Quotes About Leadership

I used to think that to make something happen in a corporation or in the army, you had to be at the higher ranks, to be a general. But you just need to start a movement.

A Third Generation military focuses outward, on the situation, the enemy, and the result the situation requires,

During 19th-century wargames, German junior officers routinely received problems that could only be solved by disobeying orders. Orders themselves specified the result to be achieved, but never the method.

Osama bin-Laden, though reportedly very wealthy, lives in a cave. Yes, it is for security, but it is also leadership by example. It may make it harder to separate, both physically and psychologically, Fourth Generation war leaders from their troops. It also makes it harder to discredit those leaders with their followers.

If we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at the hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world. —Theodore Roosevelt,

All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called 'guessing what was at the other side of the hill.'" —Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.

I don't believe in team motivation. I believe in getting a team prepared so it knows it will have the necessary confidence when it steps on a field and be prepared to play a good game.

A coach is someone who tells you what you don't want to hear, who has you see what you don't want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be.

Macht is uitgesteld geweld, gezag is uitgestald geweld.

The Chinese leadership hoped that the world would soon forget the Tiananmen Square massacre. Our job in Congress is to ensure that we never forget those who lost their lives in Tiananmen Square that day or the pro-democracy cause for which they fought.

A leader of the state legislature, Virginia Peterson, opposed the path of Interstate 215 around the southeast quadrant of Salt Lake City on the grounds that it would take the land and house of a constituent who happened to be a famous local artist. The artist, Ms. Peterson claimed, depended on the particular light on the property for his painting. She was able to delay construction for a decade.

You can't let buffoons rule your life.

Neglect of what is genuinely human is the major reason why so many people in American business right now feel more victimized than helped by the latest management techniques and companywide processes for improvement.

Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders.

Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.

Stop being conned by the old mantra that says, 'Leaders are cool, managers are dweebs.' Instead, follow the Peters Principle: Leaders are cool. Managers are cool too!

Good managers have a bias for action.

I don't treat the band like I'm above them or that they're a hired hand for me. We've never worked that way. So I'm a team player. I would be very uncomfortable having to do this alone.

France's brilliant general Maurice de Saxe displayed audacious courage at twelve and commanded a regiment by seventeen

Hitler responded by calling Mussolini's movement "Kosher fascism.")

You have to enable and empower people to make decisions independent of you. As I've learned, each person on a team is an extension of your leadership if they feel empowered by you they will magnify your power to lead.

In order to be respected, authority has got to be respectable.

Helping teacher leaders come to understand their gifts is the first step in developing a specialty. Some leaders are great coaches and should focus on instructional leadership in a district or network where that is valued and supported. Great conceptual thinkers are good in startup mode but the daily grind of leading a school doesn't suit them. Other leaders thrive on the turnaround challenge. The dynamic blended future of education will allow more role specialization.