Failure And Leadership Quotes & Sayings

Leadership is understanding people and involving them to help you do a job. That takes all of the good characteristics, like integrity, dedication of purpose, selflessness, knowledge, skill, implacability, as well as determination not to accept failure. — Arleigh Burke

I believe that the great tragedy of the church in our time has been its failure to recognize the importance of the spiritual gift of leadership. It appears to me that only a fraction of pastors worldwide are exercising the spiritual gift of leadership, organizing the church around it, and deploying church members through it. The results, in terms of church growth and worldwide spiritual impact, are staggering. — Bill Hybels

We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. — Paul Keating

Those who envy the success of others are normally ignorant to the sacrifices, failures, and dedication that it took for them to get there. — Noel DeJesus

Lack of power is a great excuse for failure, but sufficient power is never a necessary condition of leadership. There is never sufficient power. In fact, it is success in the absence of sufficient power that defines leadership. — Tom DeMarco

His failure to adapt to new techniques, to pander (his own word), probably made his supporters love him all the more, and probably also narrowed his political base. — David Halberstam

Most people fail in leadership b/c they think when they should be working and work when they should be thinking. — Orrin Woodward

Our real problem is not the pervasiveness of the darkness but a failure of the light. Light always dispels darkness. The glorious light of the resurrection life of Jesus Christ is still sufficient and available to those who reject self-reliance and return to His plan for biblical leadership. This return can reignite the radiance of the Gospel in transforming power. — Daniel Henderson

Stress builds character and failure breeds motivation. I guess I'm a Optimist. — Noel DeJesus

Letting go of the security of what is commonly understood requires a big leap of faith and a willingness to fall. — Henry Kimsey-House

If America loses World War III [the Cold War], it will be because of the failure of its leadership class. In particular, it will be because of the attention, the celebrity, and the legitimacy given to the 'trendies'--those over-glamorized dilettantes who posture in the latest idea, mount the fashionable protests, and are slobbered over by the news media, whose creation they essentially are. The attention given them and their 'causes' romanticizes the trivial and trivializes the serious. It reduces public discussion to the level of a cartoon strip. These trendies are ready with an opinion at the drop of a microphone, and their opinions are treated as news--not because they are authorities, but because they are celebrities. — Richard M. Nixon

Entrepreneurialism, to me, means being able to fail. And I believe that kind of leadership is not necessary only in business, but it's necessary for running countries, too. You've got to be able to believe in something strongly enough that you want to do it even if there's a risk of failure. — Bernard L. Schwartz

Des felt a familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. All soldiers felt the same thing going into battle, whether they admitted it or not: fear. Fear of failure, fear of dying, fear of watching their friends die, fear of being wounded and living out the rest of their days crippled or maimed. The fear was always there, and it would devour you if you let it.
Des knew how to turn that fear to his own advantage. Take what makes you weak and turn it into something that makes you strong. Transform the fear into anger and hate: hatred of the enemy; hatred of the Republic and the Jedi. The hate gave him strength, and the strength brought him victory.
For Des the transformation came easily once the fighting started. Thanks to his abusive father, he'd been turning fear into anger and hate ever since he was a child. Maybe that was why he was such a good soldier. Maybe that was why the others looked to him for leadership. — Drew Karpyshyn

Your life is a trajectory. Every choice you make alters that trajectory, in a positive or negative way. Will you categorize that dinner with friends as a business expense? Will you be honest with your daughter? Will you take more credit than you're due? These are just the small questions that we face every day, and little by little, the answers influence the trajectory of our lives and beings. — Donald Van De Mark

Difficult missions will bring difficult challenges which may sometimes produce temporary setbacks. The test of a human being is in accepting the failure and going on trying until he or she succeeds. Managing failure is the essence of leadership. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Trust is equal parts character and competence ... You can look at any leadership failure, and it's always a failure of one or the other. — Stephen Covey

Mindful leaders know how to repeat success patterns and overcome failure patterns. — Amit Ray

If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me that Africa is a place where the people do not need limp gifts of fish but sturdy fishing rods and fair access to the pond. I wonder whether I would realize that while African nations have a failure of leadership, they also have dynamic people with agency and voices. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Leaders are made through discipline, training, experience, failure, and the desire to continually improve. — Bradford Winters

How does one undermine the framework of racial reasoning? By dismantling each pillar slowly and systematically. The fundamental aim of this undermining and dismantling is to replace racial reasoning with moral reasoning, to understand the black freedom struggle not as an affair of skin pigmentation and racial phenotype but rather as a matter of ethical principles and wise politics, and to combat the black nationalist attempt to subordinate the issues and interests of black women by linking mature black self-love and self-respect to egalitarian relations within and outside black communities. The failure of nerve of black leadership is its refusal to undermine and dismantle the framework of racial reasoning. — Cornel West

The failure of women to have reached positions of leadership has been due in large part to social and professional discrimination. — Rosalyn S. Yalow

Failure is the ultimate motivator, the supreme teacher, and the definitive guarantee of life. Failure is what makes success so addictive. — Noel DeJesus

