Quotes About Leadership

Unfortunately, it would seem that economic power, despite temporary hardships, is the only responsible course open to the free world.

Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes. —RUSSELL ACKOFF,

Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes.... Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes. -RUSSELL ACKOFF,' operations theorist

President Jimmy Carter had an unusual ability to think in feedback terms and to make feedback policies. Unfortunately, he had a hard time explaining them to a press and public that didn't understand feedback.

Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes.

Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes. . . . Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes. —RUSSELL ACKOFF,

There is a systematic tendency on the part of human beings to avoid accountability for their own decisions.

What Clinton did with Lewinsky was despicable but was no threat to the nation. That he lied about it repeatedly and to the public is a reason for us to cease to trust him and for him to resign.

A knowledgeable and courageous U.S. president could help enormously in leading the world's nations toward saving the climate.

Donna Woolfolk Cross

Donna Woolfolk Cross

primicerius? He was young, it was

Marriage, laws, the police, armies and navies are the mark of human incompetence.

There are two kinds of politics in the world: the politics of love and the politics of fear.

Those who knew Lincoln described him as an extraordinarily funny man. Humor was an essential aspect of his temperament. He laughed, he explained, so he did not weep.

That is what leadership is all about: staking your ground ahead of where opinion is and convincing people, not simply following the popular opinion of the moment.

Once a president gets to the White House, the only audience that is left that really matters is history.

Good leadership requires you to surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree with you without fear of retaliation.

In order to "win a man to your cause," Lincoln explained, you must first reach his heart, "the great high road to his reason.

As he had done so many times before, Lincoln withstood the storm of defeat by replacing anguish over an unchangeable past with hope in an uncharted future.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

from John Hay's diary) "The President never appeared to better advantage in the world," Hay proudly noted in his diary. "Though He knows how immense is the danger to himself from the unreasoning anger of that committee, he never cringed to them for an instant. He stood where he thought he was right and crushed them with his candid logic.

And Lincoln, as would be evidenced throughout his presidency, was a master of timing.

This world is run by people who know how to do things. They know how things work. They are equipped. Up there, there's a layer of people who run everything. But we --we're just peasants. We don't understand what's going on, and we can't do anything.