Bad Leaders Quotes & Sayings

To paraphrase Augustine, if you want to know your God-given gifts, first know that the purpose of spiritual gifts is to bring unity to the church. Then "love God and do what you feel like doing." But there is more to the unleashing of gifts in the body. One of the bad fruits of an "I" church is that we don't tell people when they bless us. If someone has taught Sunday school and helped us understand a passage of Scripture, then we should tell the person and encourage his or her gift. If worship leaders left us rejoicing that we have been with God's people in his presence, then thank them for the specific ways they blessed you and the church. No one should have to ask what their gifts are; we should tell people their gifts as they minister to us. Can — Edward T. Welch

The deficiency of the negro race is not as a result of the deluge number of bad leaders;rather, its is an outcome of the shortage of young negro intellect ready to lead a revolutionary africa. — Victor Adeagbo

If the Almighty in his mercy allows us to settle peace among the christian leaders, we shall press on not only to destroy completely the bad seeds, but also to expand the territories of Christ, and, supported by these achievements, we shall go forward, with God favouring his own purposes, to the most holy expedition against the infidels, the desire for which is deeply fixed in our heart. — Pope Leo X

I worked, long ago, in New York City, in construction, like many young men of the Mohawk Nation. I found that whites were often like us, and I could not hate them one at a time. But they do not know the earth or love it. They do not speak from the heart, usually. They do not act from the heart. They are more like the actors on the movie screen. They play roles. And their leaders are not like our leaders. They are not chosen for virtue, but for their skill at playing roles. Whites have told me this, in plain words. They do not trust their leaders, and yet they follow them. When we do not trust a leader, he is finished. Then, also, the leaders of the whites have too much power. It is bad for a man to be obeyed too often. But the worst thing is what I have said about the heart. Their leaders have lost it and they have lost mercy. They speak from somewhere else. They act from somewhere else. But from where? Like you, I do not know. It is, I think, a kind of insanity. — Robert Anton Wilson

When the sun sets, life gets darker in the country; when a bad leader sinks, life gets brighter in the country! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Bosses and leaders everywhere should cherish the people who bring them bad news, disappointing data or hard problems. — Margaret Heffernan

By now you know: I come from another planet. But I will never say to you, "Take me to your leaders." Even I
unused to your ways though I am
would never make that mistake. We ourselves have such beings among us, made of cogs, pieces of paper, small disks of shiny metal, scraps of coloured cloth. I do not need to encounter more of them.
Instead I will say, "Take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers; take me to your deaths."
These are worth it. These are what I have come for. — Margaret Atwood

Leaders need to have a ruthless commitment to resolving relational conflict regardless of how bad it feels. — Bill Hybels

Do you ever wonder why a battered wife stays with her husband? Why people continue to spend money they don't have even though they know they are deeply in debt? Why some keep jamming food in their mouths when they're already overweight? Why do people stay in bad relationships? Why are some people still racist? Why do people still drink and drive? You'd think the response to all these things would be obvious and cause them to scream, "Duh, of course I need to change this." Why do we keep doing church the same way even when we know it's in critical decline? Why do paid church leaders spend so much time preparing for a 90-minute service for Christians who have heard it all before? Why do we still call our message the good news when it clearly seems to be bad news or no news to Sojourners? Why do we think Pharisees are only found in the Bible? Why is returning to a simpler form of ancient church so hard to grasp? — Hugh Halter

The Muslim leaders swallow the advice of the Western powers and bodies like the IMF and World Bank, even when it is bad for their countries and they know this. — Abu Bakar Bashir

Yo muddafuckers: Always follow the idea, never the person. #lifelessons Leaders done taken us to many bad places too fucking often. — Komrade Komura

People keep saying someone should fix the system, the
system is corrupt. What they don't get is; they are the system. It's just like how people hate
McDonald's and Coca Cola. People say they are evil corporations, terrorists and ruining the
health of the future but then, how are these brands live and running all over the world,
making billions of dollars of profit every day? People still buy it, that's how. The majority of
the world is people who know something is bad for them but keep consuming it. If it's so
bad for you, why buy it? If the system is so bad, why do they vote for it? It's the people who
need to change not the leaders. — Thisuri Wanniarachchi

Sometimes good countries are so traumatized by events that they lose their bearings and embrace bad leaders. — David Ignatius

You have to remain cool under fire and let criticism roll off you. Good leaders handle conflict easily and bad ones are eaten up by it. — Donald Trump

You always say the best leaders figure out how to turn a bad situation to their advantage. When life gives you gators, make Gatorade — Jeff Garvin

Asuras are not bad people; they just have an understanding of dharma that is not valid for today's world. Sometimes, the followers are good but the leaders let them down. — Amish Tripathi

Is self-interest a bad thing? We want our leaders to be pure and good, but at the same time we want them to be effective, and to be effective you often have to be ruthless and not bound by ideology or the same morals that we pretend to hold ourselves to. — Beau Willimon

Our world is very dishonest, and our leaders encourage dishonesty by setting bad examples - by lying, being corrupt, and using political sleight of hand to sustain power. — Stuart Wilde

Bad leaders believe that they have to project control at all times. — Simon Sinek

If you want someone to help you heal then you don't go to the enemy; you go to the one person that fears a bad reputation if they don't help you. — Shannon L. Alder

A leader's job is to develop committed followers. Bad leaders destroy their followers' sense of commitment. — Dean Smith

We need to learn from history. These same leaders - [Barack] Obama,[Hillary] Clinton, and far too many Republicans - want to topple [Bashar] Assad. Assad is a bad man. Gadhafi was a bad man. Mubarak had a terrible human rights record. But they were assisting us - at least [Muammar]Gadhafi and[Hosni] Mubarak - in fighting radical Islamic terrorists. — Ted Cruz

You should have disagreements with your leaders and your colleagues, but if it becomes immediately a question of questioning people's motives, and if immediately you decide that somebody who sees a whole new situation differently than you must be a bad person and somehow twisted inside, we are not going to get very far in forming a more perfect union. — William J. Clinton

Yet as she tells the story, the change came about when that director stopped treating her like an antagonist and treated her like a person. He apologized for publicly calling her "baby-killer" and started spending time with her during her smoking breaks in the parking lot. Later, McCorvey accepted an invitation to church from a seven-year-old girl whose mother also worked at Operation Rescue. Pro-abortion forces had dismissed McCorvey - her dubious record of drug-dealing, alcohol, lesbianism, and rape made bad public relations - but Christian leaders took the time to counsel her in the faith, keeping her out of the public spotlight for half a year. "Ultimately, God is the one who changes hearts," says McCorvey now. "A Christian witness is the biggest tool in effecting change. — Philip Yancey

Those who were called skillful leaders of old knew how to drive a wedge between the enemy's front and rear; [More literally, "cause the front and rear to lose touch with each other."] to prevent co-operation between his large and small divisions; to hinder the good troops from rescuing the bad, the officers from rallying their men. 16. When the enemy's men were united, they managed to keep them in disorder. — Sun Tzu

I am a leader in the fight against the national energy tax proposal some Congressional leaders are advocating. I call this bad idea 'cap-and-tax' because of the damage it will do to jobs, manufacturing and our economy. — Jim Sensenbrenner

Never has God given waivers to family members, just because they had bad leaders. In Jonah's time, the entire family of Israel had become unacceptable, but never has any Israelite administration been without some injustice, intolerance and alienation from God
much less today's earthly family. Even during the celebrated reign of Solomon, Solomon was multiplying wives and horses
against God's written counsel. It has always been so.
Regardless, Israel was one family. They were expected to stick together whether they were in exile, or at home living in abundance. No deserters, or pious arm-folders were allowed. As Jonah discovered, no quitters were allowed. (page vi) — Michael Ben Zehabe

The tribal leaders saw that we were bad-asses, and they'd better get their act together, work together, and stop accommodating the insurgents. Force moved that battle. We killed the bad guys and brought the leaders to the peace table. That is how the world works. — Chris Kyle

We, as conservative intellectuals, should not be in the business of making excuses for bad parliamentary decisions by Republican leaders in Congress. — David Frum

