14![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-schein.jpg)
If the needs and motives of his subordinates are different, they must be treated differently
- Edgar Schein, pictured right, in Organizational Psychology
(1965)
![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-buckingham.jpg)
Marcus Buckingham, pictured right in his book, The One
Thing You Need To Know (2005) agrees:
The great manager bets that he will prevail by magnifying, emphasizing and capitalizing on each employee’s
uniqueness.
No
15![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-taylor-fw.jpg)
The principal object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the
maximum prosperity of each employee.
- Frederick Winslow (F. W.) Taylor, pictured right, in The
Principles of Scientific Management (1911)
No 16![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-townsend.jpg)
The best managers think of themselves as playing coaches.
Robert (Bob) Townsend, pictured right, Up the Organization
(1970)
No 17![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-fitzgerald.jpg)
The test of a first rate intelligence is to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain
the ability to function.
(from the 1945 collection of essays The Crack-Up)
- Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), pictured right, American writer.
No 18![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-welch.jpg)
Speed, simplicity and self-confidence.
(three attributes of good managers)
- Jack Welch, pictured right,
American boss of General Electric 1981-2001, pictured right
No 19![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-napoleon.jpg)
The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to
let you know.
- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821),ruler of
France, pictured right.
No 20![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-galileo.jpg)
Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.
-Galileo (1564-1642), Italian scientist,
pictured right.
No 21![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-fromm.jpg)
Respect...implies the absence of exploitation.
- Erich Fromm (1900-80), German-born
American psychiatrist and philosopher, pictured right
Fromm also comments:
To respect a person is not possible without knowing him.
No 22![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-adams-scott.jpg)
The most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do least damage –
management.
(the Dilbert Principle),
- Scott Adams, pictured right, The Dilbert Principle (1996)
Adams also says in the same book:
Happiness is realizing that we’re all idiots, struggling to work out the idiotic things managers tell us to
do.
No 23![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-carnegie-dale.jpg)
Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest,
- Dale Carnegie, pictured right , How to Win Friends and Influence
People (1936)
No 24![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-morita.jpg)
The primary function of management is decision making.
- Akio Morita (1921-1999), co-founder of Sony
(pictured right).
Morita also says:
A company will get nowhere if all of the thinking is left to management,
No 25![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-machiavelli.jpg)
The one who adapts his policy to the times prospers,
- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian
philosopher, pictured right.
No 26![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-grove.jpg)
The output of a manager is the output of the organizational units under his or her supervision or influence.
Andy Grove (1936- ), pictured right , American boss
of Intel,1987-98..
No 27![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-bennis.jpg)
America's organizations have been overmanaged and underled.
- Warren Bennis (1925- ), pictured right, American professor
and management writer.
No 28![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-monty.jpg)
Officers are trained to lead soldiers in battle, but unless they fully understand all their problems and gain
their confidence, the battle will be lost.
- Bernard Montgomery (1887-1976), pictured
right, British World War Two general.
No 29![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-roosevelt-ted.jpg)
Do not hit at all, if it can be avoided, but never hit softly,
- Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), pictured
right, American president.
No 30![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-slim.jpg)
The most important thing about a commander is his effect on morale,
- William Slim (1891-1970), pictured
right, British World War Two general.
No 31![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-carnegie-andrew.jpg)
The secret of success lies not in doing your own work but in recognizing the right man to do it.
- Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), pictured right,
American businessman.
No 32![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-ford.jpg)
Don’t find fault, find a remedy.
- Henry Ford (1863-1947), American car maker, pictured
right
No 33![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-harvey-jones.jpg)
When you know something’s wrong, nine times out of ten it’s the management – in truth because people aren’t
being led right.
- John Harvey-Jones (1924-2008), boss of ICI
1982-7, the British chemicals company, pictured right
No 34![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-kelleher.jpg)
Manage in good times so that you’re ready for bad times.
- Herb Kelleher (1931-),American boss of Southwest
Airlines 1982-2001, pictured right
No 35![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-leahy.jpg)
Simplicity is the knife that cuts through the tangled spaghetti of life's problems.
- Terry Leahy (1956-), chief executive of
Tesco, 1997-2011, pictured
right
No 36![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-sloan.jpg)
Give a man a clear-cut job and let him do it.
- Alfred Sloan (1875-1966), American boss of General
Motors 1923-46, pictured right.
No 37![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-walton.jpg)
High expectations are the key to everything.
- Sam Walton (1918-1992), American
founder Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer
(pictured right)
No 38![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-whitman-meg.jpg)
If you can’t measure it, you can’t control it.
- Meg Whitman (1957-), chief executive of
Hewlett-Packard since 2011, pictured right
No 39![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-lao.jpg)
The inferior man seeks to put the blame on other persons, the superior man seeks the error within himself.
- Lao Tzu (c604-c531 BC), Chinese
philosopher, pictured right
No 40![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotesmore2.jpg)
You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds….What you cannot turn to good, you
must at least make as little bad as you can.
- Thomas More (1477-1535), English
philosopher and politician, pictured right
No 41![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-washington-booker.jpg)
You cannot hold a man down without staying down with him.
- Booker T. Washington
(1856-1915), African American leader, pictured right
No 42![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-winfrey.jpg)
Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.
- Oprah Winfrey (1954-), African American
chat show host, pictured right
No 43![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-miller.jpg)
All organization is and must be grounded on the idea of exclusion and prohibition.
(from the 1953 play The
Crucible)
- Arthur Miller (1915- 2005), pictured right, American writer, pictured right
No 44![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-stewart-smith.jpg)
I wouldn’t give you two cents for all your fancy rules, if behind them, they didn’t have a little bit of
ordinary, everyday human kindness – and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
- Jefferson Smith (James Stewart, pictured right ) in the 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
No 45![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-barnard.jpg)
The inculcation of belief in the real existence of a common purpose is an essential executive function.
- Chester Barnard, pictured right (in The Functions of the
Executive ,1938)
No 46![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-covey.jpg)
The only way to treat people is how you want them to treat you.
- Stephen Covey, pictured right, Principle-Centred Leadership
(1992)
![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-heller.jpg)
Covey's statement of the Golden Rule contrasts with Joseph Heller's (pictured
right) description of Colonel Cathcart in his book, Catch-22:
Colonel Cathcart had courage and never hesitated to volunteer his men for any target available.
No 47![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-handy.jpg)
Management is the art of compromise.
- Charles Handy, pictured right, in The Gods of Management (1985)
No 48![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-mcgregor.jpg)
The central principle of managerial control is the principle of self-control.
- Douglas McGregor, pictured right,
in The Human Side of
Enterprise (1960)
No 49![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-horace.jpg)
When the going gets rough, remember to keep calm.
- Horace (65–8 BC), Roman poet, pictured right.
No 50![Management Quotes Management Quotes](images/quotes-smith.jpg)
Monopoly...is a great enemy to good management.
(from the 1776 book The Wealth of Nations)
- Adam Smith (1723-90), Scottish
philosopher
(pictured right)
|