Quotes About Leadership

You cannot imagine how much the presidents of the entire world hate each other.

The failure of the United Nations - My failure is maybe, in retrospective, that I was not enough aggressive with the members of the Security Council.

Who aspires to remain leader must keep in advance of his column. His fear must not play traitor to his occasions. The instant he falls into line with his followers, a bolder spirit may throw himself at the head of the movement initiated, and in that moment his leadership is gone.

In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.

Political aspirants make too much of the people before election, and, if successful, too much of themselves after it. They use the people when they want to rise, as we treat a spirited horse when we want to mount him;--for a time we pat the animal upon the neck, and speak him softly; but once in the saddle, then come the whip and spur.

There would not be so much harm in the giddy following the fashions, if somehow the wise could always set them.

Don't live so that your children go unled because of habits that leave you uninspired.

Don't worry about politics or people. You just please the Lord. He has little trouble with His servants' being too strong. Most of His difficulty is in getting them going. . . . Half the problems in the Church occur because the members don't know the gospel. [Remarks recorded September 7, 1977 by Henry B. Eyring, in I WILL LEAD YOU ALONG, 313]

Bush and Koizumi forged the "George-Jun relationship," which rivaled the "Ron-Yasu" partnership struck by President Ronald Reagan and Japanese prime minister Nakasone Yasuhiro during the late 1980s and was considered to be the high-water mark for the two countries' relations.

There is too much at stake for us to surrender to the politics of polarization.

This is not the time for partisan bickering. This is not the time for politics as usual. Some of us are Democrats. Some of us are Republicans. Some of us are Independents. Above all, we must be Oklahomans first.

If the pastor and elders are people of prayer, their example and exhortation will encourage others to pray. If they are not, the whole congregation will be infected with an atmosphere of prayerlessness, and people's prayers will remain mostly personal and individual. I

Tech leaders may be chosen by boards of directors selected by shareholders, but they are not chosen by the public. Democratic countries should not cede the future to leaders the public did not elect

A leader's job is not to put greatness into people, but rather to recognize that it already exists, and to create an environment where that greatness can emerge and grow.

We pay attention to what our competitors do but it's not where we put our energy.

If I have to choose between agreement and conflict, I'll take conflict every time," Bezos often said. "It always yields a better result.

Bezos is like a chess master playing countless games simultaneously, with the boards organized in such a way that he can efficiently tend to each match.

Andy Grove, the longtime CEO of Intel, was known to be so harsh and intimidating that a subordinate once fainted during a performance review.

It's about a crucial era during which old regimes fell, new leaders emerged, new social contracts were forged between strangers, the topography of cities changed, and the upstarts roamed the earth.

If you want to build a truly great company you have got to ride a really big wave. And you've got to be able to look at market waves and technology waves in a different way than other folks and see it happening sooner, know how to position yourself out there, prepare yourself, pick the right surfboard—in other words, bring the right management team in, build the right platform underneath you. Only then can you ride a truly great wave.

I didn't know Jeff Bezos but I just remember being blown away by the fact that he was there with his sleeves rolled up, climbing around the conveyors with all of us,

he liked to say he didn't have an exit strategy—he was building a company for the long term.

These are not fever dreams. They are near inevitabilities. It's an easy prediction to make—that Jeff Bezos will do what he has always done. He will attempt to move faster, work his employees harder, make bolder bets, and pursue both big inventions and small ones, all to achieve his grand vision for Amazon—that it be not just an everything store, but ultimately an everything company.

Chris Brown, a software-development manager at the time.