I realize that what happened in Bosnia could happen anywhere in the world, particularly in places that are diverse and have a history of conflict. It only takes bad leadership for a country to go up in flames, for people of different ethnicity, color, or religion to kill each other as if they had nothing in common whatsoever. Having a democratic constitution, laws that secure human rights, police that maintain order, a judicial system, and freedom of speech don't ultimately guarantee long lasting peace. If greedy or bloodthirsty leaders come to power, it can all go down. It happened to us. It can happen to you. — Savo Heleta

Many of today's world leaders have great courage: the courage to do harm. The are ill-advised, too clever, or too skillful. I think bad political systems, by which I mean systems that are not founded on a desire for justice, are mainly due to a type of short-sightedness. When politicians see things only in the short term, they inevitably only see the short-term gains. That is how they develop the type of courage that is necessary to harm others. — Dalai Lama XIV

Subordinates look for their bosses to be positive, in good humor, and cheerful. They aren't supposed to be emotional or have bad days. but leaders are guman, too, and when they are in a lousy mood and snap at a subordinate, it can have a devastating effect. — Donald T. Phillips

If this were a courageous country,
it would ask Gloria to lead it
since she is sane and funny and beautiful and smart
and the National Leaders we've always had
are not.
When I listen to her talk about women's rights
children's rights
men's rights
I think of the long line of Americans
who should have been president, but weren't.
Imagine Crazy Horse as president. Sojourner Truth.
John Brown. Harriet Tubman. Black Elk or Geronimo.
Imagine President Martin Luther King confronting
the youthful "Oppie" Oppenheimer. Imagine President
Malcolm X going after the Klan. Imagine President Stevie
Wonder dealing with the "Truly Needy."
Imagine President Shirley Chisholm, Ron Dellums, or
Sweet Honey in the Rock
dealing with Anything.
It is imagining to make us weep with frustration,
as we languish under real estate dealers, killers,
and bad actors. — Alice Walker

Under a bad leadership Serbs are capable of committing the most terrible atrocities; under good leaders we can do great deeds. It's like a field - if it's not cared for, the weeds will take over. But if you tend it, water and feed the seeds, you will read a bountiful harvest. Serbs are lazy, we lack discipline and have no capacity for self-criticism." With Their Backs to the World — Asne Seierstad

Leaders trust their guts. "Intuition" is one of those good words that has gotten a bad rap. For some reason, intuition has become a "soft" notion. Garbage! Intuition is the new physics. It's an Einsteinian, seven-sense, practical way to make tough decisions. Bottom line, circa 2001 to 2010: The crazier the times are, the more important it is for leaders to develop and to trust their intuition. — Tom Peters

Good leaders sacrifice for others to survive; bad leaders sacrifice others to survive — Saji Ijiyemi

As Elder George F. Richards, President of the Council of the Twelve, said in a conference address in April 1947, 'when we say anything bad about the leaders of the Church, whether true or false, we tend to impair their influence and their usefulness and are thus working against the Lord and his cause.' ... The Holy Ghost will not guide or confirm criticism of the Lord's anointed, or of Church leaders, local or general. This reality should be part of the spiritual evaluation that LDS readers and viewers apply to those things written about our history and those who made it. — Dallin H. Oaks

Everybody is living for a purpose, you might turn out to be significant or insignificant depending on the kind of message you are feeding the world with. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Treating people fairly and with civility is not a bad thing ... It would be good for our country if political leaders actually took that to heart. — Jeb Bush

If evil geniuses are so rare, why do so many bad people get away with so many crimes against their fellow citizens, and, when they become leaders of nations, against humanity? — Dean Koontz

Bad schools, crime, drugs, high taxes, the social security mess, racism, the health care ? crisis? unemployment, welfare state dependency, illegitimacy, the gap between rich and poor. What do these issues have in common? Politicians, the media, and our so-called leaders lie to us about them. They lie about the cause. They lie about the effect. They lie about the solutions. — Larry Elder

The best way to detect the destructive element in someone is to watch closely their behavioural pattern when given authority over poverty. — Michael Bassey Johnson

In (hyper-loyal) cultures, loyalty is so highly prized that it covers a multitude of leadership sins. I've seen numerous bad leaders cover their ineptitude by stressing the importance of loyalty over competence. They teach that loyalty is more important than excellence and they use that idea to distract the team from their own inability to perform. — Phil Cooke

