Colin Powell Quotes - Page 5

I have never seen a good organization where the standards weren't high.

Each of us must work to become a hardheaded realist, or else we risk wasting our time and energy on pursuing impossible dreams. Yet constant naysayers pursue no less impossible dreams. Their fear and cynicism move nothing forward. They kill progress. How many cynics built empires, great cities, or powerful corporations?

Failure is a part of life and you have to learn to deal with it. Failure is something that is part of life's cycle and it's from failure that you gain life experience.

The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.

In other words, don't expect to always be great. Disappointments, failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say 'we have a problem, let's go and get it'.

Don't be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.

But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you've got to compromise. You've got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.

There is a war on terror that must be fought. Nobody's immune... And so rather than finding fault with what Spain has done by being aggressive in the war on terror, this should redouble everyone's efforts to go after terrorist organizations of any kind... Terror has to be brought to an end.

When I was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I would still have junior officers brief me. Usually these people knew more about the subject we were discussing than I did. I had to make sure that they felt confident enough to tell me everything they believed.

My own experience is that you get as much information as you can and then you pay attention to your intuition, to your informed instinct.

But you have to understand, American democracy is not like the system you have. We're not an ocean liner that sails across the ocean from point A to point B at 30 knots. That's not American democracy. American democracy is kind of like a life raft that bobs around the ocean all the time. Your feet are always wet. Winds are always blowing. You're cold. You're wet. You're uncomfortable -- but you never sink.

It is the job of leaders to eliminate uncertainty.

If everybody trusts one another, then the person who didn't prevail will faithfully execute the decision as if it was their idea.

Fit no stereotypes. Don't chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team's mission.

I have always admired the Linking Pin theory of management specialist Rensis Likert. It says that in every organization there are leaders who link the lower level to the upper level. What makes somebody an effective link as a leader is that he conveys down everything that above wants and he conveys up everything that below needs.

It takes more courage to send men into battle than to fight the battle yourself.

We are not trapped in what the science of management says we can do. We are capable of doing what the art of leadership says is possible.

Service-learning is a particularly fertile way of involving young people in community service, because it ties helping others to what they are learning in the classroom. It enables them to apply academic disciplines to practical, everyday problems. In the process, it provides a compelling answer to the adolescent's perennial question, 'Why do I need to learn this stuff?

Being in charge sometimes means making people mad. Some days you have to overrule even the best advice, because you think it is not right.

The root cause of poverty is social injustice and the bad government that abets it

The ties that bind us are stronger than the occasional stresses that separate us.

Policies that emanate from ivory towers often have an adverse impact on the people out in the field who are fighting the wars or bringing in the revenues.

It is not the role of the United States to dictate change, but to enter into discussions with our friends.

Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids.

President's personal staff has a unique role. They're his intimate personal advisers, and the tradition and the precedent has been, even when I was national security adviser, that people in that position do not testify before the Congress. They talk to the Congress. They have meetings with the Congress.