duplicity

"There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away. The British people can face peril or misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy, but they bitterly resent being deceived or finding that those responsible for their affairs are themselves dwelling in a fool's paradise"

- Winston Churchill [1874-1965]

on leadership

on ageism

"I was 29 years old, but I had a vision. No one else had a clue what to do, so I was hired."
- Conan O'Brien on taking over David Letterman's time-slot 

first mover disadvantage

"The bird that flies at the front of the flock is the one they shoot."
- Chinese aphorism 

on teamwork

"You need to have people around you who say that you don't have any clothes on."
- Michael Bloomberg

true and false

Ronald Spiers:

You wanna know if they're true or not. The stories about me? Did you ever notice with stories like that, everyone says they heard it from someone who was there. Then when you ask that person, they say they heard it from someone who was there. It's nothing new really. I bet if you went back two thousand years, you'd hear a couple centurions standing around yakking about how Tercius lopped off the heads of some Carthaginian prisoners.

Carwood Lipton:

Well, maybe they kept talking about it because they never heard Tercius deny it.

Ronald Spiers:

Maybe that's because Tercius knew there was some value to the men thinking he was the meanest, toughest sonofabitch in the whole Roman Legion.

fish

"What leadership is about is not just swimming with the current."
- Bernie Sanders

limbic

"The opposite of a leader is a victim."
- Robin Sharma, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

creativity

"... more than rigor, management discipline, integrity or even vision -- successfully navigating an increasing complex world will require creativity, which emerged as the number one leadership competency."
- 2010 IBM CEO study press release here.