Quotes About Leadership

Your enemies, those you stand sharply against, will help you to forge a support base that will not desert you. Do not crowd into the center, where everyone else is; there is no room to fight in a crowd. Polarize people, drive some of them away, and create a space for battle.

Never Be the Bearer of Bad News. The king kills the messenger who brings bad news: This is a cliche but there is truth to it. You must struggle and if necessary lie and cheat to be sure that the lot of the bearer of bad news falls on a colleague, never on you. Bring only good news and your approach will gladden your master.

The lesson is simple: do not confuse a chummy, clublike atmosphere with team spirit and cohesion. Coddling your soldiers and acting as if everyone were equal will ruin discipline and promote the creation of factions. Victory will forge stronger bonds than superficial friendliness, and victory comes from discipline, training, and ruthlessly high standards.

as Machiavelli said, it is better to be feared than loved. Fear you can control; love, never.

Tear out my eyes, oh King, and fix them on the gate of Wu, so that I may see the triumphant entry of Yueh.

In any competitive environment in which there are winners or losers, the person who has the wider, more global perspective will inevitably prevail. The reason is simple: such a person will be able to think beyond the moment and control the overall dynamic through careful strategizing.

Asimismo, el modo en que la gente maneja el poder y la responsabilidad te dirá mucho sobre ella. Como dijo Lincoln: "Si quieres probar el carácter de un hombre, dale poder".

Ask more of them. Expect them to work like adults. Quietly alter the spirit with which things are done. Emphasize efficiency: anybody can be efficient (it isn't a question of talent), efficiency breeds success, and success raises morale. Once the spirit and personality of the group start to shift, everything else will fall into place.

Better to have others depend on you out of fear of the consequences of losing you than out of love of your company.

Even while you know you are practicing a kind of deception on yourself, act like a king. You are likely to be treated as one.

Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.

When it comes to power, outshining the master is perhaps the worst mistake of all.

Most men are ruled by the heart, not the head. Their plans are vague, and when they meet obstacles they improvise. But improvisation will only get you as far as the next crisis, and is never a substitute for thinking several steps ahead and planning to the end.

Nunca haga lo que otros pueden hacer por usted.

You do not have to know all the details. Sometimes you need to delegate—let your subordinates handle the information gathering.

If, like Galileo, you can make your master shine even more in the eyes of others, then you are a godsend and you will be instantly promoted.

Your idea of power is wrong. You have mistaken aggressive action for effective action.

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please and impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite—inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.

Nunca dividía a su ejército en unidades menores, ya que eso infringiría el principio militar de mantener concentradas las fuerzas; además, dispersarlas dificultaría su monitoreo, y se perdería el control de la batalla.

Control is an elusive phenomenon. Often, the harder you tug at people, the less control you have over them. Leadership is more than just barking out orders; it takes subtlety.

Be careful in assembling this team that you are not seduced by expertise and intelligence. Character, the ability to work under you and with the rest of the team, and the capacity to accept responsibility and think independently are equally key.

This will rule out working in groups larger than a handful of people—above a certain number, political considerations inevitably rise to the surface. This means working for yourself or on very small startups.

Siempre hay momentos en que el lugar del comandante no es la retaguardia con su estado mayor sino la vanguardia con sus tropas.

Y la mejor manera de encontrar las debilidades del jefe no es por medio de espías, sino de un fuerte abrazo. Detras de una fachada amigable, aun servil, puedes observar a tus enemigos, lograr que se sinceren y delaten. Llega a lo más hondo; piensa como ellos. Una vez que descubras su vulnerabilidad —