David Gergen Quotes

Leadership is hard to define and good leadership even harder. But if you can get people to follow you to the ends of the earth, you are a great leader.

Kennedy understood something that is not so obvious, and that is that words are more important than deeds. You can’t govern 300 million people—or 180 million when Kennedy was president—by doing things. You can only do it by rhetoric.

As president, I was more successful; I had more opportunity than as prime minister. Why? I didn't have the power to give orders, to command, but I had the opportunity to call people to volunteer. In my period of presidency, I never heard the word 'no.'

Obama is a great leader. He can fire people up and get them to do what he wants.

Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something that people want.

Part of your job as President is not only to make the tough calls, but to get people to agree with you.

I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have the sense to do without my persuading them. That's all the powers of the President amount to.

People appreciate and follow the person who can persuade them properly. Make that person you.

If leadership is about listening, the great political speeches would have been a little different.

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.

To succeed in business it is necessary to make others see things as you see them.

Leadership is one of sports' intangibles. Guys can score, guys can fight, guys can skate faster than anybody else. But not everybody can say, 'Follow me.'

Churchill has spent the best years of his life preparing impromptu remarks.

If you want to lead, you’ve got to have followers. You’ve got to align people, and you do that through television.

A real leader does not rely on consensus. He builds consensus.

I think when the cameras are on him is when Coach Switzer is at his best.

Cicero most reminds me of Harold Wilson. Both men knew how to keep the show on the road.

With my natural communication abilities, I could probably gather a crowd even without the Spirit.

To be a great leader, you firstly have to like people. If you don't like people, at the end of the day they will figure this out and you can't lead them too well.

In this work, you have to convince everyone all the time, at different levels, to support your dream. I learned you have to be confident in order to do that.

The topic of leadership is a touchy one. A lot of leaders fail because they don't have the bravery to touch that nerve or strike that chord. Throughout my years, I haven't had that fear.

We need a president with tremendous intelligence, smarts, cunning, strength and stamina.

Leadership is a way of thinking, a way of acting and, most importantly, a way of communicating.

The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.