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The essence of leadership is building bonds of trust in your organization.

Colin Powell

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Colin Powell
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: April 5
Diplomat
Former United States Secretary Of State
Politician
Soldier
New York City
New York
Colin Luther Powell
Leadership
Building
Trust
Bonds
Organization
Essence

More quotes by Colin Powell

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It is not our place to decide who should lead the Iraqi people. If Saddam [Hussein] leaves or has to be forced out of power and a new regime brought in, a new leadership brought in, I am confident it will be some combination of people inside the country and outside the country.
Colin Powell
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I have always admired the Linking Pin theory of management specialist Rensis Likert. It says that in every organization there are leaders who link the lower level to the upper level. What makes somebody an effective link as a leader is that he conveys down everything that above wants and he conveys up everything that below needs.
Colin Powell
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I would not presume from this distance, nor would America presume to say who should be the leader of the Iraqi nation.
Colin Powell
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The burden is on Saddam Hussein. And our policy, our national policy - not the UN policy but our national policy - is that the regime should be changed until such time as he demonstrates that it is not necessary to change the regime because the regime has changed itself.
Colin Powell
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We are not dictating. We are not telling them [Saudi Arabia] how they should do it or who they should look like. We are their friends. We have mutual interests and we will help them in any way that is possible.
Colin Powell
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America has a terrible educational problem in the sense that we have too many youngsters not finishing school. A third of our kids don't finish high school, 50 percent of minorities don't finish high school.
Colin Powell
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It was President [Bill] Clinton and the United States congress in 1998 which said that the regime has to be changed because the regime would not give up its weapons of mass destruction. We came into office in 2001 and kept that policy because Saddam Hussein had not changed.
Colin Powell
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We are not sure to what extent Saddam's [Hussein ] own people were conveying an incorrect picture to him. But this body of evidence was believed not only by President George W. Bush. President Bill Clinton used that same body of intelligence before bombing Iraq in 1998.
Colin Powell
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We knew that al-Qaida was a threat to our country. We knew that the Clinton administration understood this and was working against al-Qaida We did not ignore al-Qaida. We spent a lot of our time thinking about terrorism, what should we do about it.
Colin Powell
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One of the fondest expressions around is that we can't be the world's policeman. But guess who gets called when suddenly someone needs a cop.
Colin Powell
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We would like to see new leaders come forward who would be accountable and responsible, who would succeed in ending the terror and the violence. And it is up to the Palestinian people to judge who those new leaders should be.
Colin Powell
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The best leaders are those who break that mission down into the organization's constituent parts, so that everybody understands their role and how it all builds into the whole.
Colin Powell
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I happen to hold a bachelor of science degree in geology... And my greatest contribution to the field of science is that I never entered it.
Colin Powell
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You should never be so involved with your position/job that when the position is gone your entire self image is gone with it.
Colin Powell
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In the military we also learn principles of war which also work in a corporate setting: How do you concentrate as much of your force as possible on a critical point and take a risk elsewhere? In business that translates into focusing your investment on marketing, sales, or R&D, whichever will give you the greatest return.
Colin Powell
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Everybody makes bad decisions. I am sure I have made my share of them over 40 years of service. Or I have made good decisions and have been overruled. The real challenge, when you are overruled, is to remember who the boss is and don't take it personally.
Colin Powell
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Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids.
Colin Powell
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We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.
Colin Powell
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Have a sense of humor to break the tension in times of great toil.
Colin Powell
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We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn't come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn't resurging. It didn't work out.
Colin Powell