Quotes & Sayings About Subordinates

Great leaders have an air of confidence," he replied. "Subordinates need to look up to somebody who is still standing strong, like an oak, regardless of events around them. — Carmine Gallo

Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

No matter how brilliant a man may be, he will never engender confidence in his subordinates and associates if he lacks simple honesty and moral courage. — J. Lawton Collins

The old saying has it that when we promote our best salesman and make him a manager, we ruin a good salesman and get a bad manager. But if we think about it, we see we have no choice but to promote the good salesman. Should our worst salesman get the job? When we promote our best, we are saying to our subordinates that performance is what counts. — Andrew S. Grove

I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester is peculiar - he seems to forget that he pays me £30 per annum for receiving his orders.
"The smile is very well," said he, catching instantly the passing expression; "but speak too."
"I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by their orders. — Charlotte Bronte

The way we think toward our jobs determines how our subordinates think toward their jobs. — David J. Schwartz

This, then, is a story of Lincoln's political genius revealed through his extraordinary array of personal qualities that enabled him to form friendships with men who had previously opposed him; to repair injured feelings that, left untended, might have escalated into permanent hostility; to assume responsibility for the failures of subordinates; to share credit with ease; and to learn from mistakes. He possessed an acute understanding of the sources of power inherent in the presidency, an unparalleled ability to keep his governing coalition intact, a tough-minded appreciation of the need to protect his presidential prerogatives, and a masterful sense of timing. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

Rights are subordinate to responsibilities. — Len Smith

Our higher officials are fond as a rule of nonplussing their subordinates; the methods to which they have recourse to attain that end are rather various. The following means, among others, is in great vogue, 'is quite a favourite,' as the English say; a high official suddenly ceases to understand the simplest words, assuming total deafness. He will ask, for instance, What's to-day?' He is respectfully informed, 'To-day's Friday, your Ex-s-s-s-lency.' 'Eh? What? What's that? What do you say?' the great man repeats with intense attention. 'To-day's Friday, your Ex - s - s - lency.' 'Eh? What? What's Friday? What Friday?' 'Friday, your Ex - s - s - s - lency, the day of the week.' 'What, do you pretend to teach me, eh? — Ivan Turgenev

Where I grew up, death is a constant visitor. A virus, bacteria, a parasite; drought and famine; soldiers, and torturers; could bring it to anyone, any time. Death comes riding on raindrops that turned to floods. It catches the imagination of men in positions of authority who order their subordinates to hunt, torture, and kill people they imagine to be enemies. Death lures many others to take their own lives in order to escape a dismal reality. For many women, because of the perception of lost honor, death comes at the hands of a father, brother, or husband. Death comes to young women giving birth to new life, leaving the newborn orphaned in the hands of strangers. For those who live in anarchy and civil war, as in the country of my birth, Somalia, death is everywhere. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Capt. Sobers' character strengths separated him from the other leaders within as well as outside the section. The most important of these for me was that he cared for his subordinates. Let me emphasize: he TRULY cared for his subordinates. From a militaristically accepted leadership perspective, that was a rarity. — Robert A. Trivino

It is hard to realize today that "government" during the American Civil War a hundred years ago meant the merest handful of people. Lincoln's Secretary of War had fewer than fifty civilian subordinates, most of them not "executives" and policy-makers but telegraph clerks. The entire Washington establishment of the U.S. government in Theodore Roosevelt's time, around 1900, could be comfortably housed in any one of the government buildings along the Mall today. — Peter F. Drucker

It is almost always a mistake for heads of state to undertake the details of a negotiation. They are then obliged to master specifics normally handled by their foreign offices and are deflected onto subjects more appropriate to their subordinates, while being kept from issues only heads of state can resolve. Since no one without a well-developed ego reaches the highest office, compromise is difficult and deadlocks are dangerous. With the domestic positions of the interlocutors so often dependent on at least the semblance of success, negotiations more often concentrate on obscuring differences than they do on dealing with the essence of a problem. — Henry Kissinger

