Mary Parker Follett Quotes.
All polishing is done by friction.
Conflict is resolved not through compromise, but through invention.
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.
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.
We must face life as it is and understand that diversity is its most essential feature.
The leader is one who can organize the experience of the group … and thus get the full power of the group. The leader makes the team. This is pre-eminently the leadership quality – the ability to organize all the forces there are in an enterprise and make them serve a common purpose.
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.
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.
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.
That is always our problem, not how to get control of people, but how all together we can get control of a situation.
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.
Imitation is for shirkers, like-minded-ness for the comfort lovers, unifying for the creators.
Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim.
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.
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.
What people often mean by getting rid of conflict is getting rid of diversity, and it is of the utmost importance that these should not be considered the same.
