92 Famous Quotes By Colin Powell, The Distinguished Military Leader And Diplomat
Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.
Always focus on the front windshield and not the review mirror.
Don't bother people for help without first trying to solve the problem yourself.
Leadership is solving problems. The day 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.
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.
It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.
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.
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.
Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.
Get mad, then get over it.
No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
Bad news isn't wine. It doesn't improve with age.
There are no secrets to success: don’t waste time looking for them. Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty to those for whom you work, and persistence.
Experts often possess more data than judgment.
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'.
My own experience is use the tools that are out there. Use the digital world. But never lose sight of the need to reach out and talk to other people who don't share your view. Listen to them and see if you can find a way to compromise.
Fit no stereotypes. Don't chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team's mission.
Don't be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.
Today I can declare my hope and declare it from the bottom of my heart that we will eventually see the time when that number of nuclear weapons is down to zero and the world is a much better place.
Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.
Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.
When you decide to get involved in a military operation in a place like Syria, you've got to be prepared, as we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, to become the government, and I'm not sure any country, either the United States or I don't hear of anyone else, who's willing to take on that responsibility.
I think whether you're having setbacks or not, the role of a leader is to always display a winning attitude.
It's a disgrace that we have millions of people who are uninsured.
We got rid of a terrible dictator. We gave the Iraqi people an opportunity for a new life under a representative form of government.
You should see what our Founding Fathers used to say to each other and in the early part of our nation. But what they were able to do, especially in Philadelphia in 1787, four months, they argued about what a House should be, what a Senate should be, the power of the president, the Congress, the Supreme Court. And they had to deal with slavery.
I consider myself a moderate Republican. I have very, very moderate social views, and I'm pretty strong on, on defense matters.
Too often we act - ask our schools to be truant officers, our teachers to be truant officers, because we're giving them children who have, you know, they're not ready to learn. And if they're not ready to learn by the third grade, they know they're behind.
There are lots of countries that are having these kinds of internal civil wars in other parts of the world and nobody is talking about intervening.
