Top 60 Rosabeth Moss Kanter Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “A vision is not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

2. “The middle of every successful project looks like a disaster.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

3. “It takes courage to speak up against complacency and injustice while others remain silent. But that’s what leadership is.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

4. “Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

5. “It is crucial to recognize, reward, and celebrate accomplishments.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

6. “Change is a threat when done to me, but an opportunity when done by me.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

7. “Change demands new learning.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

8. “I’ve found that small wins, small projects, small differences often make huge differences.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

9. “Everything looks like a failure in the middle. In neary every change project, doubt is cast on the original vision because problems are mounting and the end is nowhere in sight.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

10. “Everything looks like a failure in the middle.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

11. “If world problems feel too big to tackle, think small. Step by step. Small wins build confidence, lead the way to change.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

12. “To stay ahead, you must have your next idea waiting in the wings.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

13. “Change is like putting lipstick on a bulldog. The bulldog’s appearance hasn’t improved, but now it’s really angry.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

14. “Change is disturbing when it is done to us, exhilarating when it is done by us.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

15. “Our future will be shaped by the assumptions we make about who we are and what we can be.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

16. “Leaders must wake people out of inertia. They must get people excited about something they’ve never seen before, something that does not yet exist.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

17. “A self-reinforcing upward spiral: performance stimulating pride stimulating performance.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

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18. “Confidence is the sweet spot between arrogance and despair-consisting of positive expectations for favorable outcomes.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

19. “Confidence makes you willing to try harder and attracts the kind of support from others that makes “winning” possible.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

20. “The architecture of change involves the design and construction of new patterns, or the reconceptualization of old ones, to make new, and hopefully more productive, actions possible.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

21. “Thinkers, makers and traders are the DNA of the world class company.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

22. “Power is the ability to get things done.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

23. “Confidence isn’t optimism or pessimism, and it’s not a character attribute. It’s the expectation of a positive outcome.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

24. “The best way for business to move out of the Hall of Shame is to demonstrate a commitment to social causes. This also makes business sense. A focus on solving social problems has motivational benefits in lean economic times.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

25. “Money should never be separated from values. Detached from values it may indeed be the root of all evil. Linked effectively to social purpose it can be the root of opportunity.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

26. “The most radical thing we can do is connect people to one another. That starts conversations toward a vision for change.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

27. “Creativity is a lot like looking at the world through a kaleidoscope. You look at a set of elements, the same ones everyone else sees, but then reassemble those floating bits and pieces into an enticing new possibility.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

28. “Confidence is the bridge connecting expectations and performance, investment and results.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

29. “Passion for a goal doesn’t guarantee success, but without it, you can’t even begin.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

30. “People often resist change for reasons that make good sense to them, even if those reasons don’t correspond to organizational goals. So it is crucial to recognize, reward, and celebrate accomplishments.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

31. “Friendly people are caring people, eager to provide encouragement and support when needed most.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

32. “After years of telling corporate citizens to ‘trust the system,’ many companies must relearn instead to trust their people – and encourage their people to use neglected creative capacities in order to tap the most potent economic stimulus of all: idea power.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

33. “A basic truth of management – if not of life – is that nearly everything looks like a failure in the middle.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

34. “Corporate men and women, once divided by striking differences in opportunity for career growth, have come to share career chaos.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

35. “Leaders must pick causes they won’t abandon easily, remain committed despite setbacks, and communicate their big ideas over and over again in every encounter.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

36. “The more closed the circle, the more difficult it is for ‘outsiders’ to break in. Their very difficulty in entering may be taken as a sign of incompetence, a sign that the insiders were right to close their ranks.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

37. “You can always buy something in English, you can’t always sell something in English.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

38. “Pessimists see problems as stemming from stable and universal causes, thus making them less susceptible to corrective action. Optimists, in contrast, view problems as temporary and resulting from specific factors that will either change or be changed.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

39. “In the most innovative companies there is a significantly higher volume of thank yous than in companies of low innovation.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

40. “Powerlessness corrupts: absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

41. “Mindless habitual behavior is the enemy of innovation.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

42. “The degree to which the opportunity to use power effectively is granted to or withheld from individuals is one operative difference between those companies which stagnate and those which innovate.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

43. “Too many people let others stand in their way and don’t go back for one more try.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

44. “Perpetuating success or sliding into decline is the result of many intersecting forces that reinforce one another directly and indirectly. They are both cause and effect of winning or losing. Winning generates positive forces, losing generates negative forces.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

45. “Leadership is one of the most enduring, universal human responsibilities.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

46. “Nations need to understand their own strengths and weaknesses, and India’s tradition of dissent and democratic debate is a positive aspect.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

47. “The goal of winning is not losing two times in a row.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

48. “To take full advantage of the potential in e-business, leaders must lead differently, and people must work together differently. Let’s call this new way of working e-culture-the human side of the global information era, the heart and soul of the new economy.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

49. “You’ve no future unless you add value, create projects.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

50. “Winning becomes easier over time as the cornerstones of confidence become habits.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter