Donald T. Phillips > Quotes

“Ultimately, a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus. I would rather be a man of conviction than a man of conformity.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

“articulate and define what has previously remained implicit or unsaid;”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim, that a “drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.” So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great high road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause really be a just one. On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and tho’ your cause be naked truth itself . . . you shall no more be able to [reach] him, than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw. Such is man, and so must he be understood by those who would lead him, even to his own best interest. [Italics added]”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“The future of America is bound up in the present crisis. If America is to remain a first-class nation, it cannot have a second-class citizenship.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

“The best leaders never stop learning.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“Messages are more often “heard” when the communicator is honest, sincere, and succinct. In other words, say what you mean, and mean what you say.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“Through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder,” he said. “Through violence you may murder a liar but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

“Freedom is never voluntarily granted by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed,”
― Donald T. Phillips, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

“Teams bring together a broader mix of skills that exceed those of any single individual. 2. Teams jointly develop and strive toward clear goals. 3. Teams can adjust with greater speed and effectiveness. 4. Trust and confidence are more easily built in teams.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

“The greatest channel to peace” he said, “[involves] talking about problems…. For as long as we have men, we are going to have differences. And it seems to me we can disagree without being disagreeable.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

“There comes a time when one must take the position that it is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because his conscience tells him it is right.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

“Leadership never ascends from the pew to the pulpit, but invariably descends from the pulpit to the pew.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

“I catch the idea by two senses. But when I read aloud I hear what is read and I see it, and hence two senses get it and I remember it better, if I do not understand it better.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“Creative power can pull down mountains of evil and level hilltops of injustice.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

“The marches in Albany concentrated on city hall where they had little leverage and no votes. “All of our marches in Albany,” said Martin, “were to the city hall trying to make them negotiate, where if we had centered our protests at the businesses in the city, [we could have] made the merchants negotiate. And if you can pull them around, you pull the political power structure because the political power structure listens to the economic power structure.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

“One of his first initiatives for the church, for instance, was to set up a “serious evangelistic campaign” that would be carried on throughout his first full year. “This campaign,” he wrote in a letter of recommendation, “shall be carried out by 25 evangelistic teams, each consisting of a captain and at least three other members. Each team shall be urged to bring in at least five new members within the church year. The team that brings in the highest number of members shall be duly recognized at the end of the church year. Each captain shall call his team together at least once a month to discuss findings and possibilities.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

“Partly as a result of the president’s inaction, by 1956 nearly every southern state had enacted legislation that declared the Brown ruling null and void.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

“Press on and keep pressing. If you can’t fly, run; if you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk—CRAWL.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

“Trust, honesty, and integrity are exceedingly important qualities because they so strongly affect followers. Most individuals need to trust others, especially their boss. Subordinates must perceive their leader as a consistently fair person if they’re to engage in the kind of innovative risk-taking that brings a company rewards.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“Nothing could be more tragic than for men to live in these revolutionary times and fail to achieve the new attitudes and the new mental outlooks that the new situation demands.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

“It is your duty to advance the aims of the organization and also to help those who serve it. If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens you can never regain their respect and esteem”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“James MacGregor Burns wrote that “the Leader’s fundamental act is to induce people to be aware or conscious of what they feel – to feel their true needs so strongly, to define their values so meaningfully, that they can be moved to purposeful action.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent,”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“But people are much more likely to trust a leader if they know he is compassionate and forgiving of mistakes. And trust, of course, is the essential building block for successful relationships.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim, that a “drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.” So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great high road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause really be a just one. On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and tho’ your cause be naked truth itself . . . you shall no more be able to [reach] him, than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw. Such is man, and so must he be understood by those who would lead him, even to his own best interest. [Italics”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“The governor is like the boy I saw once at the launching of a ship. When everything was ready, they picked out a boy and sent him under the ship to knock away the trigger and let her go. At the critical moment everything depended on the boy. He had to do the job well by a direct, vigorous blow, and then lie flat and keep still while the ship slid over him. The boy did everything right; but he yelled as if he were being murdered, from the time he got under the keel until he got out. I thought the skin was all scraped off his back; but he wasn’t hurt at all. The master of the yard told me that this boy was always chosen for that job, that he did his work well, that he never had been hurt, but that he always squealed in that way. That’s just the way with the governor. Make up your minds that he is not hurt, and that he is doing his work right, and pay no attention to his squealing. He only wants to make you understand how hard his task is, and that he is on hand performing”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“The only way you can motivate people is to communicate with them.” Effective communication also shapes values for people by “not only bringing company philosophy to life . . . ,” as Peters and Austin put it, but also “helps newcomers understand how shared values affect individual performance.”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times

“the resources of the federal government to make a quality college education affordable for every American citizen who wants one. Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to . . . make war at pleasure. —Lincoln, justifying his stand against President James K. Polk’s invasion of Mexico February 15, 1848”
― Donald T Phillips, Lincoln on Leadership for Today: Abraham Lincoln's Approach to 21st-Century Issues

“will pay attention to the role of stories [and] myths . . . .”
― Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times