Quotes About Leadership

The man who says his evening prayer is a captain posting his sentinels. He can sleep.

To the beautiful falls the right of command, he observes, quoting Aristotle, although he adds that this situation is not always just.

Shepherds, did they but know it, walk through greater halls than kings.

His special gift was the ability to see the essence of a worthwhile suggestion and to relate it to what was already in existence or planned. Then he would encourage and shape the new project, repeatedly redesigning the curriculum so that a new department or course could have a comfortable place in which to grow and offer it benefits.

After some minutes of Grant trying to ease the situation by talking about the Mexican War, to which Lee responded in a polite, abstracted fashion, Lee reminded Grant of the reason for their meeting.

In a few minutes, Lee and Grant reached across to each other from their horses and shook hands. When they met again, Grant would be President of the United States, and Lee, in the great forgotten chapter of his life, would be doing more than any other American to heal the wounds of war.

Gen. Robert E. Lee was present, and, ignoring the action and presence of the negro, arose in his usual dignified and self-possessed manner, walked up the aisle to the chancel rail, and reverently knelt down to partake of the communion, and not far from the negro.

Bobby Kennedy called Jimmy Hoffa "the most powerful man in the country next to the president." Part

A union is only as strong as its weakest member. Once there is dissension the employer senses it and takes advantage of it. Once you allow dissension and rebel factions to exist you are on the way to losing your union. You can have only one boss. You can have helpers, but you can't have nine guys trying to run a local. If you did, the employer would make side deals and split the union.

The "means" was his second philosophy and can be summed up by a remark he made to Bobby Kennedy at a private party in which they found themselves together: "I do to others what they do to me, only worse." Simply put, Jimmy Hoffa believed that the "ends" of improving the lot of working Americans, with his union leading the way, justified whatever "means" were used to accomplish it.

It is more important to be than to do, for if I am what God wants me to be, then I will do what He wants me to do. If I try to promote a program, however well-meaning, without personal holiness, it will be tainted by the defects of my life. It may lack the direction of full knowledge of the Word, or the discernment of maturity, or the direction that comes through unclouded fellowship with the Lord. Primarily we do not need to develop programs, but people.

War is a game in which princes seldom win, the people never

Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.

No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.

Times of general calamity and confusion create great minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storms.

Celebrity chefs are the leaders in the field of food, and we are the led. Why should the leaders of chemical businesses be held responsible for polluting the marine environment with a few grams of effluent, which is sublethal to marine species, while celebrity chefs are turning out endangered fish at several dozen tables a night without enduring a syllable of criticism?

A noble, articulate, mixed-race liberal icon takes over the Presidency of the United States. Does he make the world a better place? No, he does not. A narcissistic sociopath with a thin skin and a bad dye job disgraces the Presidency of the United States. Does he make the world a worse place? No, he does not.

Doing thousands of little things, day after day, inching along as consistently as you can, in the right direction as best you can tell, is management—and motivating or inspiring everyone to work together for long-term purpose is leadership.

The Achilles' heel of authoritarianism is that the leader by the very nature of his position is able to ignore the wisdom of anyone "below" him—that is, anyone who stands between him and the real world. This is what authority means: immunity from competence. —Philip Slater

I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men

Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.

The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.

Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.