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Respect for leaders by followers can’t be mandated; it must be earned. It has to be given to leaders by their followers.

Colin Powell

Good leaders must know how to reward those who succeed and know when to retrain, move, or fire ineffective staff.
COLIN POWELL

Goodness Leadership Move Success
Have a sense of humor to break the tension in times of great toil.
COLIN POWELL

Break Greatness Hard Time Tension Time
Don’t just count your days, make your days count.
COLIN POWELL

Count Days Yourself
All values are important, everyone who has ever touched my life in some way was a mentor for good or bad. Life is a blend, and a person is a blend of all the influences that have touched their lives.
COLIN POWELL

Important Influence Life Live Touch Value
My own experience is that you get as much information as you can and then you pay attention to your intuition, to your informed instinct.
COLIN POWELL

Attention Experience Information Intuition Pay Yourself
The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.
COLIN POWELL

Command Evidence Prove Right Wrong
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
There is no such thing as an unimportant person in an organization.
COLIN POWELL

Important Organization Person Value Worth
One of the fondest expressions around is that we can’t be the world’s policeman. But guess who gets called when suddenly someone needs a cop.
COLIN POWELL

Expression Need Policemen World
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
Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.
COLIN POWELL

Accomplishment Art Leadership Management Possible
You can be sure that the American spirit will prevail over this tragedy.
COLIN POWELL

Spirit Tragedy Yourself
Don’t bother people for help without first trying to solve the problem yourself.
COLIN POWELL

Help Myself People Problem Solve
Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved.
COLIN POWELL

Failure People Success
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
You should never be so involved with your position/job that when the position is gone your entire self image is gone with it.
COLIN POWELL

Image Job Position Yourself
You can’t get it all done yourself. The best leaders are not afraid of picking people who are better than they are and who may one day replace them.
COLIN POWELL

Afraid Best Leadership Pick Replacement Yorself
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
First you train the followers to accomplish the mission. Second, you resource them: Make sure that they have the tools to do the job. Third, you reward them: You give them medals or bonuses.
COLIN POWELL

Accomplishment Follow Job Medal Reward Tools Training Yourself
Don’t let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn’t go with it.
COLIN POWELL

Ego Position Yourself
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
Give me the right people and I don’t much care what organization you give me. Good things will happen. Give me the wrong people and it doesn’t matter what you do with the organization. Bad things will happen.
COLIN POWELL

Care Goodness Organization People Right Yourself
It is not the role of the United States to dictate change, but to enter into discussions with our friends.
COLIN POWELL

Change Discussion Friendship Ourselves Role
Always be looking for that which you do well and that which you love doing, and when you find those two things together — man, you got it.
COLIN POWELL

Love Man Togetherness Yourself
One important element of leadership is taking care of the troops.
COLIN POWELL

Care Element Important Leadership Oneself
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
Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.
COLIN POWELL

People Responsibility

Respect for leaders by followers can’t be mandated; it must be earned. It has to be given to leaders by their followers.

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Respect for leaders by followers can’t be mandated; it must be earned. It has to be given to leaders by their followers.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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