The true man of genius deliberately subordinates himself, reduces himself to a negative, and allows his genius to play through him as It will. We all know how stupid we are when we try to do things. Seek to make any other muscle work as consistently as your heart does without your silly interference
you cannot keep it up for forty-eight hours. — Aleister Crowley

Quality begins with me. And I need to make my own decisions based on carefully selected principles and values." Proactivity cultivates this freedom. It subordinates your feelings to your values. You accept your feelings: "I'm frustrated, I'm angry, I'm upset. I accept those feelings; I don't deny or repress them. Now I know what needs to be done. I am responsible." That's the principle "I am response-able. — Stephen R. Covey

Does affirmative action place minority students in colleges where they're likely to fail while depriving other applicants of the chance to attend the most challenging schools where they are capable of succeeding? Does rent control drive up the cost of housing, depriving property owners of the same opportunity to profit as any other investor while driving down the quality and quantity of the housing stock? Do minimum wage laws reduce the number of entry-level jobs, making it harder to escape from poverty? Because compassion, by its nature, subordinates doing good to feeling good, these are questions the warm-hearted rarely pursue. — William Voegeli

He took over anger to intimidate subordinates, and in time anger took over him. — Milan Kundera

We know, we feel in our guts, that decisions are constantly being made which are going to wreck our ambitions, our dreams, our personal relationships. But the people making those decisions are keeping them secret, because if they don't they'll lose the leverage they have over their subordinates. — John Brunner

Lyotard develops and extends Weber's argument regarding the disenchantment of art to suggest the Western culture increasingly obeys an instrumental logic of performance and control, one that imposes order on the free play of the imagination and subordinates creative thought to the demands of the capitalist market. And, for Lyotard, the effects of this process are consistent with those outlined in Weber's work, namely the progressive elimination of ritual or religious forms of art, the restriction of creative forms by an instrumental (capitalist) rationality, and with this the denigration of value-rational artistic practice. — Nicholas Gane

Be an example to your men, in your duty and in private life. Never spare yourself, and let the troops see that you don'tin your endurance of fatigue and privation. always be tactful and well-mannered and teach your subordinates to do the same. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness of voice, which usually indicates the man who has shortcomings of his own to hide. — Erwin Rommel

It is she who has a hold on him. Doesn't she see how much he needs her? She has nothing to be afraid of, her conscience is clear. It is he who should be ashamed, and terrified of her giving him away. But that is just what she will never do. To do this she does not have the necessary ruthlessness
Komarovsky's chief asset in dealing with subordinates and weaklings. This is precisely the difference between them. And it is this that makes the whole of life so terrifying. Does it crush you by thunder and lightning? No, by oblique glances and whispered calumny. It is all treachery and ambiguity. Any single thread is as fragile as a cobweb, but just try to pull yourself out of the net, you only become more entangled. And the strong are dominated by the weak and ignoble. — Boris Pasternak

Christianity excludes malignity, subdues selfishness, regulates the passions, subordinates the appetites, quickens the intellect, exalts the affections. It promotes industry, honesty, truth, purity, kindness. It humbles the proud, exalts the lowly, upholds law, favors liberty, is essential to it, and would unite men in one great brotherhood. It is the breath of life to social and civil well-being here, and spreads the azure of that heaven into whose unfathomed depths the eye if faith loves to look. — Mark Hopkins

Effective executives know that their subordinates are paid to perform and not to please their superiors. — Peter F. Drucker

Wolves are not our brothers; they are not our subordinates, either. They are another nation, caught up just like us in the complex web of time and life. — Henry Beston

Encourage and listen well to the words of your subordinates. It is well known that gold lies hidden underground. — Nabeshima Naoshige

A manager's task is to make the strengths of people effective and their weakness irrelevant - and that applies fully as much to the manager's boss as it applies to the manager's subordinates. — Peter Drucker

A meddler who cannot leave his subordinates alone is a hands on executive. — John Leo

The power of transcendent vision is greater than the power of the scripting deep inside the human personality and it subordinates it [the scripting], submerges it, until the whole personality is reorganized in the accomplishment of that vision. — Stephen Covey

