Joseph O’Connor - Collected Quotes

"A model is an edited, distorted and generalised copy of the original and therefore there can never be complete. A model is not in any sense ‘true’: it can be judged only by whether it works or doesn’t work. If it works, it allows another person to get the same class of results as the original person from whom the model was taken." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"All actions have a purpose. Our actions are not random; we are always trying to achieve something, although we may not be aware of what that is." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"An effective leader leaves a legacy; they leave their footprints on the road for others to follow. A good leader develops themselves and they develop others. They bring people together rather than divide them." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Authority alone is like pushing from behind. What automatic reaction do you have when pushed from behind? Resistance - unless you are travelling in that direction anyway and you experience the push as helpful. When you do not know what lies ahead and you are not sure whether you want to move forward, resistance is completely understandable. [...] Authority alone pushes. Leadership pulls, because it draws people towards a vision of the future that attracts them." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Authority works best where you have an accepted hierarchy [...]. Then people move together because of the strong implicit accepted values that everyone shares. If you are trying to lead people who do not share similar goals and values, then authority is not enough." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Beliefs are those ideas we take as true and use to guide our actions. We all have beliefs about what sort of people we are and what we are capable of. These beliefs act as permissions for or limitations on what we do. When we believe something is possible, we will try it; if we believe it impossible, we will not." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Every time we push the boundary on the outside world we also push the boundary on our inner world. We open a larger ‘idea space’. Every advance in science, art and technology means we have gone beyond the limiting ideas that have stopped us advancing in the past." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Good leaders are ethical, responsible and effective. Ethical because leadership connects you to others through shared values. Responsible because leadership means self-development and not simply giving orders, however charismatically, to get others to do what you want. Effective because shared values and goals give the strongest motivation for getting tasks done. There are no guarantees, but this sort of leadership will bring you closer to people and give you the greatest chance of success." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Having a choice is better than not having a choice. Always try to have a map for yourself that gives you the widest and richest number of choices. Act always to increase choice. The more choices you have, the freer you are and the more influence you have." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Leadership comes from our natural striving to constantly reinvent ourselves. You do not need external permission to be a leader. Nor do you need any qualifications or position of authority. Leadership does not depend on what you do already. Many people in positions of authority are not leaders; they may have the title but not the substance. Others have the substance, but no title. Leadership comes from the reality of what you do and how you think, not from your title or nominal responsibilities. Leadership blooms when the soil and climate is right, but the seed comes from within." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Leadership has long been associated with authority - we tend to concentrate on the leader, to think of them as innately superior in some way, and take the followers for granted. But formal authority is only one possible part of leadership. Many leaders do not have it. In some cases, perhaps ‘companionship’ better describes the relationship between leader and followers." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Leadership is about inspiring people through a shared set of values." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Management keeps existing systems running smoothly. It is a skill; leadership more an identity issue. Leaders innovate, they change or modify existing procedures, and they focus on transformation. Leaders motivate people through their beliefs and values, pushing the edges of the current organizational culture; management accepts the current organizational culture and makes it work. Management gets people to do things and leaders get people to want to do things. Management works within boundaries and leaders work with boundaries (not without boundaries!) Managers are people who do things right. Leaders are people who do the right thing." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Managers sometimes justify the stick by pointing to better results, with the assumption that the threats caused the improvements. Alas, this is unlikely. One event coming before another does not automatically mean that the first is the cause of the second; the rooster does not make the sun rise every morning, although it may think it does. Bad results are much more likely to improve than get worse due to the simple law of statistics known as regression: results average out over time. Poor performance will eventually improve even when left to itself." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Managing [...] used to be about planning and control. Top management decided what was to be done, middle management worked out how to do it and everyone else did as they were told. This model assumed, of course, that top management knew what needed to be done, that the orders had time to percolate their way down and that, like a good army, the lower ranks would obey." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Neuro-Linguistic programming is the study of our subjective experience; how we create what passes for reality in our minds. [...] NLP also studies brilliance and quality - how outstanding individuals and organisations get their outstanding results." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"People respond to their experience, not to reality itself. We do not know what reality is. Our senses, beliefs, and past experience give us a map of the world from which to operate." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"The meaning of the communication is not simply what you intend, but also the response you get." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)