John Wooden Quotes

Ninety-nine percent of leadership failures are failures of character.

To say America can have strong leadership without strong character is to say we can get water without the wet.

Character in many ways is everything in leadership. It is made up of many things, but I would say character is really integrity.

The leader for today and the future will be focused on how to be - how to develop quality, character, mind-set, values, principles, and courage.

There is one qualification the manager cannot acquire but must bring to the task. It is not genius; it is character.

Good men who exercise power are really the most fascinating of all people.

Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character; it requires moral rather than athletic or intellectual effort, and it imposes on both leader and follower alike the burdens of self-restraint.

A deep concern of mine is that leaders in the technology sector have not developed a culture that insists upon courage, honor, duty, and humility - what we might call a culture of virtue.

Brains and character rule the world. The most distinguished Frenchman of the last century said: Men succeed less by their talents than their character. There were scores of men a hundred years ago who had more intellect than Washington. He outlives and overrides them all by the influence of his character.

Where will our country find leaders with integrity, courage, strength-all the family values-in ten, twenty, or thirty years? The answer is that you are teaching them, loving them, and raising them right now.

But rules cannot substitute for character.

Whatever you think of Romney and his politics, as a human being there's none better. As a man of integrity, man of character, there's none better.

Virtually everything I learned about leadership traits and core values, I learned in the Marine Corps. To this day, I keep a list of the traits in a little black book, 14 of them, including integrity, justice, bearing, enthusiasm, endurance - all indicators you aspire to when you're a leader.

The public wants elected officials who have character. The public wants elected officials who are willing to stand up and say things, even if they don't agree with them.

Character in many ways is everything in leadership. It is made up of many things, but I would say character is really integrity. When you delegate something to a subordinate, for example, it is absolutely your responsibility, and he must understand this. You as a leader must take complete responsibility for what the subordinate does. I once said, as a sort of wisecrack, that leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.

Talent is a gift, but our character is a choice. Talent is natural ability, our gift from God, but we have the power to determine our character. That power rests on a foundation consisting of the choices we make in life. And those choices almost always dictate the amount of trust others have in us, and to what level of leadership we rise.

A man of character will make himself worthy of any position he is given.

Trust is equal parts character and competence... You can look at any leadership failure, and it's always a failure of one or the other.

The leader beyond the millennium will not be the leader who has learned the lessons of how to do it, with ledgers of 'hows' balanced with 'its' that dissolve in the crashing changes ahead. The leader for today and the future will be focused on how to be - how to develop quality, character mind-set, values, principles, and courage.

To be a great leader, first become a great person.

In a president, character is everything. A president doesn't have to be brilliant... He doesn't have to be clever; you can hire clever... You can hire pragmatic, and you can buy and bring in policy wonks. But you cant buy courage and decency, you cant rent a strong moral sense. A president must bring those things with him. He needs to have, in that much maligned word, but a good one nonetheless, a vision of the future he wishes to create.. But a vision is worth little if a president doesn't have the character - the courage and heart - to see it through.

In the end, leaders are defined by the convictions they hold.

Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique.

There's no doubt West Point impacted who I am... It has an enormous emphasis, not only on military aspects, but character development. Whether it's the honor code, or the interactions you have, both with the cadet leadership and the academy leadership, every place you are is a character test.

Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous, and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit more cowardly. If you are CEO, these choices will lead to a courageous or cowardly company.