Abraham Lincoln Quotes

It has been said that one bad general is better than two good ones, and the saying is true if taken to mean no more than that an army is better directed by a single mind, though inferior, than by two superior ones at variance and cross-purposes with each other.

Success in past U.S. conflicts has not been strictly the result of military leadership but rather the judgment of the president in choosing generals and setting broad strategy.

One mediocre general is better than two good ones.

If I accept the job, you will still interfere. I don’t want to fall out with you, as I believe that you are the right man to save the nation at the head of the army.

We don’t need corporate generals. We need warrior generals…. Many of our military leaders are like car designers who have never driven a car….they go along to get along.

An army to be useful must be a unit, and out of this has grown the saying, attributed to Napoleon, but doubtless spoken before the days of Alexander, that an army with an inefficient commander was better than one with two able heads.

The Panetta/Petraeus combo is a powerful tandem. I've seen both of them up close and personal at the CIA and in Iraq.

Good leaders make people's strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant.

A great team relies on its leaders and they have to make a difference at key moments.

You have to lead by example. You have to be the calmest person in the room. You have to be very open. I think the qualities of a director are to enable and to find the best in everybody.

When you're a leader and a manager, you have to make decisions which are right for your group to achieve the primary objective. Sometimes those decisions will be criticised.

The only thing I don't think people don't understand about good leaders is that they're both good and lucky. A lot of it is timing.

I am always interested in looking for the strongest possible leadership.

This perception that a good captain is someone who beats his chest and roars like a lion and gives big Churchillian speeches, that's just not what leadership is about for me.

Leadership is all about emotional intelligence. Management is taught, while leadership is experienced.

Commanders-in-chief make really tough decisions.

Your job, as a head coach and general manager, is to listen and not bypass any opportunity to help your team improve.

Governors sometimes have a hard time jumping up on a table and yelling the loudest because they've actually been there. They realize it's difficult to govern in a split environment.

Collaborative decision-making is very poor in crises.

A lot of what a military officer does is not just leading troops in combat. It's also doing budgets. It's solving complex problems. If you can sit down with warlords, you can certainly sit down with different parties and folks with different interests and come out with an amenable solution.

The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.

The leader has to command the respect of all those under his supervision - and he must be open to those under his supervision. Effective leadership means having a lot of people working toward a common goal. And when you have that with no one caring who gets the credit, you're going to accomplish a lot. If you have those just wanting the credit for themselves, you're not going to get as much accomplished.

Management means, in the last analysis, the substitution of thought for brawn and muscle, of knowledge for folkways and superstition, and of cooperation for force. It means the substitution of responsibility for obedience to rank, and of authority of performance for the authority of rank.

At the age of nineteen, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army by means of which I restored liberty to the republic, which had been oppressed by the tyranny of a faction. For which service the senate, with complimentary resolutions, enrolled me in its order.

I can't destroy the whole army, and anyway [Tikka Khan] bad reputation for the events in Dacca is exaggerated.