Marcus Buckingham

"Many of us feel stress and get overwhelmed not because we're taking on too much, but because we're taking on too little of what really strengthens us."

"Passion isn't something that lives way up in the sky, in abstract dreams and hopes. It lives at ground level, in the specific details of what you're doing every day."

"The great organization must not only accommodate the fact that each employee is different, it must capitalize on these differences. It must watch for clues to each employee's natural talents and then position and develop each employee so that his or her talents are transformed into bona fide strengths."

"Each person's greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength."

"Whenever you interview people who are truly successful at their chosen profession—from teaching to telemarketing, acting to accounting—you discover that the secret to their success lies in their ability to discover their strengths and to organize their life so that these strengths can be applied."

"What defines a leader is his preoccupation with the future. In his head he carries a vivid image of what the future could be, and this image drives him on."

"The necessity for leaders to possess optimism and ego serves to answer the age-old question: Are leaders born or are they made? They are born. A leader is born with an optimistic disposition or she is not. If she is not, then no amount of "optimism training" is going to make her view the world in an overwhelmingly positive, opportunistic light."

"If great managers are catalysts, speeding up the reaction between the individual's talents and the company's goals, then great leaders are alchemists. Somehow they are able to transform our fear of the unknown into confidence in the future."

"Clarity is the antidote to anxiety, and therefore clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader. If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear."