Philip Sidney Quotes

I've always found when I was captain when other people were doing the talking for me, I didn't need to say as much, and when I did say one or two things, people tended to listen all the more.

The key to leadership is having a vision, and being strong enough to say no and not try to please everybody. Thats a recipe for failure. Leadership is practiced through attitude and actions, rather than words and memos.

Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader. Don't fall victim to what I call the 'ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome'. You must be willing to fire.

I mean, the job is Pearl Harbor. And you better not spends weeks and weeks and weeks trying to assign blame or deciding on a complete plan for fighting the whole war, you know, and letting a committee decide where the battleships should go and all of that. You better spring into action with the best people you have.

I believe that one can't command sitting on one's ass in the rear. One has to up among the forward brigade commanders, even as far as battalion commanders, especially if one is fighting a defensive action. One simply has to know what is going on.

Command is often not what you do but the way you do it.

It is better to act too quickly than it is to wait too long.

(Obama) really has no experience or knowledge or judgment about the issue of Iraq and he has wanted to surrender for a long time.

If officers desire to have control over their commands, they must remain habitually with them, industriously attend to their instruction and comfort, and in battle lead them well.

The Ultimate decision, the fastest decision there is, is ACTION!

By altering his arrangements and changing his plans, the skillful general keeps the enemy without definite knowledge. By shifting his camp and taking circuitous routes, he prevents the enemy from anticipating his purpose. At the critical moment, the leader of an army acts like one who has climbed up a height and then kicks away the ladder behind him.

The general that hearkens to my counsel and acts upon it, will conquer: let such a one be retained in command! The general that hearkens not to my counsel nor acts upon it, will suffer defeat: - let such a one be dismissed!

Hence the experienced soldier, once in motion, is never bewildered; once he has broken camp, he is never at a loss.

Above all, a director has to be a good captain.

In one of the decisive battles of World War I, disastrous reports poured into the headquarters of Marshal Foch, the commander of the Allied forces. The great general never lost heart. When things were at their worst, he drafted his famous order which is now in all textbooks of military strategy: "My center is giving way, my right is pushed back, my left is wavering. The situation is excellent. I shall attack!"

I have always held the view that decisive force should be used in addressing a military conflict. The reason is simple: Why wouldn't you, if you could?

Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.

So long as all is ordered for attack, and that alone, leaders will instinctively increase the number of enemies that they may give their followers something to do.

When you're in operations, the best thing you can do at the top level is get the strategy right. You have to get the big ideas right, you have to determine what is the policy, what is the level of effort you're willing to commit to it? And then you delegate to those who have to execute that strategy to the appropriate level. What's the appropriate level? It's the level where people are trained and equipped to take decisions so we move swiftly against the enemy.

In war nothing is impossible, provided you use audacity.

If you have to swallow a frog, don't stare at it too long.

Entrepreneurial leadership requires the ability to move quickly when opportunity presents itself.

One of the chief reasons for the widespread fear of the Huns rested on their ability to travel very long distances in relatively short periods. This ability may well have been based on their use of horseshoes.

If you want to be a leader, it doesn't mean that you have to have an opinion on everything. But if you do have an opinion and it is clear and you feel strongly about it, then you should say it.

Emma McChesney was engaged in that nerve-wracking process known as getting things out of the way. When Emma McChesney aimed to get things out of the way she did not use a shovel; she used a road-drag.