Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.
—Colin Powell
Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.
—Colin Powell
Topics: Organization
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.
—Colin Powell
Topics: Service
Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity.
—Colin Powell
The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting in above-average effort.
—Colin Powell
Topics: Effort
A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.
—Colin Powell
Topics: Dreams
Get mad, then get over it.
—Colin Powell
Topics: Anger
Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.
—Colin Powell
There comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.
—Colin Powell
If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.
—Colin Powell
Topics: Excellence, Attitude
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.
—Colin Powell
Topics: Preparation, Success, Failure, Success & Failure
Don’t be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.
—Colin Powell
Topics: Challenges
Every organization should tolerate rebels who tell the emperor he has no clothes.
—Colin Powell
Look for intelligence and judgment and, most critically, a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners. Also look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego and the drive to get things done.
—Colin Powell
Either move or be moved.
—Colin Powell
Topics: Action
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
H. Norman Schwarzkopf American Military Leader
Eric Shinseki American Army Officer
Omar Bradley American Military Leader
George S. Patton American Military Leader
Hyman G. Rickover American Admiral
George Marshall American Military Leader
Douglas MacArthur American Military Leader
Robert S. Johnson American Military Leader
Eddie Rickenbacker American Aviator
Albert Pike American Masonic Scholar