What a difference a day—or in this case a couple of years—makes.Here are quotes by and about four of the leaders whose vision helped lead us to our present situation. These are the same guys lauded by universities, the media, leadership pundits and themselves just short time ago.

“Bad behavior is aberrational…never is a big word…the chances of [the company] getting into trouble again are virtually nil.”— Chuck Prince Citigroup Dec. 16, 2005 at the annual Citigroup Investor Day,

“We’re sticking with [Angelo] Mozilo because he has built a top-notch organization with strong risk controls that could emerge even stronger from the current subprime meltdown.” Barron’s, April 18, 2007

“The vision is to hire terrific people who will be the next generation of leaders and the people who will take this firm to the next level.” Richard Fuld, Knowledge@Wharton, January 10, 2007 (link includes his five qualities for leadership)

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I cleaned out a ton of files today (it was way too hot to go outside) and came across three mildly sexy comments from Richard Branson, Einstein, and Francis Koenig, so I decided to make today sexy comment day.

“You’ll have at least two ways to get lucky on our flights.” –Richard Branson on his airline’s offering casinos and double beds on it six new Airbus A380 planes. (How lucky are you?)

“When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.” –Albert Einstein (Imagine this translated into today’s language.)

“It’s a market untapped by Wall Street… There are 6 billion people on the planet, and most of them participate in adult entertainment.” — Francis Koenig CEO AdultVest (for those of you who don’t know, AdultVest is a $7.9 billion hedge fund that is dedicated to the adult entertainment industry, including buying iPorn.com—no relation to the iPhone. (A lot more stable and profitable than mortgages.)

What can you add to the collection?

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Remember the bestseller All I really needed to know I learned in kindergarden? It still sells because it has a wealth of wisdom that addresses adult issues, but that most adults have forgotten.

Another font of wisdom for adult issues is Dr Seuss.

I think he has better advice on authenticity and motivation in leadership then all the pundits (including me) who blather on about it today. Best, his advice is short, sweet, easy to remember and doesn’t require any outside help to understand it—just compatible MAP.

Horton Hatches the Egg (1940)
I meant what I said,
and I said what I meant
An elephant’s faithful,
One hundred percent.

Horton Hears a Who! (1954)
Don’t give up! I believe in you all
A person’s a person, no matter how small!

On Beyond Zebra! (1955)
I’m telling you this ’cause you’re one of my friends.
My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends!

So, on beyond Z!
It’s high time you were shown
That you really don’t know
All there is to be known.

The Lorax (1971)
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

Oh, the Places You’ll Go! (1990)
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.

What are your favorite Seussisms?

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“No man will ever make a great leader who wants to do it all by himself or to get all the credit for doing it” — Andrew Carnegie (Ain’t that the truth!)

“You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.” — Anthony J D’Angelo (Nor does holding a position make you one.)

“I’ve got to follow them, I’m their leader” — Alexandre Ledru-Rollin (You’d think this attitude would be more common considering it’s been around for more than four thousand years.)

What’s your favorite leadership quote?

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There’s a common thread that runs through leadership teachings starting at least 2500 years ago with Lao Tzu, who said,

The superior leader gets things done with very little motion. He imparts instruction not through many words but through a few deeds. He keeps informed about everything but interferes hardly at all. He is a catalyst, and though things would not get done well if he weren’t there, when they succeed he takes no credit. And because he takes no credit, credit never leaves him.

and

As for the best leaders,
the people do not notice their existence…
When the best leader’s work is done,
the people say, “We did it ourselves!”
To lead the people, walk behind them

Fast forward to 1987 and you have The 5 Practices of leadership from The Leadership Challenge,

• Model the Way
• Inspire a Shared Vision
• Challenge the Process
• Enable Others to Act
• Encourage the Heart

Today the hot terms are thought leadership and servant leadership.

The thread that runs through all this is that leadership is all about ‘them’, not about ‘me’—another reason that ‘politician’ and ‘leader’ are an oxymoron.

The other common thread is that leadership isn’t about what you do.

Leadership is about your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™); it’s who you are.

Leadership is open to all, no matter what you do, at work or personally, you have opportunities to lead.

So the real question isn’t do you practice leadership, it’s are you a leader or a meader?

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Bridget from Biz Chicks Rule was surprised that I don’t consider politicians leaders since “they tell us their vision and lay a path of guidance to show how we’re going to get there?”

To me, the ability to articulate a vision and describe a path a leader does not make.

My idea of a leader is about 2500 years old and comes from Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching.

As for the best leaders,
the people do not notice their existence…
When the best leader’s work is done,
the people say, “We did it ourselves!”
To lead the people, walk behind them.

Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.

The superior leader gets things done with very little motion. He imparts instruction not through many words but through a few deeds. He keeps informed about everything but interferes hardly at all. He is a catalyst, and though things would not get done well if he weren’t there, when they succeed he takes no credit. And because he takes no credit, credit never leaves him.

Do you know of a politician who fits these descriptions.

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True leadership requires great communications and the hallmark of great communications is clarity of thought.That clarity applies to all communications—including insults.

When it’s necessary to insult someone, and at times it is—or at least it feels that way—your insults should be offered with the same clarity and a whole lot of class.

