Kevin Allen Quotes

What I've come to realize is that emotional intelligence, which I define as buoyancy, was the only way I knew how to lead, and is, in my option, the only way to inspire real change.

As buoyancy is not contrary to other characteristics of leadership, including decisiveness, accountability and performance standards, I don't ever think it can be self-defeating.

When your people have determined that you understand their lies in their hearts and are dedicated to their functional wellbeing, they will compensate for your weaknesses and shore up your strengths.

One of my great mistakes coming up, since I was a kid from wrong side of the tracks, and fearful that I might be seen as wanting leadership-wise, was to be someone I was not.

You can't mobilize people and connect with them authentically when they can't see the true you.

First, define your credo- the belief system of the organization. Secondly, define your real ambition, or where do you want to go as a collective community.

I believe that the establishment of a real ambition, a powerfully galvanizing and exciting vision of what a group is setting out to create, is vitally important.

Once you demonstrate to your team that you put them on the same plane of priority as yourself, you will create an environment, and a culture that will make your entire organization flourish.

Once you reach people on an authentic emotional level, they will reward your faith in them with their belief in you, and they will mobilize to get the job done.

What can be seeds of destruction can also be seeds of greatness.

The phrases and language used everyday in an organization can in fact affect the way your team makes decisions and conducts themselves.

The secret is to be prepared, to draw on the strengths of the people around you, and most importantly, to instill confidence that your team will step up and find a solution.

Survival in the demand economy depends on and requires experimentation, risk taking, and trial and error.

As I was coming up in business, screwing up was not an option in any form.

Maintaining patience, being generous, and helping your peers takes time, and no small amount of emotional fortitude. But it brings an exponential difference in your team's ability to problem-solve.

True buoyant leaders can never communicate in percentage points, or charts and figures. First and foremost, they must be storytellers, communicating with their hearts, not heads.

My grandfather used to say to me when I was a boy, "Getting knocked down is no big prize - it's getting up that's the real trick." I couldn't agree more.

Mandela stands alone in possessing all of the qualities of other great men, but has one quality which is transcendent... his ability to forgive and to place others above himself.

As a sensitive and highly intuitive person in the command-and-control corporate world, I always felt miscast.

At the end of the day it's really easy to be a great leader when things are going well. The real test, whether or not you believe in being an emotionally intelligent leader, is when things go wrong.