Brian Clough Quotes

Don't blame the marketing department. The buck stops with the chief executive.

The buck stops with me, but I can tick off dozens of very good senior executives that are responsible for hundreds or thousands of people who work for me.

No matter how many or how few people you have reporting to you, you must remember that as you climb higher in the ranks, your words will be taken as commands even if you're just thinking out loud.

Lack of accountability in any decision making structure is not tolerable.

Time was when an incompetent Governor could not be permitted among men. He was, and had to be, by one method or the other, clutched up from his place at the helm of affairs, and hurled down into the hold, perhaps even overboard, if he could not really steer. And we call those ages barbarous, because they shuddered to see a Phantasm at the helm of their affairs

I have to let the general manager do what makes the most sense, or I can't hold him accountable.

When I was appointed deputy president, I accepted it, and it is the president's prerogative to appoint or remove anyone to the Executive.

When you take a director off a project, that makes a person feel humiliated because everyone knows it. But we're responsible because we put them in that position.

As a captain, I can't make the same mistake twice. As a player, you can get away with that, but if the captain does that, then it affects the whole team.

If you don't want responsibility, don't sit in the big chair. To be successful, you must accept full responsibility

In the end leaders are leaders. They get the credit and they get the blame.

A leader is someone whose actions have the most profound consequences on other people's lives, for better or worse, sometime forever and ever.

You can't always wait for the guys at the top. Every manager at every level in the organization has an opportunity, big or small, to do something. Every manager's got some sphere of autonomy. Don't pass the buck up the line.

If in doubt, move decisions up to the President.

Here's the teaching point, if you're teaching kids about intelligence and policy: Intelligence does not absolve policymakers of responsibility to ask tough questions, and it doesn't absolve them of having curiosity about the consequences of their actions.

Even if there's controversy, I'm going to make the decision, and people are going to be happy in one instance and unhappy in the next. But that's the job I've been given and the job I'm going to embrace.

I'm the C.E.O., nominated by the shareholders. If they're not happy, I have to take the consequences.

Great leaders are willing to sacrifice the numbers to save the people. Poor leaders sacrifice the people to save the numbers.

Real vision demands that we make tough choices. Real vision is responsible and it is paid for.

When results aren't good the manager gets the sack, that's the game.

My family comes first, and you have to be in charge to be able to protect that. You have to be the one who says no or you don't have a life, which is what I found out the first time.

You make decisions and you're not going to please everybody all the time.

Presidents make their hard decisions and then abide forever with their mistakes and regrets.

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

I think that if you shake the tree, you ought to be around when the fruit falls to pick it up.