Quotes About Leadership

She'd always talk about how great Gandhi was. I'd tell her the only reason Gandhi survived after his first protest was that he was dealing with the Brits. If Stalin had been running India, he'd of been dead in a second, his name forgotten.

It was so damn strange, John thought, how sometimes the most unlikely, an ugly little man like this one, could hold such power. He had a tremendous command presence, his voice sweet, rich, carrying power. So strange how some had that, could spout utter insanity and others would follow blindly.

Promote a troublesome thorn up and out of the way if you cannot crush him, and then, once gone, impose whatever was planned in the first place.

downside of the team approach is that there may be a conflict between the schedules of your senior attorneys and you. If the senior attorneys on the team prefer to stay late and work late, you'll have to match your schedule to theirs. If they like to work early and leave early, you'll be expected to do the same – because if work schedule differences arise, they'll be resolved in favor of the more senior attorneys, not you.

Military commanders choose to overlook the Kenyan proverb that proclaims the power of the flea--"A flea can trouble a lion more than the lion can harm a flea." Most generals would rather be lions than fleas.

The blitzkrieg, in short, had been perfected for a sleek, hard-muscled, superbly trained, and passionately motivated army, such as the German General Staff had fashioned during the decades between the wars. It was quite unsuited for a ponderous, top-heavy army of ill-trained soldiers led by timid officers, overseen by inexperienced party ideologues, and sent forth to conquer a country whose terrain consists of practically nothing but natural obstacles to military operations.

It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own.

A politician will do anything to keep his job - even become a patriot.

In 528, still the crown prince, not yet king, Khusro discovered that his father's Mazdakite allies were conspiring against the throne. Driven, perhaps, by a combination of loyalty, anger, and a desire to demonstrate a kingly sort of resolution, in 529 the prince arrested, tortured, and executed Mazdak, and followed up with a massacre of his followers. (The Mazdakites would one day serve as inspiration for Islam's dissident Shi'a.)

The most disgraceful thing for kings is to disdain learning and be afraid of science.

The hand that rocks the cradleIs the hand that rules the world.

In June of 1944, when Field Marshal von Rundstedt, the German commander in France, was told that the Allies were landing in Normandy, he knew exactly what to do. He went out into the garden and pruned his roses. Von Rundstedt knew that in war, early reports, regardless of whether the news is good or bad, are usually misleading. Reacting to them with instant analysis merely makes the problem worse.

In reality, a higher level of war always trumps a lower.

Maneuver warfare tactics are trust tactics. That is their single most important characteristic. And that's the biggest difference from what we do now." It is certainly the biggest change from the current command and control system. Trust and a shared way of thinking, leadership and monitoring, not fancy new C2 equipment, are what you need to be able to fight using maneuver warfare.

Changing the mindset of your men is not a "one-off" event. It must start immediately and continue throughout training. One part of this is an ongoing education program to teach troops about the basics of light infantry. Such an education program may consist of guided professional reading with linked discussions, tactical decision games, sand-table exercises, and tactical exercises without troops.

The people are like water and the ruler a boat. Water can support a boat or overturn it.

We were not born to sue, but to command.

When the lion fawns upon the lamb,The lamb will never cease to follow him.

O Julius Caesar! thou art mighty yet!Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swordsIn our own proper entrails.

I'll queen it no inch further,But milk my ewes and weep.

In following him, I follow but myself.

For how can tyrants safely govern home,Unless abroad they purchase great alliance?

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:Follow your spirit; and, upon this chargeCry "God for Harry! England and Saint George!"

But I am constant as the northern star,Of whose true-fix'd and resting qualityThere is no fellow in the firmament.