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Great leaders are those who are able to look reality in the face, however painful it may be, and deal with it.
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
Reality
Leaders
May
Painful
Able
However
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Deal
Looks
Deals
Great
Leader
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Faces
More quotes by Colin Powell
So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? I think our judgment has to be clearly not.
Colin Powell
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
I recommended to the president [George Bush] that our focus had to be on al-Qaida, the Taliban and Afghanistan. Those were the ones who attacked the United States of America on 9/11.
Colin Powell
When we have dealt with bin Laden and his network we will then broaden the campaign to go after other terrorists all around the world.
Colin Powell
I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates, see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in, the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.
Colin Powell
The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve. Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative thinking and negative acting people.
Colin Powell
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
Only when you have got a clear statement of what you want to achieve, do you ask yourself how you are going to achieve it. In the military we are taught never to go for a single answer, no matter how obvious that might be.
Colin Powell
The great leaders that I have worked with are people who have a good sense of empathy with other people. They can walk a factory floor, or walk through a battalion and smell if there's something wrong.
Colin Powell
Lying offshore, ready to act, the presence of ships and Marines sometimes means much more than just having air power or ship's fire, when it comes to deterring a crisis. And the ships and Marines may not have to do anything but lie offshore. It is hard to lie offshore with a C-141 or C-130 full of airborne troops.
Colin Powell
Sometimes what my analytical mind says to me is not what I'll do.
Colin Powell
There are lots of countries that are having these kinds of internal civil wars in other parts of the world and nobody is talking about intervening.
Colin Powell
I have never seen a good organization where the standards weren't high.
Colin Powell
Almost invariably, whoever doesn't win the argument is going to be unhappy.
Colin Powell
One of the greatest talents of all is the talent to recognize and to develop talent in others.
Colin Powell
A sense of shame is not a bad moral compass.
Colin Powell
We are not trapped in what the science of management says we can do. We are capable of doing what the art of leadership says is possible.
Colin Powell
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
War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.
Colin Powell
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
