Colin Powell Leadership Quotations

Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.

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

You don't know what you can get away with until you try.

It is the job of leaders to eliminate uncertainty.

Trust is the essence of Leadership.

Good leaders must know how to reward those who succeed and know when to retrain, move, or fire ineffective staff.

The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.

Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.

Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.

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

You know you're a good leader when people follow you out of curiosity.

We thought it would be useful to point out to the Pakistani leadership at every level that we are looking for and expecting their fullest cooperation ... as well as (to see) how helpful they might be if we find a basis to act on that information,