One of the ways in which our culture fosters the narcissistic personality is by its exaggerated emphasis upon the importance of winning. There is a popular slogan that says winning is the only thing that counts. Such an attitude minimizes human values and subordinates the feelings of others to this one overriding goal to win, to be on top, to be number one. But — Alexander Lowen

There is a great deal of talk about loyalty from the bottom to the top. Loyalty from the top down is even more necessary and much less prevalent. One of the most frequently noted characteristics of great men who have remained great is loyalty to their subordinates. — George S. Patton

Good generals select intelligent officers, thoughtful advisors, and brave subordinates. They oversee their troops like a fierce tiger with wings. — Zhuge Liang

Managers who feel inadequate in their jobs are often unreceptive to employees' ideas and denigrate subordinates who speak up, according to research at a multinational energy company and a subsequent experiment. In such cases underlings might consider voicing their ideas in private so that bosses feel less threatened. "MANAGING TO STAY IN THE DARK: MANAGERIAL SELF-EFFICACY, EGO DEFENSIVENESS, AND THE AVERSION TO EMPLOYEE VOICE," BY NATHANAEL J. FAST, ETHAN R. BURRIS, AND CAROLINE A. BARTEL — Anonymous

A great leader must always keep in mind the golden rule: respect for their subordinates.
Tribute to Noah Sealth. — Miguel El Portugues

If you do not take opportunity to advance and reward the deserving, your subordinates will not carry out your commands, and disaster will ensue. — Sun Tzu

Theoretically, great opportunities lay ahead of a young man of energy in that day and place, but Carl Miller had been incapable of establishing either with his superiors or his subordinates the reputation for approximate immutability which is essential to success in a hierarchic industry. — F Scott Fitzgerald

For there was no doubt in Bundy's mind about his ability to handle ... the world. The job was not just a happenstance thing; he had, literally and figuratively, been bred for it, or failing this, Secretary of State. He was the brightest light in that glittering constellation around the President, for if those years had any central theme, if there was anything that bound the men, their followers and their subordinates together, it was the belief that sheer intelligence and rationality could answer and solve anything. — David Halberstam

Never trust the occultist who tells you that he is the head of a tradition, because if he were, in the first place, he would not tell the fact to the uninitiated, and in the second place he would in all probability be living in great seclusion and inaccessible to all but his immediate subordinates. If a man is a great artist he does not need to inform us of the fact; we shall know him by his pictures that are hung in the galleries of the nation, and we shall, moreover, find that he guards himself from casual acquaintances because of the inroads on his time to which his fame renders him liable. The more eminent a person, the harder he is to approach, not out of any spirit of pride and exclusiveness, but because so many people want to see him that discrimination has to be used in admitting them. — Dion Fortune

Maybe that's what your machine calls infection - all the new information in my blood. Chatter. Tastes of other individuals. Peers. Superiors. Subordinates. — Greg Bear

I no longer think that learning how to manage people, especially subordinates, is the most important for executives to learn. I am teaching above all else, how to manage oneself. — Peter Drucker

Every leader should have enough humility to accept, publicly, the responsibility for the mistakes of the subordinates he has himself selected and, likewise, to give them credit, publicly, for their triumphs. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

A sure indication of a successful leader is the collective and consistent testimony of subordinates who are grateful for what they learned and how they grew while they worked under that leader. — Richard Blackaby

I have always told my subordinates that when they commit any mistakes, the blame must be laid on the superior officers. — Chiang Kai-shek

Like a good parent can't also be his child's best friend, a leader with authority requires some separation from subordinates. — Simon Sinek

If you facilitate your subordinates' steady progress in meaningful work, make that progress salient to them, and treat them well, they will experience the emotions, motivations, and perceptions necessary for great performance. — Teresa Amabile

Patriarchy, hierarchy, and capitalism create, encourage, maintain, and perpetuate addiction and dependency. Patriarchy and hierarchy are based on domination and subordination, which result in fear. This fear is expressed by the dominators through control and violence, and in subordinated people through passivity and repression of anger. The external conflict of hierarchy between dominants and subordinates becomes internalized in individuals, creating personal inner chaos, anxiety and duality. To quell the inner conflict people resort to addictive substances and behavior. — Charlotte Davis Kasl

The name 'cherubim' means 'fullness of knowledge' or 'outpouring of wisdom' ... The name cherubim signifies the power to know and to see God, to receive the greatest gifts of His light, to contemplate the divine splendor in primordial power, to be filled with the gifts that bring wisdom and to share these generously with subordinates as a part of the beneficent outpouring of His wisdom. — Pope Dionysius

This narrative lends itself too easily to centralized solutions and the mentality of maximizing (or minimizing) a number. It subordinates all the small, local things we need to do to create a more beautiful world to a single cause for which all else must be sacrificed. This is the mentality of war, in which an all-important end trumps any compunctions about the means and justifies any sacrifice. We — Charles Eisenstein

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

What is Moral Courage? It is the ability to distinguish right from wrong and having so distinguished it, be prepared to say so,irrespective of the views held by your superiors or subordinates and of consequences to yourself. — Sam Manekshaw

No officer should be required or permitted to take part in the management of political organizations, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns. Their right to vote and to express their views on public questions, either orally or through the press, is not denied, provided it does not interfere with the discharge of their official duties. No assessment for political purposes on officers or subordinates should be allowed. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Younger managers learn quickly that, whatever the public protestations to the contrary, bosses generally want pliable and agreeable subordinates, especially during periods of crisis. Clique leaders want dependable, loyal allies. Thos who regularly raise objections to what a boss or a clique leader really desires run the risk of being considered problems themselves and of being labeled "outspoken," or "nonconstructive," or "doomsayers," "naysayers," or "crepehangers. — Robert Jackall

Any commander who fails to exceed his authority is not of much use to his subordinates. — Arleigh Burke

Well, on the American side, every new administration has to cut its teeth in a crisis, because before a crisis, you don't really know what your various subordinates are thinking under stress. — Henry A. Kissinger

Not only teachers, but all commonplace persons in authority,
desire in their subordinates that kind of uniformity
which makes their actions easily predictable and never inconvenient.
The result is that they crush initiative and individuality
when they can, and when they cannot, they quarrel with it. — Bertrand Russell

If you don't understand that you work for your mislabeled 'subordinates', then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny. — Dee Hock

Divisions compete for resources and sabotage each other to steal glory. Bosses pit their subordinates against one another so that no one can mount a coup. — Charles Duhigg

A business is an army;
you are the general,
and your subordinates are your troops.
Victory is achieving your goals.
Great victory is surpassing your goals. — Matshona Dhliwayo

You never really hear the truth from your subordinates until after 10 in the evening. — Jurgen E. Schrempp

There is no occasion for women to consider themselves subordinate or inferior to man — Mahatma Gandhi

Authorities often exploit their subordinates for their own benefit while believing they are perfectly just. — Jonathan Haidt

No one should pay attention to a man delivering a lecture or a sermon on his "philosophy of life" until we know exactly how he treats his wife, his children, his neighbors, his friends, his subordinates and his enemies. — Sydney J. Harris

Lyotard addresses... in Postmodern Fables... [that] ideas of difference, alterity and multiculturalism have become nothing more than streams of cultural capital, streams which themselves fashion, and are fashioned by, the demands of the global market. Hence, the following irony: 'What cultural capitalism has found is the marketplace of singularities'. The result of this discovery, which even reduces the 'postmodern' celebration of difference or otherness to a marketable strategy, is that ideas are stripped of their intrinsic value (value-rationality) and are judged by their value as commodities. This leads to the production of thought that is itself devoid of difference, for streams of cultural capital 'must all go in the right direction' and 'must converge'. Global capitalism, while appearing to affirm the potentiality of cultural differentiation, in fact subordinates difference and alterity to an instrumental logic of exchange, performance and control. — Nicholas Gane

Ask yourself, "How are my thoughts, words and deeds affecting my friends, my spouse, my neighbour, my child, my employer, my subordinates, my fellow citizens?" — Epictetus

