Cal Cunningham Quotes

Leadership is working with goals and vision; management is working with objectives.

A leader is the one who can outline the broad vision and the direction, and say here's where we are going to go, here's why we need to go there, and here's how we are going to get there. A manager is the one who actually gets up under the hood and tunes the carburetor.

September 11 was horrific, but I've been through enough crises before that I had my own pattern as to how to collect facts, what a leader should do, how to communicate with people, how to set up operating mechanisms to work our way through it.

There is no question that FEMA and the National Emergency Response System did not fail America the day that Katrina hit. They failed the day before and the days before that.

A President in a ... crisis makes, say, 10 bets a day. Maybe I made the wrong choice three times.

Leaders tend to focus on 'what to do,' but the real issue is more often 'how to do it.'

Leadership is inspiring people. Management is keeping the trains running on time.

It's one thing to be able to analyze something. It's another to implement it or execute on a vision or even to get a whole bunch of people to rally behind it.

Being a Navy SEAL and sniper taught me all about risk management. Take away all the risk variables under your control and reduce it to an acceptable level. The same fundamentals apply in business.

Collaborative decision-making is very poor in crises.

Management manages by making decisions and by seeing that those decisions are implemented.

A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.

I counted on sixty days only, but I held out for 133. I didn't go into power, but to get power I borrowed some power from the President and made him sign a number of decrees and give me enough power to create a system capable of handling crisis situations.

The way you continue to be a successful business is you don't wait for the car to go off the cliff. You have to manage yourself. And make sure you do it in the right way so you are not making decisions in crisis.

I describe management as arts, crafts and science. It is a practice that draws on arts, craft and science and there is a lot of craft - meaning experience - there is a certain amount of craft meaning insight, creativity and vision, and there is the use of science, technique or analysis.

Managers are important: they are leading the company and guiding and have to provide vision and manage the daily business.

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

The essence of strategy is that you must set limits on what you're trying to accomplish.

Basically, managing is about influencing action. Managing is about helping organizations and units to get things done, which means action. Sometimes, managers manage actions directly. They fight fires. They manage projects. They negotiate contracts.

Good leaders need a positive agenda, not just an agenda of dealing with crisis.

I work strategically with my management team to make all decisions.

Twenty-eight years in business and you understand the importance of problem solving and the importance of efficiency, because if you don't become efficient, you don't run a business well, and you are out of business. And I think some of those principles could be applied to leadership in Washington.

A key to achieving success is to assemble a strong and stable management team.

Incentives are not strategy, they are tactics. Defensive measures.

The key things I learned as a hospital administrator are to be organized, communicate, and be flexible.