Leaders honor their core values, but they are flexible in how they execute them.
COLIN POWELLGive 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.
More Colin Powell Quotes
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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.
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I think whether you’re having setbacks or not, the role of a leader is to always display a winning attitude.
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You don’t know what you can get away with until you try.
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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’.
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Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.
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Get mad, then get over it.
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Don’t be buffaloed by experts and elites. Experts often possess more data than judgment. Elites can become so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world.
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Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.
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Trust is the essence of Leadership.
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The essence of leadership is building bonds of trust in your organization.
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If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.
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As a leader you set the tone for your entire team. Communicate your vision.
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The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.
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Pissing people off doesn’t mean you’re doing the right things, but doing the right things will almost inevitably piss people off.
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Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.
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We can seldom get our children to do what we tell them, but they almost never fail to imitate us.
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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.
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If a leader doesn’t convey passion and intensity then there will be no passion and intensity within the organization and they’ll start to fall down and get depressed.
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Bad news isn’t wine. It doesn’t improve with age.
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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.
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You know you’re a good leader when people follow you out of curiosity.
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Leadership is all about people. It is not about organizations. It is not about plans. It is not about strategies. It is all about people-motivating people to get the job done. You have to be people-centered.
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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.
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The most important thing I learned is that soldiers watch what their leaders do. You can give them classes and lecture them forever, but it is your personal example they will follow.
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We are not trapped in what the science of management says we can do. We are capable of doing what the art of leadership says is possible.
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Experts often possess more data than judgment.
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