Those occupying leadership roles who completely lack integrity are what we call 'Blind shepherds'. They are not really 'bad' leaders, because they are not leaders at all: they are misleaders. — John Adair

An institution that suffers from a plethora of leaders is surely in a bad way. — Mahatma Gandhi

The most damaging example of the systems archetype called "drift to low performance" is the process by which modern industrial culture has eroded the goal of morality. The workings of the trap have been classic, and awful to behold. Examples of bad human behavior are held up, magnified by the media, affirmed by the culture, as typical. This is just what you would expect. After all, we're only human. The far more numerous examples of human goodness are barely noticed. They are "not news." They are exceptions. Must have been a saint. Can't expect everyone to behave like that. And so expectations are lowered. The gap between desired behavior and actual behavior narrows. Fewer actions are taken to affirm and instill ideals. The public discourse is full of cynicism. Public leaders are visibly, unrepentantly amoral or immoral and are not held to account. Idealism is ridiculed. Statements of moral belief are suspect. It is much easier to talk about hate in public than to talk about love. — Donella H. Meadows

The government cannot overcome bad parenting. What our leaders can do is publicly condemn irresponsible parental behavior in vivid terms. — Bill O'Reilly

Without the perspective that sees evil as a dark force that stands behind human reality, the issue of "good" and "bad" in our world is easy to decipher. It is fatally easy, and I mean fatally easy, to typecast "people like us" as basically good and "people like them" as basically evil. This is a danger we in our day should be aware of, after the disastrous attempts by some Western leaders to speak about an "axis of evil" and then to go to war to obliterate it. We turn ourselves into angels and "the other lot" into demons; we "demonize" our opponents. This is a convenient tool for avoiding having to think, but it is disastrous for both our thinking and our behavior. — N. T. Wright

I wanted tolerance. I wanted everybody to leave everybody else alone, regardless of their religious beliefs, regardless of their political affiliation. I wanted people to like each other. Hatred seemed, to me, the product of ignorance. I was tired of biblical ethic being used as a tool with which to judge people rather than heal them. I was tired of Christian leaders using biblical principles to protect their power, to draw a line in the sand separating the good army from the bad one. The truth is I had met the enemy in the woods and discovered they were not the enemy. I wondered whether any human being could be an enemy of God. — Donald Miller

Our politicians are stupid. And the Mexican government is much smarter, much sharper, much more cunning. And they send the bad ones over because they don't want to pay for them. They don't want to take care of them. Why should they when the stupid leaders of the United States will do it for them? — Donald Trump

...Bad leaders are known to destroy one, more or even all of the foundations of their people's way of life... — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

A democratic state begins from the assumption that most of those who gravitate toward power are mediocre and probably immoral. It assumes that we must always protect ourselves from bad government. We must be prepared for the worst leaders even as we hope for the best. And as Karl Popper wrote, this understanding leads to a new approach to power, for it forces us to replace the question: Who shall rule? By the new question: How can we so organize political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage? — Chris Hedges

But what is equally important, and sobering, is how often we fool ourselves. And we fool ourselves not only individually but en masse. The tendency of a group of human beings to quickly come to believe something that its individual members will later see as obviously false is truly amazing. Some of the worst tragedies of the last century happened because well-meaning people fell for easy solutions proposed by bad leaders. — Lee Smolin

Common sense was exactly what kingship, almost by definition, lacked: when the king's orders were executed no one dared to tell him honestly how they had turned out. With the absolute powers bestowed by kingship came an arrogance, a ruthlessness, an inflexibility, a habit of compulsion, an unwillingness to listen to reason, that no small community would have endured from any of its members-though the aggressive and humanly disagreeable qualities that make for such ambitious leadership might be found anywhere-as Margaret Mead discovered among the Mundugumor, whose leaders were known to the community as "really bad men," aggressive, gluttonous for power and prestige. — Lewis Mumford

And what an honour to have been chosen. How silly to have been so frightened! Naturally the great leaders of the State would not allow harm to come to an innocent citizen who worked hard and had no black marks on her zapiska. Suddenly she felt immensely grateful to the father-figure that was the State, and proud that she would now have a chance to repay some of her debt. Even the Klebb woman wasn't really so bad after all. — Ian Fleming