I think that failure is just as important as success. In a way, failure is a kind of success if you can look at it in the right way, if you can accept it and enjoy it in the right way. — Margaret Cho

Leaders succeed or fail depending on whether or not they clarify role expectations and keep their promises. — Bob Anderson

Jeremy [Corbyn] earned the right to take up the leadership of the party with a big majority. But he has failed and he has no right or mandate to stay in office despite his failure and take the party down with him. — Harriet Harman

When man is finally able to see himself and the world around him with clear cognition, he finds a picture far more pleasant. Visible in unmistakable clarity and devastating detail is man's failure to be what he might be and his misuse of his world. This revelation causes him to leap out in search of a way of life and system of values which will enable him to be more than he has been. He seeks a foundation of self-respect, which will have value system rooted in knowledge and cosmic reality where he expresses himself so that all others, all beings can continue to exist. His values now are of a different order from those at previous levels: They arise not from selfish interest but from the recognition of the magnificence of existence and the desire that it shall continue to be. — Clare W. Graves

One highly successful venture capitalist who is regularly pitched by young entrepreneurs told me how frustrated he is by his colleagues' failure to distinguish between good presentation skills and true leadership ability. "I worry that there are people who are put in positions of authority because they're good talkers, but they don't have good ideas," he said. "It's so easy to confuse schmoozing ability with talent. — Susan Cain

A true leader is responsible for his followers who have reposed their faith in his leadership. If an ordinary man fails, it is a personal failure. But when a leader fails, he shatters the entire ideologies, principles and morale of all those who followed him. The impact is much bigger and stakes are higher. — Awdhesh Singh

The more we can embrace failure, the more we will be able to open to it and the more confident and resilient we will become. — Karen Kimsey-House

What worked, GAO found, was strong leadership commitment, investment in the capacity needed to get the job done, careful monitoring of results, and a commitment to stay with the problems until they were solved. Investment in government's capacity, and careful attention to key details, demonstrated that failure is not the only option. But success builds on people power. — Donald F. Kettl

Having a succession and legacy plan in place will make you ready for forced changes due to circumstances beyond your control, like death, any form of incapacity, sudden changes in laws and regulations and even corporate scandals and moral failure. — Archibald Marwizi

The author points out that the moral failure of Abigail Adams' brother focused her on disciplining her children, and herself, so that they did not come to the same end. — Paul C. Nagel

Taking your own life could become the ultimate failure, because you will be killing and closing the existing door to a chance that might have been waiting to lead you into another path. — Archibald Marwizi

The attack on youth is a national pathology, unwarranted by fact, smokescreen for the failure of adulthood and its leadership to confront larger predicaments. No rescue by the monied, governing, institutional, or otherwise privileged is in sight. It's up to the energy and inventiveness of the younger generation to pull the gated minds of millennium America toward acceptance of diversity, community, and fairness, and I hope they have as much fun as I did in my adolescences achieving what we Sixties kids only imagined. — Mike A. Males

The answers to these questions will determine your success or failure. 1) Can people trust me to do what's right? 2) Am I committed to doing my best? 3) Do I care about other people and show it? If the answers to these questions are yes, there is no way you can fail. — Lou Holtz

Success is mesmerizing, and blinding. Sometimes you need good old fashion failure to open your eyes. — Noel DeJesus

The enemy doesn't warn its target. Emergencies do not make appointments, and the greatest battles of life are often surprises. — Wayde Goodall

Preferring steady progress, slow and imperfect, is a good philosophy for the defeated. — Fred Lowe Soper

It's instructive to consider the more spectacular and well-known falls from grace of leaders in the public eye ... In the main, the issues behind these falls could be grouped under a lack of competence, a lack of support or loyalty from those they sought to lead, and a lack of failure of integrity. Of all these the last is the most egregious, the most fatal. We so much want our leaders to be unfailingly decent that an obvious or perceived flaw in integrity can be the toxin which kills them off. — Peter Cosgrove

In collaborative cultures, failure and uncertainty are not protected but shared and discussed to gain support. — Andy Hargreaves

The punch line is 'knock the morale of an employee and organizational productivity is punctured'. — Henrietta Newton Martin

Authentic leaders inspire us to engage with each other in powerful dreams that make the impossible possible. We are called on to persevere despite failure and pursue a purpose beyond the paycheck. This is at the core of innovation. It requires aligning the dreams of each individual to the broader dream of the organization. — Henna Inam

The successes and failures of yesterday are gone, today is a new day. — Noel DeJesus

To take risk and fail is not a failure. Real failure is to fear taking any risk — Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum

Plan for the sustainability of your success so that you do not drift back to failure and mediocrity. — Archibald Marwizi

If you plan for failure, then you are expecting to fail. If you plan for success, you'll be successful. Once you start making a 'Plan B', you distract from 'Plan A', and the moment you start believing there are other options, you start settling for less. — A.J. Darkholme

The road to success is full of pit stops, pitfalls, and self pity; my advice is simply don't stop! — Noel DeJesus

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt. — Barack Obama

People fail 2 ways: 1) don't know what to do 2) don't do what they know; therefore, great leaders must educate and inspire. — Orrin Woodward

