Quotes About Leadership

For reasons of electoral calculation—to preserve his Democratic majorities in a congressional midterm election—Roosevelt wanted American troops fighting Germans before the end of the year. "We failed to see," Marshall would write, "that the leader in a democracy has to keep the people entertained. The people demand action.

When great men blunder, they count their losses in pride and reputation and glory. The underlings count their losses in blood. —Theodore C. Mason, Battleship Sailor (1982)

Burdens grew heavier the higher one ascended in rank. Captains concerned themselves with ships and crews, commodores with squadrons, task force commanders with objectives, and theater commanders with campaigns. The burdens of sailors weighed mostly on the muscles. The weight of leadership was subtler and heavier. It could test the conscience.

Distinctions were being drawn between officers who were battle-minded and those whose savage instincts were reserved for advancing their own careers. Qualities that got you ahead in peacetime were yielding to skills equally ageless, but prized only in desperate times: a glint in the eye, a forward-leaning, balls-of-the-feet bearing, a constitutional aspect of professionalized aggression.

If there's one thing that's certain in business, it's uncertainty.

Uncertainty is not an indication of poor leadership; it underscores the need for leadership.

Uncertainty is normal in the first few days of a new government.

Major organizational changes create uncertainty.

Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. It never goes away.

Millions don't rally to the banner of Uncertainty.

It's a different mind-set going into the off-season as a starter. The uncertainty from the team is gone, and your confidence grows.

In times of uncertainty, employees crave clarity. As a leader, you won't always have all of the answers - no one expects you to - so you must be open to listening and learning from others. Once you understand a particular challenge and outline the options, you have to be confident in making bold and optimistic decisions.

I'm sad to report that in the past few years, ever since uncertainty became our insistent 21st century companion, leadership has taken a great leap backwards to the familiar territory of command and control.

You don't raise taxes in times of such uncertainty.

An entrepreneur must deal with more uncertainty than a professional with a well-defined role.

Whether baseball or football, we're tasked in front offices with making decisions under uncertainty. How do you corral that uncertainty in a way to make more consistently better decisions? That's very similar.

There's merit in ministers being just open with the public about the inherent complexity and uncertainty of many of the decisions that they are taking.

If there is one thing worse for a manager than having an interfering owner it is uncertainty over the ownership.

If we meet an honest and intelligent politician, a dozen, a hundred, we say they aren't like politicians at all, and our category of politicians stays unchanged; we know what politicians are like.

Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilized conditions.

I never want to be a father figure to my quarterbacks. I've got my own kids. I want to be the cool uncle you'd like have a drink with.

President Reagan likes to say Uncle Sam is a kindly old man with a spine of steel, and that he is. But I want to see Uncle Sam as well with a mind and with a heart and with a soul and a conscience.

My father, obviously, and my mother were inspirations. My uncle, Frank Harper, he was an absolute mentor for me.

The thought of losing Ted Stevens, a man who was known to business and community leaders, Native chiefs and everyday Alaskans as Uncle Ted, is too difficult to fathom. He truly was the greatest of the Greatest Generation.