Dorothy Bush Koch Quotes

It's easy enough to get into power. You can make promises and try to be all things to all people. But the moment you have to make decisions, you're going to annoy at least half of them. Whatever you do, in the end you're almost certain to be brought down by your own character traits.

Presidents make their hard decisions and then abide forever with their mistakes and regrets.

As mayor, I'm in the frying pan. I'm just sitting here on the griddle now, and I've got to really think, you know, do I want to stay here on the griddle?

Even if there's controversy, I'm going to make the decision, and people are going to be happy in one instance and unhappy in the next. But that's the job I've been given and the job I'm going to embrace.

In life, everybody faces choices between doing what's popular, easy, and wrong vs. doing what's lonely, difficult, and right. These decisions intensify when you run a company, because the consequences get magnified 1,000 fold. As in life, the excuses for CEOs making the wrong choice are always plentiful.

I want to tell you ladies and gentlemen, the actions that we took were not always easy. The actions that we took were not always popular. But when you get yourself in public office, you must lead, you must do what's necessary.

In any leadership position, you're always going to be disappointing somebody.

You know, one of the things I think you understand as president is you're held responsible for everything, but you don't always have control of everything, right?

You have to be responsible when you're running an organization, and firing people who are your friends is part of that responsibility.

There never is a good time for tough decisions. There will always be an election or something else. You have to pick courage and do it. Governance is about taking tough, even unpopular, decisions.

Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.

In this job, you're going to make decisions. You'll say things that some people are going to love them, some people are going to hate them. It's just part of the job.

If victory has a hundred fathers, it also brings forth a hundred advisors.

Leaders respond when they perceive that there will be a political cost of inaction.

If you're unpopular, it means you've done the tough things.

The essence of leadership involves a clear sense of what you want to achieve, the ability to do what may be unpopular … and a willingness to step up

An important quality for a President of the United States is to make decisions and live with the consequences of them

It is impossible for a Minister to please the many without displeasing the few

To lead or to parent means not being liked sometimes.

The issues that cross a president's desk are never easy. The easy questions don't even get to the president.

Presidents have to decide what their popularity is for. Lyndon Johnson probably understood best that political popularity is a wasting asset. You had to use it when you had it.

What comes into the Oval Office are not the good or easy decisions. The easy decisions are made elsewhere. The things that make it to the Oval are always the hard ones.

It's hard to be a leader when you have to make hard choices and when you have to do what's right, even though people are not going to like you for it.

You've got to make tough decisions, sometimes unpopular decisions... Whatever it is, if it's the right move at the right time, you've got to be also willing to make mistakes.

I realise that sometimes you have to make tough decisions and football doesn't wait for people.