Wisdom, someone said, is about knowing the difference between the things you can control and the things you can’t.

distinguish between your own and not your own, the things which are in your power and not in your power,

A manager of people needs to understand that all people are different. This is not ranking people. He needs to understand that the performance of anyone is governed largely by the system that he works in, the responsibility of management.

Managers who do not understand people's different thinking styles cannot understand how the people working for them will handle different situations.

"Ask any two managers precisely what they mean by 'staff', or 'decentralization,' or 'budget.' The differences in interpretation will make communication difficult. If we are to develop professional practices of management work, semantics requires first attention.

By differentiation we mean the differences in cognitive and emotional orientation among managers in different units and the differences in formal structure among units.

You can manage what you do not understand, but you cannot lead it.

The technique of management, in its human relationships, can be best described as the technique of handling or managing people, which should be based on a deep and enlightened human understanding. The technique of organization may be described as that of relating specific duties or functions in a completely coordinated scheme. This statement of the difference between managing and organizing clearly shows their intimate relationship. It also shows, which is our present purpose, that the technique of organizing is inferior, in logical order, to that of management. It is true that a sound organizer may, because of temperamental failings, be a poor manager, but on the other hand it is inconceivable that a poor organizer may ever make a good manager... The prime necessity in all organization is harmonious relationships based on integrated interests, and, to this end, the first essential is an integrated and harmonious relationship in the duties, considered in themselves.

Managers manage a process they’ve seen before, and they react to the outside world, striving to make that process as fast and as cheap as possible. Leadership, on the other hand, is about creating change that you believe in.

The difference between management and administration (which is what the bureaucrats used to do exclusively)... is the difference... between choice and rigidity.

To manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, to command, to coordinate and to control. To foresee and plan means examining the future and drawing up the plan of action. To organize means building up the dual structure, material and human, of the undertaking. To command means binding together, unifying and harmonizing all activity and effort. To control means seeing that everything occurs in conformity with established rule and expressed demand.

Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could.

Distinguish between you as the designer of your machine and you as a worker with your machine.

Management is the development of people and not the direction of things ... Management is personnel administration.