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The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.

Colin Powell

Maybe we don’t put our young people in situations often enough where they’re allowed to fail. When you fail you gain experience, and with enough experience, you don’t fail as often.
COLIN POWELL

Allow Enough Experience Failure People Situation Young Yourself
An organization that is not facing up to people who are not getting the job done, is going to have difficulties.
COLIN POWELL

Difficult Face Organization People
I regret that the presentation I made at the UN turned out to be wrong. It was wrong on the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but pretty much right on intentions and capabilities.
COLIN POWELL

Capability Intention Myself Presentation Regret Weapon Wrong
I want to see policies that encourage every American to vote, not make it more difficult to vote.
COLIN POWELL

Difficult Encouragement Myself Policy
I think whether you’re having setbacks or not, the role of a leader is to always display a winning attitude.
COLIN POWELL

Attitude Leadership Role Thinking Win
The freedom to do your best means nothing unless you are willing to do your best.
COLIN POWELL

Best Freedom Willing Yourself
If you get the dirty end of the stick, sharpen it and turn it into a useful tool.
COLIN POWELL

Dirty End Tools Yourself
The essence of leadership is building bonds of trust in your organization.
COLIN POWELL

Bond Essence Leadership Organization Trust Yourself
You can be sure that the American spirit will prevail over this tragedy.
COLIN POWELL

Spirit Tragedy Yourself
Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids.
COLIN POWELL

Constitution Discrimination Origin Reason
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
COLIN POWELL

Failure Hard Work Inspirational Learning Preparation Result Secret Success
The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny.
COLIN POWELL

Action Condition Destiny Energy Fulfillment Health Organism
Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.
COLIN POWELL

Attitude Excellence Prevail
Have a sense of humor to break the tension in times of great toil.
COLIN POWELL

Break Greatness Hard Time Tension Time
Failure is a part of life and you have to learn to deal with it. Failure is something that is part of life’s cycle and it’s from failure that you gain life experience.
COLIN POWELL

Deal Experience Failure Learning Life Yourself
Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.
COLIN POWELL

Decision Fact Goodness Stand Way
Experts often possess more data than judgment.
COLIN POWELL

Data Expert Judgement Possession
If everybody trusts one another, then the person who didn’t prevail will faithfully execute the decision as if it was their idea.
COLIN POWELL

Decision Execution Faith Ideas Oneself Person Trust
The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.
COLIN POWELL

Day Leadership Problem Soldier Yourself
Look for intelligence and judgment and, most critically, a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners. Also look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego and the drive to get things done.
COLIN POWELL

Balance Criticism Drive Ego Intelligence Judgement Loyalty
It is good if your enemy underestimates you. The dumber they think you are the more surprised they are when you kill them.
COLIN POWELL

Enemy Kill Thinking Yourself
The best way to create a winning team is to train them, give them everything they need to get the job done and second, make sure they know what the job is and what the job will be. So you connect strategy to resources.
COLIN POWELL

Best Connection Creation Job Resources Team Training Way Yourself
You know you’re a good leader when people follow you out of curiosity.
COLIN POWELL

Curiosity Goodness Leadership People
We can seldom get our children to do what we tell them, but they almost never fail to imitate us.
COLIN POWELL

Children Failure Imitation Ourselves
Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
COLIN POWELL

Force Multiply Optimism
In other words, don’t expect to always be great. Disappointments, failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say ‘we have a problem, let’s go and get it’.
COLIN POWELL

Disappointment Expectation Failure Greatness Himself Problem Word
Get mad, then get over it.
COLIN POWELL

Let Go Mad One Liner

The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.

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The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.

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