Could an android listen to the whining, requests for advancement, and entreaties for guidance and affection that pour from subordinates? Sure it could. Frankly, all that would be easier on the robot than it is on me. — Stanley Bing

these ideological cliques form in a government--or any other organization. Subordinates are always chosen for their agreement with the views of their superiors, and the extremists always get to the top and shove the moderates under or out. — H. Beam Piper

Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates. — Don Marquis

Administrators make work for each other so that they can multiply the number of their subordinates and enhance their prestige. — C. Northcote Parkinson

Be a role model not a critic. Don't tell your children, your peers, or your subordinates what to do - show them. And when the lesson is over, keep showing them by demonstrating that your actions are part of your character, not part of their curriculum. — Denis Waitley

He had somehow, with all his modesty, the rare faculty of controlling his superiors as well as his subordinates. He outfaced Stanton, captivated the President, and even compelled acquiescence or silence from that dread source of paralyzing power, the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War. — Joshua Chamberlain

Succeed at home first. Seek and merit divine help. Never compromise with honesty. Remember the people involved. Hear both sides before judging. Obtain counsel of others. Defend those who are absent. Be sincere yet decisive. Develop one new proficiency a year. Plan tomorrow's work today. Hustle while you wait. Maintain a positive attitude. Keep a sense of humor. Be orderly in person and in work. Do not fear mistakes - fear only the absence of creative, constructive, and corrective responses to those mistakes. Facilitate the success of subordinates. Listen twice as much as you speak. Concentrate all abilities and efforts on the task at hand, not worrying about the next job or promotion. — Stephen R. Covey

Always let your subordinates know that the honor will be all theirs if they succeed and the blame will be yours if they fail. — Abraham Lincoln

Tell me what to do, not how to do it.' Decentralize command and allow subordinates to operate freely within the framework of the commander's intent. Train them as a team. Develop trust, loyalty, initiative. — Nathaniel Fick

If I didn't have my parents to think about I'd have given in my notice a long time ago, I'd have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He'd fall right off his desk! And it's a funny sort of business to be sitting up there at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up there, especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is hard of hearing. — Franz Kafka

Just as Stalin used alcohol to keep his subordinates divided, fearful, confused, and off balance, so too the Soviet leadership continued a longstanding autocratic tradition of utilizing vodka to keep society in check: drunken, divided (atomized), and unable to mount a challenge to its power.36 The communists, in particular, knew this well. — Anonymous

The old-fashioned idea of a good manager is one who is supposed to know all the answers, can solve every problem himself, and can give appropriate orders to his subordinates to carry out his plans ... A good modern manager is like a good coach who leads and encourages his team in never-ending quality improvement. — George E.P. Box

No executive has ever suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective. — Peter Drucker

When people have a real sense of legacy, a sense of mattering, a sense of contribution, it seems to tap into the deepest part of their heart and soul. It brings out the best and subordinates the rest. — Stephen Covey

Turning the workplace into a playing field can turn our subordinates into "athletes" dedicated to performing at the limit of their capabilities - the key to making our team consistent winners. — Andrew S. Grove

My subordinates followed my orders. — Jorge Rafael Videla

This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture ... The basic attitude from which such activity arises, we call-to distinguish it from egoism and selfishness-idealism. By this we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow men. — Adolf Hitler

For a business to strengthen its position on the market, its managers should become skillful at helping their subordinates to set and achieve specific and measurable goals with realistic deadlines and clear expectations. Managers should also mentor employees through challenges, helping them grow and develop new skills. — Anna Stevens

And I suppose it's a woman's place to simper on the sidelines and cheer as idiots rack up the casualties?"

