Barack Obama Quotes

Novice leaders often respond dramatically to provocations.

I worked under a lot of 'top-class managers at Spurs and had to take over as 'caretaker a couple of times when things were not going well. I know what's required.

I've definitely grown as a leader - being able to speak up, getting closer with coach and being on the same page, communicating and being more involved in the game plan and the checks throughout the game. Seeing the game a little bit better.

Captaincy is something you get better at through experience. You've got to trust your instincts.

Leadership is solving problems.

if you wish to train yourself for higher executive positions, the first thing for you to decide is what you are training for. Ability to dominate or manipulate others? That ought to be easy enough, since most of the magazines advertise sure ways of developing something they call 'personality.' But I am convinced that the first essential of business success is the capacity for organized thinking.

Anyone can lead when the plan is working. The best lead when the plan falls apart.

Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not to keep up with every damn thing in the world.

Remember; no matter how desperate the situation seems, time spent thinking clearly is never time wasted.

I am not going to make decisions based on barricades and blockades, nor am I going to make decisions based on the short-term volatility of the oil price.

Sometimes, I think my most important job as a CEO is to listen for bad news. If you don't act on it, your people will eventually stop bringing bad news to your attention and that is the beginning of the end.

Good thinkers are always in demand. A person who knows how may always have a job, but the person who knows why will always be his boss.

Men, to act with vigour and effect, must have time to mature measures, and judgment and experience, as to the best method of applying them. They must not be hurried on to their conclusions by the passions, or the fears of the multitude. They must deliberate, as well as resolve.

I am a person who looks long-term, and I recognize the path we need to take. There will be moments when people are unhappy and disgruntled with some decision-making. Nonetheless, what matters most is to reach the destination. And my job as President is to see clearly where I want to go and be steadfast in my resolve to realize that vision

Effective leaders are made, not born. They learn from trial and error, and from experience.

Thinking is one of the most important weapons in dealing with problems

It would have marked a want of foresight in the convention, which our own experience would have rendered inexcusable.

One mark of a good officer, he remembered, was the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better.

A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country.

I came to this office to solve problems, and not pass them on to future Presidents and future generations.

The task of the strategist and leadership team is to reduce uncertainty in the areas that they can directly influence in order to pursue attractively difficult objectives.

The leader of a company needs to have a decision tree in his head - if this happens, we go this way, but if it winds up like that, then we go this other way.

In Washington, as we learned from the White House transcripts, a president may speak of kicking butts, call a problem a can of worms, decide not to be in the position of basically hunkering down, anticipate something hitting the fan, propose to tough it through, sight minefields down the road, see somebody playing hard ball, claim political savvy, and wonder what stroke some of his associates have with others.

Within the first few months I discovered that being president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep riding or be swallowed. The fantastically crowded nine months of 1945 taught me that a President either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt I could let up for a single moment.

Management is clearly different from leadership. Leadership is primarily a high-powered, right-brain activity. It's more of an art it's based on a philosophy. You have to ask the ultimate questions of life when you're dealing with personal leadership issues.