Quotes About Leadership

Unlike Paul Newman, who seems to think that salad dressing is the cure-all for America's ills, I'm a man of action.

Accountability breeds response-ability.

No enterprise can become or rains truly great without a core set of principles to preserve to build upon

Dumas Malone says it perfectly: "Jefferson's vision extended farther and comprehended more than that of anybody else in public life, and, thinking of himself as working for posterity, he was more concerned that things should be well started than that they be quickly finished.

Discipline is what makes an army—and civilization.

How he led is no mystery. His techniques were time-honored. He knew his men. He saw to it that they had dry socks, enough food, sufficient clothing. He pushed them to but never beyond the breaking point. He got out of them more than they knew they had to give. His concern for them was that of a father for his son. He was the head of a family. He

Both Custer and Crazy Horse, in short, still had much to learn about each other.

I had come to take Roosevelt for granted," Webster wrote his parents, "like spring and Easter lilies, and now that he is gone, I feel a little lost.

The businessmen spoke little and did much, while the politicians did as little as possible and spoke much.

That extra special, elite, close feeling started under the stress Capt. Sobel created at Camp Toccoa. Under that stress, the only way the men could survive was to bond together. Eventually, the noncoms had to bond together in a mutiny.

I read about a number of generals and colonels who are said to have wandered about exhorting the troops to advance. That must have been very inspirational! I suspect, however, that the men were more interested and more impressed by junior officers and NCOs who were willing to lead them rather than having some general pointing out the direction in which they should go.

There is not a day that has passed since that I do not thank Adolf Hitler for allowing me to be associated with the most talented and inspiring group of men that I have ever known." Every member of Easy interviewed by this author for this book said something similar.

Winters, Matheson, Nixon, and the others existed," Private Rader remembered. "These were first-class people, and to think these men would care and share their time and efforts with us seemed a miracle. They

Crazy Horse called to his men, "Ho-ka hey! It is a good day to fight! It is a good day to die! Strong hearts, brave hearts, to the front! Weak hearts and cowards to the rear.

You lead by fear or you lead by example. We were being led by fear.

mentor, Frederick the Great, had warned, "He who defends everything, defends nothing."6

The contrast between Eisenhower and those generals who gloried in war could not have been greater. Small wonder that millions of Americans in the 1940s felt that if their loved one had to join the fight, Eisenhower was the general they wanted for his commander.

D-Day was the pivot point of the 20th century. Everything that went before it can be said to have led up to it; all that followed came about because of what happened that day.

There is an irony here. MacArthur, the most political of generals, never succeeded in politics, while three of the most apolitical generals in American history, Washington, Grant, and Eisenhower, did.

He felt that morale was "the most highly important of any military attribute." It could never be obtained through pampering the men or lowering the standards of discipline to permit easier living, but rather through self-respect, intensive training, and adequate leadership.

Dwight Eisenhower, that in war, before the battle is joined, plans are everything, but once the shooting begins, plans are worthless.

Then Marshall leaned forward—Eisenhower recalled years later that he had "an eye that seemed to me awfully cold"—and declared, "Eisenhower, the Department is filled with able men who analyze their problems well but feel compelled always to bring them to me for final solution. I must have assistants who will solve their own problems and tell me later what they have done.

McGovern had other problems as well, personal ones with his

Stephen E. Ambrose