"We all find ourselves cheering for idiots from time to time, that's a fact of life. There really is no point heaping scorn on my subordinates. If a person is worthy of contempt, they'll bury themselves soon enough without help. — Joe Abercrombie

If I'm the boss / parent, why can't I just tell my subordinates / children what to do? — Douglas Stone

I've got an idea,' I said. 'I'll just turn up tomorrow morning and start having meetings until my brain turns to jelly. Then we'll stop and I'll hide for a bit, then do some more while thinking of other things, then forget it all by the evening, and we'll do pretty much the same thing again the day after that - and rely on subordinates and assistants to deal with actually running the place.'
'Thank goodness for that,' said Duffy with a sigh of relief. 'I was worried you had no experience of running a large public department. — Jasper Fforde

If subordinates, or people in general, know that they genuinely have easy access to their leader, they'll tend to view the leader in a more positive, trustworthy light. — Donald T. Phillips

Ask your subordinates about matters you do not understand or do not know, and do not lightly express your approval or disapproval. . . . We should never pretend to know what we do not know, we should "not feel ashamed to ask and learn from people below" and we should listen carefully to the views of the cadres at the lower levels. Be a pupil before you become a teacher; learn from the cadres at the lower levels before you issue orders. . . . What the cadres at the lower levels say may or may not be correct, after hearing it, we must analyse it. We must heed the correct views and act upon them. . . . Listen also to the mistaken views from below, it is wrong not to listen to them at all. Such views, however, are not to be acted upon but to be criticized. — Mao Zedong

The conclusion, therefore, is that there are two major forces in society: love, which multiplies the species, and the nose, which subordinates it to the individual. Procreation, equilibrium. — Machado De Assis

Though Moltke was working with subordinates who were totally lacking in comprehension for whatever strategic plans he may have entertained and who on occasion abused the independence granted them, those plans were sufficiently flexible to accommodate errors; that is, a large safety margin was left to ensure that mistakes would not develop into catastrophes. — Martin Van Creveld

The US has no friends, nor does it want to keep any because the prerequisite of friendship is to come to the level of the friend or consider him at par with you. America does not want to see anyone equal to it. It expects slavery from others. Therefore, other countries are either its slaves or subordinates. — Osama Bin Laden

Trees die from the top. No one should ever become a strategist unless he or she is willing to have his or her character serve as a model for subordinates — Peter Drucker

Every patriot believes his country better than any other country ... In its active manifestation-it is fond of killing-patriotism would be well enough if it were simply defensive, but it is also aggressive ... Patriotism deliberately and with folly aforethought subordinates the interests of a whole to the interests of a part ... Patriotism is fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave and blind as a stone. — Ambrose Bierce

He isn't a real boss until he has trained subordinates to shoulder most of his responsibilities. — William Feather

There is only one condition in which we can imagine managers not needing subordinates, and masters not needing slaves. This condition would be that each (inanimate) instrument could do its own work. — Aristotle.

The truth is, the whole administration under Roosevelt was demoralized by the system of dealing directly with subordinates. It wasobviated in the State Department and the War Department under [Secretary of State Elihu] Root and me [Taft was the Secretary of War], because we simply ignored the interference and went on as we chose ... The subordinates gained nothing by his assumption of authority, but it was not so in the other departments. — William Howard Taft

Almost every day I am reminded of Saadi's reflection that there is no senseless tyranny like that of subordinates. — Idries Shah

What causes [fragmentation] if not a need to act that specializes us and limits us to the horizon of a particular activity? Even if it turns out to be for the general interest (which generally isn't true), the activity that subordinates each of our aspects to a specific result suppresses our being as an entirety. Whoever acts substitutes a particular end for what he or she is, as a total being. — Georges Bataille

Though top executives may work as hard as ever-in part perhaps because, being trained in an earlier day, they can hardly help doing so-their subordinates are somewhat less work-minded. — David Riesman

The people "placed me in an office of the highest dignity and charged me with the duty of maintaining that dignity and proper respect for the office on the part of my subordinates. . . . By your own conduct you have destroyed your usefulness as a helpful subordinate. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

Consider an event from the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the world's greatest military strategists: During a meeting, his subordinates informed Napoleon Bonaparte of a new general who was turning out to be extremely capable. The new man's bravery, skill, determination and organizational capabilities were outlined for Napoleon in great detail. Napoleon waved his hand impatiently. 'That's all very well,' said Napoleon. 'But tell me: Is he lucky?' Napoleon's question may sound rather strange in our times, but he saw luck as a personal trait rather than an extraneous factor. A — Ashwin Sanghi

If u want to work in Corporate, then u should know how to play Chess. — Honeya