Quotes About Leadership

How was power to be shared in a country that in its three-thousand-year history had never once witnessed a peaceful struggle for power?

When the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov visited Washington in 1942, he'd been invited to sleep at the White House. "I think," Roosevelt told Churchill in 1942 referring to Stalin, "that if I give him everything I can and ask him for nothing in return, noblesse oblige, he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace." The American president clung to that illusion until his death in April 1945.

When spiritual leaders have done their jobs, the people around them have encountered God and obeyed his will.

There is no way to satisfy the desires of all the people who clamor for their time, so leaders must subjugate their schedule to God's will and invest themselves in those activities and projects most critical. Unlike

Spiritual leaders must help their people see beyond God's acts to recognize the way God consistently works with his people, time and time again. To do this, spiritual leaders must develop their own understanding and recognition of God's activity in their midst.

A sure indication of a successful leader is the collective and consistent testimony of subordinates who are grateful for what they learned and how they grew while they worked under that leader.

I didn't think he was a very 'nice' person,' says Chichilnisky [about Jeff Bezos]. 'I liked him, but he was not warm. I'm not criticising him, not a bit. It was like he could be a Martian for all I knew. A well-meaning, nice Martian.

Bezos personifies a new breed of executive that arose with the emergence of the game-changing technologies in the 1980s and 1990s ... a 'productive narcissist'. ... These executives have big enough egos to make up seemingly random rules of business leadership. However, unlike other narcissists, they get the job done.

I'd disagree with the characterisations of him as competitive (which I think was just misinterpretation of his ambition) or secretive (which I think is more about wanting to protect his team and his customers). Jeff [Bezos] could much more accurately be described as a naively optimistic geek than a calculating megalomaniac.

Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to.

Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.

Fun is at the core of the way I like to do business and it has been key to everything I've done from the outset. More than any other element, fun is the secret of Virgin's success. I am aware that the ideas of business as being fun and creative goes right against the grain of convention, and it's certainly not how the they teach it at some of those business schools, where business means hard grind and lots of 'discounted cash flows' and net' present values'.

I believe that listening is one of the most important skills for any teacher, parent, leader, entrepreneur or, well, just about anyone who has a pulse.

If only we had the power to see ourselves in the same way that others see us.' Of all the mantras one might adopt in life, this is surely one of the better ones and for anyone in a leadership role it should be an essential part of the checks and balances that are built into a company's standard operating procedures.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.

Whenever you are setting up a new project, the most important thing is to surround yourself with people who are better than yourself, have different skills and a healthy combination of enthusiasm and experience.

There are many ways to run a successful company. What works once may never work again. What everyone tells you never to do may just work, once. There are no rules. You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over, and it's because you fall over that you learn to save yourself from falling over.

The way to become a great leader is to look for the best in people – seldom criticise – always praise.

The key enterprising skills I used when first starting out are the very same ones I use today: the art of delegation, risk-taking, surrounding yourself with a great team and working on projects you really believe in.

If I had to give one reason why I have been fortunate enough to experience some success, it would be my knack of bringing together wonderful people.

never just try to make money. Long-term success will never come if profit is the only aim.

La gerencia tiene mucho más que ver con el mantenimiento de los procesos, las disciplinas y los sistemas que con el cambio de los mismos. Un buen líder, en cambio, aunque mantiene la estabilidad, debe tener la visión, la creatividad y sobre todo la capacidad para influir en sus colaboradores con el fin de que lo apoyen en los retos que implica llevar a una organización a territorios inexplorados, donde abundan los riesgos.

Además de conocer de primera mano ciertas cosas que usted jamás encontrará en los informes de gestión, el hecho de que un alto directivo (en este caso, usted) se interese por las opiniones de sus colaboradores, las pida y se tome la molestia de escucharlas tiene un enorme valor para todos.

Yo creo, como dicen algunos, que "Dios está en los detalles". En este caso, se trata de detalles que pasan desapercibidos para los altos directivos desde sus oficinas lujosas.