The bad leaders are the ones that push hard so they can gain, who brow beat us so that they can receive the benefit of our hard work, not so we can enjoy the success — Simon Sinek

No party is as bad as its leaders. — Will Rogers

Later bad things will be said about Stalin; he'll be called a tyrant and his reign of terror will be denounced. But for the people of Eduard's generation he will remain the supreme leader of the people of the Union at the most tragic moment in their history; the man who defeated the Nazis and proved himself capable of a sacrifice worthy of the ancient Romans: the Germans had captured his son, Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili, while the Russians had captured Field Marshal Paulus, one of the top military leaders of the Reich, at Stalingrad. When the German High Command proposed an exchange, Stalin responded with disdain that he didn't exchange field marshals for simple lieutenants. Yakov committed suicide by throwing himself on the electrified barbed wire fence of his prison camp. * — Emmanuel Carrere

Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism. — Rocky Anderson

Bad leaders care about who is right. Good leaders care about what is right — Simon Sinek

fundamentally, people do not prefer independent thought and the accompanying responsibility, but rather orders, subordination, and the accompanying exemption from responsibility. In a popular democracy, the masses who elect unfit rulers are to blame for bad government, but that is not the case in a monarchy. Rather than reflecting upon their own mistakes, the people are free to enjoy speaking ill of leaders who are even more irresponsible than they. — Yoshiki Tanaka

There are good leaders who actively guide and bad leaders who actively misguide. Hence, leadership is about persuasion, presentation and people skills. — Shiv Khera

Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people? — Eleanor Roosevelt

It's a negative for the country. It implicates dozens of private companies, many of which are made up of honest people. It besmirches the office of the U.S. Senate and is bad for the country's morale. Dishonest politicians hurt all politicians. Americans need to trust their leaders. This would be an ugly investigation — Dan Brown

I have met so-called leaders who showed fear in a moment when strength was required, and they give leadership a bad name. — Jason Taylor

Uninformed, America may succumb to bad ideas and leaders. In succumbing, we fail to fulfill our destiny. Well informed, America rises as far as the good ideas and leaders it proactively chooses. In so rising, we fulfill our destiny and offer to the world vacuum its last best hope. (Scott L. Vanatter) — Scott L. Vanatter

Swiftboating enters the English language as a verb that means attacking strength instead of weakness. In feminist and other social justice contexts, this has long been called trashing, attacking leaders for daring to write, speak, or lead at all. Taking away the good is even more lethal than pointing out the bad. p.189 — Gloria Steinem

I'm not sure why I enjoy debunking. Part of it surely is amusement over the follies of true believers, and [it is] partly because attacking bogus science is a painless way to learn good science. You have to know something about relativity theory, for example, to know where opponents of Einstein go wrong ... Another reason for debunking is that bad science contributes to the steady dumbing down of our nation. Crude beliefs get transmitted to political leaders and the result is considerable damage to society. — Martin Gardner

Most of the ladies and gentlemen who mourn the passing of the nation's leaders wouldn't know a leader if they saw one. If they had the bad luck to come across a leader, they would find out that he might demand something from them, and this impertinence would put an abrupt and indignant end to their wish for his return. — Lewis H. Lapham

The most effective leaders of companies in transition are the quiet, unassuming people whose inner wiring is such that the worst circumstances bring out their best. They're unflappable, they're ready to die if they have to. But you can trust that, when bad things are happening, they will become clearheaded and focused. — James C. Collins

It was only with the crisis that debt soared.
Yet many Europeans in key positions - especially politicians and officials in Germany, but also the leadership of the European Central Bank and opinion leaders throughout the world of finance and banking - are deeply committed to the Big Delusion, and no amount of contrary evidence will shake them. As a result, the problem of dealing with the crisis is often couched in moral terms: nations are in trouble because they have sinned, and they must redeem themselves through suffering.
And that's a very bad way to approach the actual problems Europe faces. — Paul Krugman

Public opinion is a powerful tool, if not the ultimate tool, for changing policies of the seemingly omnipotent political leaders. The greatest danger is an apathy that allows for evil to thrive when bad people rule over us and provoke nationalistic and patriotic fervor that intimidates many into compliance. — Ron Paul