Leadership quotes, from command to the boardroom

In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.

In raiding and plundering be like fire, in immovability like a mountain.

Such a leader, however, does not take credit for his or her team's successes but bestows that honor upon his subordinate leaders and team members.

Total responsibility for failure is a difficult thing to accept, and taking ownership when things go wrong requires extraordinary humility and courage.

There is the path of wisdom. Prevention is better than cure.

If we can stand up to him all Europe may be free, and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

To govern means to rectify. If you lead on the people with correctness, who will dare not to be correct?

A sign of strong character, when once the resolution has been taken, to shut the ear even to the best counter-arguments.

He who lightly promises is sure to keep but little faith; he who is continually thinking things easy is sure to find them difficult.

In teaching there should be no distinction of classes.

It’s very hard to work with people who end up being low integrity.

You need someone who is smart, or they’ll head in the wrong direction.

Think like an owner, and expect the people you work with to do the same.

Don't try to be followed; try to be understood and to understand others.

Have I done something for the general interest? Well then I have had my reward.

It is not the strength, but the duration of great sentiments that makes great men.

You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards for the technology.

It’s incredibly stupid for Apple to get into a position where for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose.

Usually when everyone around you disagrees with you, your default assumption should be that you're mistaken.

Your outcome in life will be way more satisfactory and way better if you work under people you really admire.

You particularly want to avoid working directly under somebody you really don’t admire and don’t want to be like.

Mediocre hires hurt you twice: they get less done, but they also make you big, because you need more of them to solve a given problem.

Therefore the sage puts his own person last, and yet it is found in the foremost place; he treats his person as if it were foreign to him, and yet that person is preserved.

I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.