I wish we could understand the word expert as expressing an attitude of mind which we can all acquire rather than the collecting of information by a special caste. ... Many of us are calling for experts because, acutely conscious of the mess we are in, we want someone to pull us out.

Mary Parker Follett

Leadership is not defined by the exercise of power but by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led. The most essential work of the leader is to create more leaders.

Mary Parker Follett

essentials leader exercise

There are three ways of dealing with difference: domination, compromise, and integration. By domination only one side gets what it wants; by compromise neither side gets what it wants; by integration we find a way by which both sides may get what they wish.

Mary Parker Follett

differences three wish

Management is the art of getting things done through people.

Mary Parker Follett

done people art

Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Differences must be integrated, not annihilated, not absorbed.

Mary Parker Follett

unity diversity differences

That is always our problem, not how to get control of people, but how all together we can get control of a situation.

Mary Parker Follett

unity together-we-can people

The most successful leader of all is the one who sees another picture not yet actualized. He sees the things which are not yet there... Above all, he should make his co-workers see that it is not his purpose which is to be achieved, but a common purpose, born of the desires and the activities of the group.

Mary Parker Follett

common-purpose leader successful

Fear of difference is fear of life itself.

Mary Parker Follett

diversity differences justice

The ignoring of differences is the most fatal mistake in politics or industry or international life: every difference that is swept up into a bigger conception feeds and enriches society; every difference which is ignored feeds on society and eventually corrupts it.

Mary Parker Follett

ignored differences mistake

Give your difference, welcome my difference, unify all difference in the larger whole - such is the law of growth. The unifying of difference is the eternal process of life - the creative synthesis, the highest act of creation, the at-onement.

Mary Parker Follett

differences law giving

the best leaders try to train their followers themselves to become leaders. ... they wish to be leaders of leaders.

Mary Parker Follett

leadership wish trying

We must face life as it is and understand that diversity is its most essential feature.

Mary Parker Follett

diversity essentials faces

Part of the task of the leader is to make others participate in his leadership. The best leader knows how to make his followers actually feel power themselves, not merely acknowledge his power.

Mary Parker Follett

tasks followers leadership

The best leader does not ask people to serve him, but the common end. The best leader has not followers, but men and women working with him.

Mary Parker Follett

leadership men people

Many people tell me what I ought to do and just how I ought to do it, but Few have made me want to do something.

Mary Parker Follett

made want people

In crowds we have unison, in groups harmony. We want the single voice but not the single note; that is the secret of the group.

Mary Parker Follett

unity voice secret

Coercive power is the curse of the universe, coactive power, the enrichment and advancement of every human soul.

Mary Parker Follett

advancement curse soul

It seems to me that whereas power usually means power-over, the power of some person or group over some other person or group, it is possible to develop the conception of power-with, a jointly developed power, a co-active, not a coercive power.

Mary Parker Follett

nonviolent-communication groups mean

We have thought of peace as passive and war as the active way of living. The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest cure compared to the task of reconciling our differences ... From War to Peace is not from the strenuous to the easy existence; it is from the futile to the effective, from the stagnant to the active, from the destructive to the creative way of life ... The world will be regenerated by the people who rise above these passive ways and heroically seek, by whatever hardship, by whatever toil, the methods by which people can agree.

Mary Parker Follett

compassion opposites war

Democracy is not brute numbers; it is a genuine union of true individuals...the essence of democracy is creating. The technique of democracy is group organization.

Mary Parker Follett

creating organization essence

We should never allow ourselves to be bullied by an either-or. There is often the possibility of something better than either of these two alternatives.

Mary Parker Follett

possibility alternatives two