Effective Leadership

Sunday, October 13, 2019 – Effective Leadership

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership. ~ Eric Hoffer

The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects. ~ Charles de Gaulle

If a politician murders his mother, the first response of the press or of his opponents will likely be not that it was a terrible thing to do, but rather that in a statement made six years before he had gone on record as being opposed to matricide. ~ Meg Greenfield

In politics nothing is contemptible. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks. ~ Doug Larson

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office. ~ Thomas Jefferson

It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen. ~ George MacDonald

All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field. ~ Albert Einstein

Any man who has ever led an army, an expedition, or a group of Boy Scouts has sadism in his bones. ~ Tahir Shah

I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes her laws. ~ Mayer Amschel Rothschild

A healthy democracy requires a decent society; it requires that we are honorable, generous, tolerant and respectful. ~ Charles W. Pickering

The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery. They’re the kind of people who’d stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn’t bother to stop because they’d want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club. ~ Dave Barry

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it. ~ P. J. O’Rourke

The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt too. ~ Oscar Levant

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. ~ H. L. Mencken

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates. ~ Gore Vidal

Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against. ~ W. C. Fields

If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal. ~ Emma Goldman

In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith. ~ J. William Fulbright

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed. ~ Mark Twain

Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other. ~ Oscar Ameringer

I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns, and women join the unqualified men in running our government. ~ Cissy Farenthold

A political leader is necessarily an imposter since he believes in solving life’s problems without asking its question. ~ André Malraux

The condition of leadership adds new degrees of solitariness to the basic solitude of mankind. Every order that we issue increases the extent to which we are alone and every show of deference which is extended to us separates us from our fellows. ~ Thornton Wilder

You accomplish exactly as much as the people who serve you decide you’ll accomplish, and nothing more. ~ Orson Scott Card

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant. ~ Charles de Gaulle

Leadership is solving problems. The day that soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership. ~ Colin Powell

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves. ~ Lao Tzu

I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men. ~ Lao Tzu

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

You do not lead by hitting people over the head. That’s assault, not leadership. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

A leader is a dealer in hope. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas? ~ Margaret Thatcher

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything. ~ Thomas Sowell

The real leader has no need to lead. He is content to point the way. ~ Henry Miller

The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided. ~ Casey Stengel

The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both. ~ Vaclav Havel

I’m not a natural leader. I’m too intellectual; I’m too abstract; I think too much. ~ Newt Gingrich

A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world. ~ John Updike

When a man assumes leadership, he forfeits the right to mercy. ~ Gennaro Angiulo

I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office. ~ George W. Bush

It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse. ~ Adlai E. Stevenson

Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it. ~ John Naisbitt

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader? ~ Benjamin Disraeli

I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep. ~ Talleyrand

I would not be a Moses to lead you into the Promised Land, because if I could lead you into it, someone else could lead you out of it. ~ Eugene Victor Debs

In a battle between two ideas, the best one doesn’t necessarily win. No, the idea that wins is the one with the most fearless heretic behind it. ~ Seth Godin

Stories are the single most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal. ~ Howard Gardner

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller