I would assert that highly effective leaders are made more than they’re born. Every leader I know who’s been highly effective has worked hard at it, and they’ve been students of it. The more you’re a student of leadership, the more you figure out what works for you and the more effective you’re going to be.
Leaders of the future will have to be visionary and be able to bring people in – real communicators. These are things that women bring to leadership and executive positions, and it’s going to be incredibly valuable and incredibly in demand.
Leaders in China and India realize that science and technology lead to success and wealth. But many countries in the West graduate students into the unemployment line by teaching skills that were necessary to live in 1950.
I don’t agree with everything that any of our political leaders say or believe – that’s going to happen sometimes.
Leaders must wake people out of inertia. They must get people excited about something they’ve never seen before, something that does not yet exist.
When the initial effort of political and business leaders to influence public opinion on an issue is to threaten rather than to engage and persuade, they further arouse public opposition rather than win support.
We need leaders who appeal to us to think about something other than narrow self-interest but instead focus upon the greater good.
In various countries and times, leaders of groups that lagged behind, economically and educationally, have taught their followers to blame all their problems on other people – and to hate those other people.
Leaders don’t look behind; they don’t look to the side – they look ahead.
I think where political issues invade moral situations, spiritual leaders have to speak out.
Of all the many leaders I have met in the course of my life, none made a deeper impression on me than Nelson Mandela. His courage, compassion, humility and wisdom were without parallel on the world stage, and he himself was an enduring source of inspiration.
Let us wage a moral and political war against the billionaires and corporate leaders, on Wall Street and elsewhere, whose policies and greed are destroying the middle class of America.
Women’s rights are women’s rights. One of the things that woke me up was equal pay. I started thinking about it: Who is the leader of women? Take me to your leader. And there were no leaders.
The new millennium began with a great global dream. World leaders gathered at the United Nations in 2000 and adopted, among others, a historic goal to reduce poverty by half by 2015. Never in human history had such a bold goal been adopted by the entire world in one voice, one that specified time and size.
State governments generate less revenue in a recession. As state leaders struggle to make up for lost revenue, legislatures tend to cut funding for higher education. Colleges, in turn, answer these funding cuts with tuition hikes.
During the 1990s, world leaders looked at the mounting threat of terrorism, looked up, looked away, and hoped the problem would go away.
Lots of countries have great constitutions, but their leaders have a practice of ignoring the rules whenever they feel like it.
Reducing carbon emissions is important, but it is shortsighted if not coupled with reducing the toxic emissions from our heart; and that is something spiritual leaders are supposed to teach and something all thinking people, regardless of their beliefs, should practice.
Now, national conventions are largely an excuse for companies and party leaders to throw parties for delegates to attend, to network and have a good time.
But when will our leaders learn – war is not the answer.
Self-centered leaders manipulate when they move people for personal benefit. Mature leaders motivate by moving people for mutual benefit.
I don’t think about the press or the crowds or the other leaders of the race. The focus is only on myself. As soon as I see the targets, I tune them out.
The job of elected leaders is to deliver results that represent the interests of the citizens who placed them in a position of authority with their voice, their vote. But these days, money talks louder.
The exposed nature of life in the public square affects leaders’ attitudes toward risk – and failure.
We expect our leaders to be godlike. But I feel that when people try to sanctify leadership, it puts it out of the realm of regular people. And that’s where the greatest leaders come from – from the people.
Mr. Obama is the only popular politician left in the world. He would win an election in any one of the G-20 countries, and his fellow world leaders will do anything to take home a touch of that reflected popularity.
How could I get up there and say, ‘People, we’ve got to do better,’ when I was the poster child for everything that was wrong? I’ve always believed leaders don’t ask others to do what they’re unwilling to do.
I knew I could not maintain that leadership in open struggle against Moscow influence. Only two Communist leaders in history ever succeeded in doing this – Tito and Mao Tse-tung.
I am pleased to see that many of the world’s leaders have publicly recognized that the crisis in the Middle East was deliberately incited by terrorist organizations.
My message to Washington is very simple. Face reality. Be leaders. Demonstrate accountability. Engage in principle compromise. And understand your job is to find solutions.
Demanding that our leaders take action on climate change is about a lot more than polar bears and ice caps; it’s about safeguarding our health, preserving our prosperity, and protecting the future of our children.
Poor leaders motivate those following them with false promises of promotions, success, and a great tomorrow but rarely deliver on those promises. Leaders who do this can be manipulative and often hold the goals and aspirations of their followers hostage in order to get them to comply.
Good leaders make people feel that they’re at the very heart of things, not at the periphery.
And, of course, the fact that Maurice Strong, a Canadian, was in charge made it important for us to pull up our socks and become leaders in this field. Now, here is a field we should be a leader in!
It’s time for political leaders across the ideological spectrum to realize that, while partisanship is understandable, hyper-partisanship is destructive to our country. We need more visionary leaders who will earnestly strive for bipartisanship and finding policy solutions that can move America forward.
I am struck that so many of our leaders in the U.S. forget how strong our country can be.
When I wrote ‘The West Wing,’ the juice behind it was that in popular culture, our leaders in government are generally portrayed as Machiavellian, or as idiots. I thought, well, how about writing about a group of hyper-competent people?
I like moral judgment to emerge from the reader. We are being sold a very simplistic morality by our leaders at a time when nuance and understanding are at a premium.
Too many leaders act as if the sheep… their people… are there for the benefit of the shepherd, not that the shepherd has responsibility for the sheep.
Leadership is an individual sport, one that has to be fine-tuned to each of the people that reports to you. Leaders also need to provide the direction, energy, encouragement and inspiration for each person who reports directly to the leader as well as for the overall organization.
It’s fun to play a part in the process of helping to inform readers about their political leaders.
I don’t have any comment on who the people of Russia choose to be their leaders.
Although it’s the second largest country in the world, our useful area has been reduced. Our immigration policy is disgusting: We plunder southern countries by depriving them of future leaders, and we want to increase our population to support economic growth.
There are a number of World War II historians I admire: Cornelius Ryan, Mark Stoler, Antony Beevor, to name a few. As for generals, there are those I admire as combat leaders and others I admire because they’re great fun to write about.
I think a number of the leaders are, whether you like it or not, in the hip-hop generation. And when they understand enough, they’ll do wonders. I count on them.
But the weakness comes from these Westernised co-opted Muslim leaders who just want to look good in the eyes of the West and Western media.
I am prepared to admit that when it comes to dealing with the House and Senate leaders, Obama is terrible. But he’s great with the public. Which hates the House and Senate as much as he does.
Business leaders cannot be bystanders.
If Turkey is prepared to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, then its leaders can proceed immediately to direct dialogue with its counterparts in Armenia to define a common vision for the future.
We women in Somalia are trying to be leaders in our community.
One of the things you look for is leadership, and it comes in different forms. There’s vocal leaders, there’s quiet leaders, there’s leaders that lead by example.
As all Americans head forward into the new reality globalization has created, they want leaders who will level with them and help level the playing field.
Americans want our leaders to defend our values, our culture, our legacy of liberty and our way of life, not apologize.
