Quotes About Leadership

In these early years, one also sees Rockefeller using contributions to stimulate collaboration from others as he inched toward the concept of matching grants.

Perhaps the main reason that Washington and Hamilton functioned so well together was that both men longed to see the thirteen states welded into a single, respected American nation. At the close of the war, Washington had circulated a letter to the thirteen governors, outlining four things America would need to attain greatness: consolidation of the states under a strong federal government, timely payment of its debts, creation of an army and a navy, and harmony among its people.

Rockefeller's partners "seldom knew what he was thinking but he always knew what we were thinking.

Washington instinctively trod the fine line between showiness and austerity, defining a characteristic style of understated elegance.

Despite his lack of legal training, Henry M. Flagler drew up the act of incorporation.

the leading men would receive no salary but would profit solely from the appreciation of their shares and rising dividends—which Rockefeller thought a more potent stimulus to work.

As such, he presided over these sordid municipal skirmishes, albeit keeping a sanitary distance.

It seemed unfortunate that they were led into such lavish style.

Not surprisingly, he had trouble delegating authority and low regard for the intelligence of other people.

Like the Reynolds pamphlet, these clandestine messages signal a further deterioration in Hamilton's judgment once he no longer worked under Washington's wise auspices and was left purely to his own devices.

Once Washington had set his sights on independence, his vision was unblinking, and his consistency proved one of his most compelling qualities.

To avert overbuilding and internecine price wars, Morgan decided to spearhead a new steel consolidation.

Washington went on to say that this mighty blaze "ought to be under the guidance of reason, for although we cannot avoid first impressions, we may assuredly place them under guard.

Rockefeller even hesitated to punish serious offenses and instead of prosecuting the occasional embezzler simply dismissed him.

Hamilton believed that revolutions ended in tyranny because they glorified revolution as a permanent state of mind. A spirit of compromise and a concern with order were needed to balance the quest for liberty.

Pierpont wanted to follow him, but he held back, awaiting word of Junius's plans.

With such men at the helm, the GEB, for all its good works, would fall considerably short of heaven.

She exerted a strong influence upon the rest of us.

He was a man who always acted on Flagler's business motto of favoring "sharp, vigorous and decisive measures.

Coolheaded in the face of such hysteria, Rockefeller saw that he could convert this chaos to advantage.

Whereas most other tycoons hired subordinates to oversee personal expenditures, Rockefeller supervised every detail

Pierpont was already urging him to cut back his schedule.

Indeed, had he not possessed some charm, or at least cordiality, he could never have accomplished so much in the business world.

Rockefeller always sat in the middle of the backseat.