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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.

Colin Powell

Leaders have followers. The primary role of a leader is to convey to those followers a sense of purpose, vision, and mission.
COLIN POWELL

Follow Leadership Mission Primary Purpose Role Vision
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
But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you’ve got to compromise. You’ve got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.
COLIN POWELL

Arrival Compromise Constitution Country Start Writing 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
Trust is the glue that holds an org together & the lubricant that moves it forward.
COLIN POWELL

Hold Move Togetherness Trust
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
Luck tends to come to people who are prepared.
COLIN POWELL

Hard Work People Preparation
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.
COLIN POWELL

Blood Death Expert Judgement Reality World
Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.
COLIN POWELL

Hard Work People Play Serious Work
The essence of leadership is building bonds of trust in your organization.
COLIN POWELL

Bond Essence Leadership Organization Trust Yourself
Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.
COLIN POWELL

Accomplishment Art Leadership Management Possible
I have never seen a good organization where the standards weren’t high.
COLIN POWELL

Goodness High Myself Organization Standard
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
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
A mirror reflects a man’s face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses.
COLIN POWELL

Choice Friendship Himself Mirror Reflection
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

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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