leadership priorities Quotes

I didn't run for office to make friends.

You know, I think when people are in important positions in big organizations, they often get tied up with the minutia of managing money, managing things. They often forget that people deserve to be led.

I would never seek foreign conflicts just to distract attention from domestic difficulties; that would be frivolous.

To every Ali Baba, I say, it is Allah who should take care of you, or your governments when they find time to tend to the needs of their peoples instead of being occupied with a nuclear bomb or buying weapons.

A great politician has to bother himself less with means than with goals.

Whatever the founder cares about, whatever the founders think are the key goals, that's going to be what the whole company focusses on.

When you hide behind a veil of your financial business you never know who you're influencing, where your priorities lie. But I think it's important that the American people have some glimpse or some understanding of the financial standing of their commander-In-chief.

Floor time is valuable. Our leadership isn't going to bring something up that's going to take up floor time and not be successful.

As a coach, you've got to do what's best for the team. If guys don't like it, they're going to leave. If they stay and don't like it, well, your team's going to suck anyway. Even if this happens, you still have to do it. You can't coach worrying about any individual.

We want men to rule the nation who care more for and love better the nation's welfare than gold and silver, fame or popularity.

The most part of all princes have more delight in warlike manners and feats of chivalry than in the good feats of peace.

Now there are times when I have to make big decisions as I'm now running a company and that it's OK to go with being respected first.

I've been head of strategy at IBM and together with my colleagues built our five-year plan. My priorities are going to be to continue to execute on that.

My job is to find great ideas, exaggerate them, and spread them like hell around the business with the speed of light...And to put resources in to support them. Keep finding ideas. That's the job of just about all of our CEOs.

He's the president of the United States. He's got to work 14 to 16 hours a day, run foreign and domestic policy. If he's got time for mistresses after all that, what the hell difference does it make?

If school principals have given up on the important things and are focusing on discipline, they are creating a certain, diluted reality. In an organization that functions properly, discipline should be a marginal issue.

Most of the world leadership today is motivated by profit.

I have always tried to sense the mood of the people, their needs, their attitude toward ways to solve problems, their priorities. That's mainly what I go by. And I think that's the most important thing in any person's work, in the work that the people of Russia entrusted in me.

When Uganda got debt relief in 1999, the first item President Museveni bought was a presidential jacket for himself.

When I took command in Vietnam, I gave great emphasis to food and medical care - and to the mail.

I believe a balanced life is essential, and I try to make sure that all of our employees know that and live that way. It's crucial to me as a manager that I help ensure that our employees are as successful as our customers and partners.

Barry Goldwater once said, "I'd rather be right than president." I can't tell you how much I disagree with that Barry Goldwater.

Whether or not we can save Lake Michigan, whether or not we can avoid a breakdown in our criminal justice system are more important than whether or not I'm going to be governor.

America is America. It's a capitalist system. They [leaders] have enshrined that belief that profit matters more than anything else. The polarization of the society is just the resurfacing of that.

That's the one thing I probably don't like about politics - the focus on the individual. To me, it's more important to get it done, whether I get the credit for it or not.