Quotes About Leadership

People go into politics because they want the affirmation, and they want the applause.

I will not permit thirty men to travel four hundred miles to agitate a bag of wind.

The leadership lost its nerve. Instead of taking the lead in the reform movement... they pulled the plug on it. They tried and are still trying to return the church to the dry ice of the previous century and a half.

Would it not be much better to have a president who deliberately lied to the people because he thought a war was essential than to have one who was so dumb as to be taken in by intelligence agencies, especially those who told him what he wanted to hear?

Billy Graham's success in finding a way to move beyond the outmoded racial politics and strained racial theology of the Old South would be a model for the rise of the Religious Right and its leaders, including Jerry Falwell in the 1980s and 90s.

A principal leader of the revival movement in east Tennessee was Samuel Doak, the Presbyterian minister who had delivered his famous "Sword of the Lord" sermon in 1780 sending the Tennessee militia off to defeat the British. As the fires of revival flared up in the 1800s, Doak converted to abolitionism, freed all his slaves, and then traveled the countryside preaching that any true Christian would condemn and work to end the institution of slavery.

In short, Vietnam had demonstrated that when it came to deciding when to go to war and how to fight, civilians were not to be trusted.

The question that generals wanted to hear from their civilian masters after Desert Storm was not "What are you doing for us?" but "What can we do for you and the troops?" The

The resulting fractious, at times even dysfunctional, relationship between the top brass and civilian political leaders is one of Washington's dirty little secrets—recognized by all of the inside players, concealed from an electorate that might ask discomfiting questions about who is actually in charge.

Andrew J. Bacevich

Of course, some captains are more adept at doing so than others. A successful president correctly discerns what existing conditions require and creates the impression that he is the master of circumstance rather than its servant. James Polk, Abraham Lincoln, and William McKinley offer illustrative examples.

Fear not, the people may be deluded for a moment, but cannot be corrupted.

It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

My passion for coaching is immense. I've fallen in love with it. I enjoy the structure. I love the hard work, organising. I love putting a plan together through the week and executing it at the weekend.

When I became majority leader in Washington, I was interviewed constantly. I was always happy to talk to the press, but I drew the line at the Sunday morning talk shows on television. After a full work week consisting of long days and frequent late evenings, I insisted on keeping my weekends free for my family and friends.

Executives will talk about the importance of passion, but what they really mean is finding somebody who will work nights and weekends on their assigned task but predictably and reliably follow orders and just work harder.

Paul Ryan wants his weekends free? Fine - let's give him all 365 days free.

When I was 12 years old, I was in the Boy Scouts. The scoutmaster of our troop was in a band that played country music in some of the local clubs on the weekends.

At around 50 employees, you get to the point where you can't see what's going on all the time. So you start to have weekly check-ins, and you have days that go by without knowing exactly what's going on.

When you're a quarterback in this league, you're going to be talked about and it's going to be on a weekly basis.

Our players know that we try to come in each week and put ourselves in the best position to have a chance to win, and sometimes that means some people playing more than others; sometimes it means using different personnel groupings in different weeks.

By the time Obama came into office, Washington had already agreed over a period of a few weeks to a $700 billion government infusion into the world banking system. Nothing of the sort had ever been done before, and it was done spit spot with very little national debate.

I was first imprisoned in Pretoria, and then, thereafter, I was taken to Robben Island. I stayed there for a couple of weeks. I was taken back to Pretoria when I was charged in the Rivonia trial, when I was then sent to Robben Island for life.