Strategic Leadership Quotes

There are many elements to a campaign. Leadership is number one. Everything else is number two.

Lieutenant General Michael Flynn would fit into that broader pattern.

Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot.

Without a correct strategy the victory is impossible. But even the most correct strategy cannot give the victory under unfavorable objective conditions.

The first job of a leader is to define a vision for the organization...the capacity to translate vision into reality.

This obligation to move can be a burden to a player without strategic vision.

The greatest general is he who makes the fewest mistakes.

Don't manage - lead change before you have to.

The challenge of statesmanship is to have the vision to dream of a better, safer world and the courage, persistence, and patience to turn that dream into reality.

Leading the coalition military effort during the surge in Iraq in 2007 and 2008 was the most important endeavor - and greatest challenge - of my 37 years in uniform.

At the head of an army, nothing is more becoming than simplicity.

Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand. The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength, forms a usual and essential part in the definition of the executive authority.

Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from snares, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.

Good ideas need good strategy to realize their potential.

A business leader has to keep their organization focused on the mission. That sounds easy, but it can be tremendously challenging in today's competitive and ever-changing business environment. A leader also has to motivate potential partners to join.

The ability to plan for what has not yet happened, for a future that has only been imagined, is one of the hallmarks of leadership.

I signed a contract with Phil Jackson, the man who has more championship rings, as far as I know, than anybody else. He was the best guy we thought we could find to run the New York Knicks.

Listen while you can, so that you can lead when you must.

I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.

Many leaders are tempted to lead like a chess master, striving to control every move, when they should be leading like gardeners, creating and maintaining a viable ecosystem in which the organization operates.

Leadership is absolutely vital if there are comparable countries which can affect the security of the world you live in. Between Lincoln and Roosevelt's time, America was protected by huge oceans and, in practice, by the British navy. Today, it's different, and the obsession of the Obama administration has been for retrenchment.

Strategists who don’t take time to think are just planners.

Strategic management is not a box of tricks or a bundle of techniques. It is analytical thinking and commitment of resources to action. But quantification alone is not planning. Some of the most important issues in strategic management cannot be quantified at all.