Okay, you've convinced me. Now go out there and bring pressure on me.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of accountability and the need for leaders to be challenged to rise to the occasion.
In this quote, Franklin D. Roosevelt acknowledges the power of persuasion and the role of pressure in governance. He invites others to hold him accountable, suggesting that true leadership involves not only decision-making but also being responsive to the demands and expectations of the public, thus fostering a collaborative atmosphere where leaders are pushed to do their best.
In practice
In a team meeting to discuss project goals and challenges.
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too.
One of the great difficulties as you rise up through an organisation is that your prior competencies are exploded and broken apart by the territory you've been promoted into: the field of human identity.
Leadership contains certain elements of good management, but it requires that you inspire, that you build durable trust. For an organization to be not just good but to win, leadership means evoking participation larger than the job description, commitment deeper than any job contract's wording.
A skillful commander is not overbearing. A skillful fighter does not become angry. A skillful conqueror does not compete with people. One who is skillful in using men puts himself below them. This is called the strength to use men. This is called matching Heaven, The highest principle of old.
The essence of power is the knowledge that what you do is going to have an effect not just an immediate but perhaps a lifelong effect on the happiness and wellbeing of millions of people and so I think the essence of power is to be conscious of what it can mean for others.
I may have hurt some people along the way, but I would like to be seen as somebody who has done his best to do the right thing for any situation and not compromised.
I'd give my life to be the national team coach.
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