The disaster at the Chernobyl plant, along with the war in Afghanistan and the cruise-missile question, is generally seen today as the start of the decline of the Soviet Union. Just as the great famine of 1891 had mercilessly laid bare the failure of czarism, almost a century later Chernobyl clearly showed how divided, rigid and rotten the Soviet regime had become. The principal policy instruments, secrecy and repression, no longer worked in a modern world with its accompanying means of communication. The credibility of the party leadership sank to the point at which it could sink no further. In the early hours of 26 April, 1986, two explosions took place in one of the four reactors at the giant nuclear complex. It was an accident of the kind scientists and environmental activists had been warning about for years, particularly because of its effects: a monstrous emission of iodine-131 and caesium-137. Huge radioactive clouds drifted across half of Europe: — Geert Mak

Failure is a natural part of learning and developing, and it teaches us to be resolute and steadfast in our endeavors. — Henry Kimsey-House

In all forms of leadership, whether you are a coach, a CEO, or a parent, there are four words that, when said, can bring out the best in your team, your employees, and your family. I BELIEVE IN YOU. Those four words can mean the difference between a fear of failure and the courage to try. — Mike Krzyzewski

I've written about the giving of trust as though it were a simple formula for building loyalty. But it isn't simple at all. The talent that is an essential ingredient of leadership tells the leader whom to trust and how much to trust and when to trust. The rule is (as with children) that trust be given slightly in advance of demonstrated trustworthiness. But not too much in advance. You have to have an unerring sense of how much the person is ready for. Setting people up for failure doesn't make them loyal to you; you have to set them up for success. Each time you give trust in advance of demonstrated performance, you flirt with danger. If you're risk-averse, you won't do it. And that's a shame, because the most effective way to gain the trust and loyalty of those beneath you is to give the same in equal measure. — Tom DeMarco

As a leader, I am there to make the best decisions possible with the evidence at hand and to be able to justify that decision. If it goes wrong, we add to the evidence for making the next decision, but there is no reason for regretting failure, as failure is just the production of evidence. — Michael A. Wood Jr.

With automobile accidents, mechanical failure is seldom the cause; and most often, operator error. I find the same to be true with corporate failings ... . the people are rarely the issue ... the shortcoming is most often found in the leadership. — Steve Maraboli

Believe you can and you will be halfway there. — Lolly Daskal

Those who do not appreciate the value of time are celebrity failures. Success is time management. — Moutasem Algharati

Jeremy Corbyn had shown a catastrophic failure of leadership and must step down to make way for someone with the backbone to confront racism and anti-Semitism. — Ruth Smeeth

Too often we don't call out a wrong or expect ourselves or others to act with routine integrity, excellence, or love. There has been a worldwide failure in leadership, birthing an apathetic populace, unjustifiable poverty, unconscionable greed, and a globe ravaged and booby-trapped by war. — Brendon Burchard

The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership. — Chinua Achebe

A leader should have higher endurance and ability to accept and embrace failure. — Jack Ma

The aim of leadership should be to improve the performance of man and machine, to improve quality, to increase output, and simultaneously to bring pride of workmanship to people. Put in a negative way, the aim of leadership is not merely to find and record failures of men, but to remove the causes of failure: to help people to do a better job with less effort. — W. Edwards Deming

Stagnation floods the mind with thoughts of failure and slowly drowns the will to succeed; always move forward. — Noel DeJesus

Too few leaders have the emotional fortitude to take responsibility for failure. — Paul Gibbons

The key to leadership is having a vision, and being strong enough to say no and not try to please everybody. Thats a recipe for failure. Leadership is practiced through attitude and actions, rather than words and memos. — Matt Mickiewicz

Advice? Fail constantly. Because the word doesn't mean what you think it means, especially when you're an artist. I use the word artist to mean everything from songwriting to writing a novel to even writing video games. Anything that tells a story, which is almost any medium. Gotta take risks, you gotta go through multiple drafts which means you have to FAIL, a lot. So you won't always get the reaction you always want from every single person, so when you lose that fear of failure, when you stop even thinking of it as failure, and you push yourself farther, you'll take bigger risks, and eventually, after about six or seven hundred rejections, you'll find success. And you'll find a way of conveying what you really want to say, in the best manner. — Victor Giannini

You can predict with nearly 90 percent accuracy which projects will fail - months or years in advance. And now back to our premise. The predictor of success or failure was whether people could hold five specific crucial conversations. For example, could they speak up if they thought the scope and schedule were unrealistic? Or did they go silent when a cross-functional team member began sloughing off? Or even more tricky - what should they do when an executive failed to provide leadership for the effort? — Kerry Patterson

general staff and the divisions there exists usually only a single radio wire; between the divisions and the regiments and battalions, there are only messengers. The failure of the Russian radio service came home to them bitterly, and the defeat of the Red leadership can be primarily attributed to it. — Christine Alexander

By exchanging quality time for 'turn-up' times, what many of today's wayward youngsters have become - men and women of the village have failed them. — T.F. Hodge

Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally . Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. — Barack Obama