The need for clarity is obvious—you want the person you’re insulting, and anyone else who is cognizant of it, to not only know your opinion, but to be impressed with your elegance.

Any idiot can say, “She’s dumb” or “he’s a *%$# jerk,” but those insults have no real meaning.

In fact, the minute you resort to expletives to describe a person or action you prove yourself to be a person of small intellect and smaller vocabulary.

Clarity is the key—using the fewest words, while allowing no question as to meaning or intent, as is shown by these three historic figures.

Clarence Darrow: “I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”

Abraham Lincoln: “He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I know.”

Oscar Wilde: “He has no enemies but is intensely disliked by his friends.”

Additionally, when you’re insulted, especially by someone with clarity and class, you want to respond in kind as was done here.

George Bernard Shaw sent a note to Winston Churchill saying, “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend… if you have one.”

To which Churchill responded, “Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.”

No question as to what either thought of the other.

Mark Twain was a master of perfectly barbed clarity, “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”

And before you think that the art or the clear and classy insult is a thing of the past, take a look at three modern examples,

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” – Billy Wilder

“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.” – Robert Redford

And I absolutely love this one,

“He had delusions of adequacy.” — Walter Kerr

Have you ever given or received a clear, classy insult?

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I normally keep silly stuff for the weekends, but as an example of leadership futility this was too good to pass up.

Cemetery full, mayor tells locals not to die
BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) – The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.

In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that “all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish.”

It added: “Offenders will be severely punished.”

The mayor said he was forced to take drastic action after an administrative court in the nearby town of Pau ruled in January that the acquisition of adjoining private land to extend the cemetery would not be justified.

Lalanne, who celebrated his 70th birthday on Wednesday and is standing for election to a seventh term in this month’s local elections, said he was sorry that there had not been a positive outcome to the dilemma.

“It may be a laughing matter for some, but not for me,” he said.

Got that? Leaders should be buried before the rank and file.

Actually, that’s not a bad idea.

What leadership statement have you said/heard recently that forbids/requests the impossible?

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OK, I admit it, I enjoy it when a pundit sticks his foot in his mouth and ends up with egg on his face—even if I have to wait a whole year for it to happen. It helps me put my own goofs in perspective. Here, courtesy of Business Week, are my favorites ordered my way, but including their BW rankings.

12 “But [it] is very likely that oil prices will range in the medium term around an average of $40…. In the long run it could even be $25 to $30.”

LORD BROWNE, CEO, BP, June 12, 2006. Oil prices averaged $70-plus a barrel in 2007.

5 “We do notexpect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system.”

BEN BERNANKE, Federal Reserve Chairman, May 17, 2007. A global credit crunch began three months later.

3 “The media’s great love affair with the Nintendo Wii is beginning to sour…. There are whispers that the device is tiring and gimmicky.”

TYLER TODD, video-game columnist, The Gazette (Montreal), Oct. 14, 2006. Press reviews stayed positive in 2007, and buyers stood in line for the console for the second year in a row.

4 “AMZN is a stock that continues to live on borrowed time.”

TIM BOYD, Caris & Co. analyst in a report about the stock of Amazon.com on Oct. 26, 2006, when the company’s shares were at 38.50. On Dec. 17, 2007, Amazon shares were trading at 85.09.

9 “The steady improvement in [home] sales will support price appreciation…[despite]…all the wild projections by academics, Wall Street analysts, and others in the media.”

DAVID LEREAH, chief economist, National Association of Realtors, Jan. 10, 2007. Housing prices steadily worsened, falling even farther than many skeptics had predicted.

Now look at what you predicted that didn’t come true. Isn’t it great? There’s no way any of us got our feet further into our mouths than these guys.

What’s your favorite foot-in-mouth experience?

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While Lao Tzu provided my all-time favorite summing-up of leadership, it’s Goethe who is the basis for my leaders DO attitude.

He said, “What you can do or think you can do, begin it—boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

Isn’t that a terrific thought? Whether you’re effort is focused on leading yourself or leading others to a new/different/enhanced outcome you need to DO, if you only think and plan and then think some more you could easily end up doing nothing and going nowhere.

No, you’re DOing won’t be perfect, you’ll make mistakes, need to backup or go around to avoid a hurdle, but guess what? Even if you had thought and planned for years your DOing still wouldn’t be perfect.

Just as living organisms grow and change, plans need the same ability. Trees bend in the wind so that they won’t break, just so your plans require enough flexibility to deal with the winds of society, change and outside events.

Flexibility doesn’t mean selling out the focus of the plan, i.e., your purpose; it does allow you to shift to avoid a head-on collision that could destroy everything, thus accomplishing nothing.

Nobody is prescient, that’s why even though smart companies do their long-term plans in detail, they know that they’ll shift, be tweaked and change over and over in response to many factors, both global and local.

So why plan at all if it’s going to keep changing? For the same reason you use a map when going from one location to another. Sure, if you want to drive from San Francisco to Cincinnati you could just head east and ask along the way, but that wouldn’t be very efficient. It’s better to plan the trip even though you know that you may need to change course due to construction, storms, detours, etc.

So the next time you’re wondering if you should keep planning or get started, remember Goethe’s words and start DOing.