Al McGuire Quotes

I'd like to believe that achieving a leadership position is all about competency, capability and ambition, so I try not to distinguish between the sexes when it comes to giving career advice.

I have a job I'm pretty good at. I am in charge of things. I am on committees. People respect me and take my counsel. I want to be strong and professional, but I resent how hard I have to work to be taken seriously, to receive a fraction of the consideration I might otherwise receive.

Joe Kennedy isn't in the habit of having incompetents around. I wouldn't have lasted three months if I didn't have some ability.

We don't need the best and the brightest. We need people of average competence and good character.

The Scholastic Aptitude Tests do not predict success any better than the socio economic status of the parents.

My father values talent. He recognizes real knowledge and skill when he finds it. He is color blind and gender neutral. He hires the best person for the job, period.

U.S. is a merit-based society... There is no glass ceiling if you have good performance track record and leadership skills.

America became a great civilization thanks to a culture based on the value of having to earn almost everything an American got in life. As it abandons this value, it will become a mediocre civilization. And eventually it will not be America. It will be a large Sweden, and just as influential as the smaller one.

We want very good leaders who have a lot of power.

Great leaders have an ability, a characteristic of analyzing very good talent, and empowering that talent.

I worry that there are people who are put in positions of authority because they're good talkers, but they don't have good ideas.

A high church for the true mediocre.

In private matters everyone is equal before the law. In public matters, when it is a question of putting power and responsibility into the hands of one man rather than another, what counts is not rank or money, but the ability to do the job well.

Life operates by deserve. So, in leading people, learn to work with the people who deserve it, not the people who need it.

I always resent anybody interfering with anybody else trying to do his job. Everybody has his own job to do. If he's good, he'll do well, but if he's mediocre, he's not going to do as well as he should.

Misfortunes, untoward events, lay open, disclose the skill of a general, while success conceals his weakness, his weak points.

An efficient and a successful administration manifests itself equally in small as in great matters.

The result of the revolution in Germany has been to establish a democracy in the best sense of the word. We are steering towards an order of things guaranteeing a process of a natural and reasonable selection in the domain of political leadership, thanks to which that leadership will be entrusted to the most competent, irrespective of their descent, name or fortune. The memorable words of the great Corsican that every soldier carries a Field Marshal's baton in his knapsack, will find its political complement in Germany.

Some are nice and some aren't. Some are smart, and others are about as bright as a wet match in a dark cave. In other words, pretty normal.

Whether an MP is a woman or a man, it's about the qualities of the individual in doing that job.

I believe that I have the executive experience and the ideas and the proven record to fix things.

Leadership is influence. To the extent we influence others, we lead them.

We admire people who work hard, who are objective and thorough. We detest office politicians, toadies, bullies, and pompous asses. We abhor ruthlessness. The way up our ladder is open to everybody. In promoting people to top jobs, we are influenced as much by their character as anything else.

We must have kings, we must have nobles; nature is always providing such in every society; only let us have the real instead of the titular. In every society some are born to rule, and some to advise. The chief is the chief all the world over, only not his cap and plume. It is only this dislike of the pretender which makes men sometimes unjust to the true and finished man.

Spotting talent is one of the essential elements of great leadership.