Quotes About Leadership

Every age fraught with discord and danger seems to spawn a leader meant only for that age, a political giant whose absence, in retrospect, seems inconceivable when the history of that age is written.

You want to be a hero," he repeated. "You want to be one of those rare human beings who make history, rather than merely watch it flow around them like water around a rock.

I remember that day in early May after Le Vesconte's and Private Pilkington's brief joint burial service, one of the men suggested that we name the small spur of land where they were buried Le Vesconte Point, but Captain Crozier vetoed that idea, saying that if we named every place where one of us might end up buried after the dead person there, we'd run out of land before we ran out of names.

Meina Gladstone sat at the head of the long table and felt the peculiar and not-unpleasant sense of separateness which comes from far too little sleep over far too long a period.

That's all! Now either leave us alone or join us as a father rather than a receiver of sacrifices. You have the choice of Abraham!

But what if he makes it to civilization … back to England? Alone. He will always be the captain who let all his men die. The courtmartial will be inevitable, its outcome predetermined. Whatever the court's punishment might be, the shame will be a lifelong sentence.

Belay that!" cries the first mate. "No fucking profanity. Speak when you're fucking spoken to, Crispe.

anyway," I said. "But I'll do my best to play John the Baptist for you." Dur

Thomas Blanky wondered if he had been an instrument of evil — or perhaps just of folly — when he had used his more than three decades of ice-master skills to get 126 men the impossible 250 miles through ice to this place where all they could do was die

She had changed into shorts and a T-shirt that read A WOMAN'S PLACE IS IN THE HOUSE—AND THE SENATE.

M. Executive, I have explained the variables that require an alteration in our battle plan. Shall I begin this briefing again?

And then there was Gingrich. In 1983, he pushed for the House to expel two members for having affairs with House pages, saying "a free

The slash-and-burn politics he brought to the Capitol made it ungovernable, and the zealots he brought into the Republican Party had no wish to govern. It has been that way ever since.

The roof was torn off the gym. God's way of telling the jocks that they'd better remember who's really charge.

DB: Well, in a way, this is also the difference of the politician and the statesman, isn't it? A statesman is somebody with a vision. EWS: Somebody like Nehru or Mandela who has the vision and, at the same time, the capacity to carry it out, whatever that might involve … DB:

If you always work with good, dedicated people, both above and below you, then you will learn to thrive in an environment of excellence.

Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they'll find a way to screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a good team, and they'll find a way to make it better. The goal needs to be to get the team right, get them moving in the right direction, and get them to see where they are making mistakes and where they are succeeding.

Hire people smarter than you. Fail early, fail often. Listen to everyone's ideas. Face toward the problems. B-level work is bad for your soul. It's more important to invest in good people than in good ideas.

As Dave Cooper says, I screwed that up are the most important words any leader can say.

We are all paid to solve problems. Make sure to pick fun people to solve problems with.

When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown. Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things, The good of subjects is the end of kings.

He had in his army 44,000 old soldiers, every way answerable to what I have said of them before; and I shall only add, a better army, I believe, never was so soundly beaten.

Directing attention toward where it needs to go is a primal task of leadership.

many people with IQs of 160 work for people with IQs of 100, if the former have poor intrapersonal intelligence and the latter have a high one.