Famous Quotes & Sayings

Rick Riordan

A general never shows despair. He instills confidence in his troops. He leads them forward, even into the mouth of death.

Richard Branson

I may be a businessman in that I set up and run companies for profit, but when I try to plan ahead and dream up new products and new companies, I'm an idealist.

Richard Branson

You shouldn’t blindly accept a leader’s advice. You’ve got to question leaders on occasion.

Richard Branson

Create the kind of workplace and company culture that will attract great talent. If you hire brilliant people, they will make work feel more like play.

Richard Branson

If you look after your staff, they'll look after your customers. It's that simple.

Richard Branson

It isn't effective or productive to force your employees to do anything. Choice empowers people and makes for a more content workforce.

Richard Branson

Innovation happens when people are given the freedom to ask questions and the resources and power to find the answers.

Richard Branson

Communicate your passion clearly, concisely and with genuine conviction.

Robert A. Heinlein

Roman matrons used to say to their sons: 'Come back with your shield or on it.' Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome... (but not before it created an Empire that changed the world -EM).

Vilfredo Pareto

In any series of elements to be controlled, a selected small fraction, in terms of numbers of elements, always accounts for a large fraction in terms of effect.

Victor Cousin

You can only govern men by serving them.

Vernon Jordan

I had a sense of what leadership meant and what it could do for you. So am I surprised that I am sitting up here on the 62nd floor of Rockefeller Plaza? No.

Robert Foster Bennett

Without initiative, leaders are simply workers in leadership positions.

Rick Larsen

A half-century after racing the Russians to the moon, the U.S. is barely suiting up in the international race to secure interests in the Arctic.

Thornton Wilder

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.

Thomas Huxley

If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?

Thomas E. Mann

All of this suggests that while citizens became more comfortable with President Bush after September 11 and thought him to have the requisite leadership skills, they continue to harbor doubts about his priorities, loyalties, interests, and policies.

Tom Peters

The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say 'I'. They don't think 'I'. They think 'we'; they think 'team'.

Tom Peters

Customers perceive service in their own unique, idiosyncratic, emotional, irrational, end-of-the-day, and totally human terms. Perception is all there is!

Tom Peters

Winston Churchill said that appetite was the most important thing about education. Leadership guru Warren Bennis says he wants to be remembered as 'curious to the end.' David Ogilvy contends that the greatest ad copywriters are marked by an insatiable curiosity 'about every subject under the sun.'

Tom Peters

Gandhi and Mandela and Churchill and JFK and Reagan and Thatcher and Sarkozy and Franklin and Washington set the tone to an incredible degree-their "personal style" was their "brand." ("It" starts with personal style of the tip-top leadership team. Sorry to be politically insensitive, but who would give a hoot about Tibet if it weren't for the look and style of the Dalai Lama?) Boss at any level: You're either on the "it" boat-or not.

Tom Peters

It's not enough to be close to the customer. You've got to be glued to the customer.

Tom Peters

Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.

Tom Peters

Leaders' careers will usually be determined by their handling of one or two critical events that no one could possibly anticipate or plan for.

Tom Peters

Leadership is about tapping the wellsprings of human motivation - and about fundamental relations with one's fellows.

Tom Peters

Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders.

Tom Robbins

To achieve the impossible; it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.

Tom Lantos

The Chinese leadership hoped that the world would soon forget the Tiananmen Square massacre. Our job in Congress is to ensure that we never forget those who lost their lives in Tiananmen Square that day or the pro-democracy cause for which they fought.

Tom Landry

Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do but to achieve what they want to achieve.

Steve Largent

Here's a memonic device that I feel teaches how we can properly cope with failure. Forget about your failures; don't dwell on past mistakes Anticipate failure; realize that we all make mistakes. Intensity in everything you do; never be a failure for lack of effort. Learn from your mistakes; don't repeat previous errors. Understand why you failed; diagnose your mistakes so as to not repeat them. Respond, don't react to errors; responding corrects mistakes while reacting magnifies them. Elevate your self-concept. It's OK to fail, everyone does; now how are you going to deal with the failure

Stephen Covey

"You can buy a person's hand, but you can't buy their heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is. You can buy his back, but you can't buy his brain. That's where his creativity is, his ingenuity, his his resourcefulness."

Stephen Covey

Leadership is communicating people's worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it themselves.

Stephen Covey

When trust is high, the dividend you receive is like a performance multiplier, elevating and improving every dimension of your organization and your life.... In a company, high trust materially improves communication, collaboration, execution, innovation, strategy, engagement, partnering, and relationships with all stakeholders.