Leaders have followers. The primary role of a leader is to convey to those followers a sense of purpose, vision, and mission.

I don't think we handled the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad as well as we might have. But that's now history.

In the army, all combat officers are taught the "Estimate of the Situation": When you are faced with a problem - take that hill, or in business maybe grow your market share - the first thing you do is to make an analysis of your environment.

Give me the right people and I don’t much care what organization you give me. Good things will happen. Give me the wrong people and it doesn’t matter what you do with the organization. Bad things will happen.

Don't take counsel of your fears or naysayers.

Bad news isn't wine. It doesn't improve with age.

Politics is different, because the mission is always to get the necessary votes. A good politician goes through everything in terms of mission and vision, and resourcing, but at the end of the day politicians have to make compromises in order to achieve consensus.