41 Orson Scott Card Quotes on Leadership

Orson Scott Card quotes on leadership

13. At first he thought he felt bad because he was afraid of leading an army, but it wasn't true. He knew he'd make a good commander. He felt himself wanting to cry. He hadn't cried since the first few days of homesickness after he got here. He tried to put a name on the feeling that put a lump in his throat and made him sob silently, however much he tried to hold it down. He bit down on his hand to stop the feeling, to replace it with pain. It didn't help.

36. We have to strike a delicate balance. Isolate him enough that he remains creative -otherwise he'll adopt the system here and well lose him. At the same time, we need to make sure he keeps a strong ability to lead.

38. Think what we're going to do to him We're going to make him the best military commander in history. And then put the fate of the world on his shoulders.

48. Is it some law of human nature that you inevitably become whatever your first commander was? I can quit right now, if that's so.

49. I'm hurting you to make you a better solider in every way. To sharpen your wit. To intensify your effort. To keep you off balance, never sure what's going to happen next, so you always have to be ready for anything, ready to improvise, determined to win no matter what. I'm also making you miserable. That's why they brought you to me... So you could be just like me... But I'll be watching you, more compassionately that you know, and when the time is right you'll find that I'm your friend, and you are the solider you want to be.

54. He was commander every moment they were together. He never had to remind them of it; he simply was.

64. It had to be a trick or you couldn't have done it. It's the bind we were in. We had to have a commander with so much empathy that he would think like [them], understand them and anticipate them. So much compassion that he would win the love of his underlings and work with them like a perfect machine... But somebody with that much compassion could never be the killer we needed. Could never go into battle willing to win at all costs. If you knew, you couldn't do it. If you were the kind of person who would do it even if you knew, you could never have understood [them] well enough.

66. Whether he likes it or not, [he] cannot remain incognito forever. He has outraged too many wise men and pleased too many fools to hide behind his too-appropriate order to assume leadership of the forces of stupidity he has marshaled, or his enemies will unmask him in order to better understand the disease that has produced such a warped and twisted mind.

191. I saw that he came in and listened and watched and understood who we were, each individual one of us. He tried to discover our need and then supply it. He took responsibility for other people and it didn't seem to matter to him how much it cost him.

197. You both refuse to listen to anybody else. You know better about everything. And when you're both done, many many innocent people are dead.

222. You'd think she'd learn something from that. But she still does the same thing. Making decisions that deform other people's lives, without consulting them, without ever conceiving that perhaps they don't want her to save them from whatever supposed misery she's saving them from.

262. Because these fools always look up for power. People above you, they never want to share power with you. Why you look to them? They give you nothing. People below you, you give them hope, you give them respect, they give you power, cause they don't think they have any, so they don't mind giving it up.

264. The only thing a commander ever truly controls is his own army - training, morale, trust, initiative, command and, to a lesser degree, supply, placement, movement, loyalty, and courage in battle. The commander must be able to change his plans abruptly when obstacles or opportunities appear. If his army isn't ready and willing to respond to his will, his cleverness comes to nothing

265. Somebody has to roll the dice. Mine are the hands that hold those dice. I'm not a bureaucrat, placing my career above the larger purposes I was put here to serve. I will not put the dice in someone else's hands, or pretend that I don't have the choice I have.

270. He knows how to form a group into the shape he wants it to have. He knows how to get people to work together. And he does it by the most minimal means possible

272. Ender Wiggin was not larger than life, Bean knew. He was exactly life-sized, and so his larger-than-life burden was too much for him. And yet he was bearing it. So far.

277. As if the universe were created to serve him, with all the people in it tuned to resonate his desires

310. I don't care how loyal you think you're going to be, Dink. It's not in you. You're a brat and you always will be. So admit what a lousy follower you are, and go ahead and LEAD.

345. How does he do it? How does he master people without bluster or bullying? How does he make people fear him or love him, not in spite of his ruthlessness but because of it?

361. Real power does not demonstrate itself in anything that can be purchased in mere money. Money only buys the illusion of power. Real power is in the force of will - will strong enough that others bend to it for it's own sake, and follow it willingly. Power that is won through deception will evaporate under the hot light of truth, as more closely you look at it, even when it resides only in a single person, without armies, without servants, without friends, but with indomitable will.

363. Don't force the issue, don't force Nafai to humiliate you in front of the others. Instead work with him, and he will gladly let you take as much of the leadership as the oversoul will let him surrender to you. I don't think you've ever realize how Nafai worships you. How he has always wished he could be like you. How he has longed for your love and respect more than that of any other person' 'get out of my house' Very well. I see that you are a person who refuses to revise his view of the world. You can only bear to live in a world where all the bad things that happen to you are someone else's fault, where everyone must have conspired against you to deprive you of what is your due. Unfortunately, that world happens not to be the real world

380. You take responsibility for us all. Without ever waiting to be told. So do all good people. That's what it means to be a good person. And I am a good person.

417. We never know when you will stop. And so we obey you when you're angry and irrational, because we're afraid of you. And if you think about it without letting rage cloud your reason, you'll realize that we have cause to be afraid

420. Smart, but not smart-mouthed; obedient, but willing to take the initiative; courageous, but not foolish; confident, but not boastful.

424. Sometimes those who care for the whole community must act in a way that harms the individual. For a good man it never becomes easy and he avoids it when he can; but when people need him to be harsh, he will be harsh indeed, and he won't shrink from it, he'll do it with his own hand and let it be known what he does.

480. Clever boys. They'll do it, if we give them half a chance. They will do it

483. I realized it wouldn't do [him] any good to have a bunch of puppets doing his will. What he wants is companions. Do you see? He wants us to become like him, to want the same things he wants. To work towards the same goals, freely and willingly, because we want to

608. Still the girl had found her lover - a dreamer, a good man, a kind man who cared less for his plan than for the people in it. That is how he was unlike you, and that was why she loved him

812. He had expected many things. But not to have a 9 year old boy, however beautiful, speak with more command than an admiral of the fleet. Yet the boy's voice was an admirable lesson in strength. The chamberlain, who was never confused, was thrown into confusion

843. A true leader finds out what will be good for his people and then shapes laws that will help achieve that good purpose. If the people don't understand what he's doing, he persuades them if he can. If they refuse to be persuaded, then he acts for their good anyway. And if doing this costs him power, then he would rather lose his power for doing right, than keep his power by doing wrong. Because he loves his people more than he loves his office

845. Admit it, Aaron. We're two of a kind. We both think we're leader of a mighty nation

855. So it was his own will, not gods, he wanted you to submit to? I don't think it ever occurred to him that there might be a difference between the two

983. Absolute power corrupts absolutely

999. Justice hates it when I make people obey me out of fear. She thinks it's ugly and not nice. She always used to make people obey her by changing what they wanted, so it didn't occur to them to disobey. I think that's degrading and turns people into animals

1042. I thought you said you liked this kid. 'If the buggers get him, they'll make me look like his favorite uncle.' 'All right. We're saving the world, after all. Take him.'

1043. 'I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one. -Ender's Game

1052. Well, I wish I could tell you that Ender is like me, but Ender is very, very smart.

1069. Every action of Al-Qaeda is part of Osama's cynical plan to become the Caliph of Islam. He is persuading young Muslim men to kill themselves in order to further his own climb to absolute power over all Muslims, and then (he hopes) over the whole world. These young Muslim men, Osama says, are 'martyrs, but every Muslim knows that martyrs are killed by the enemy, not self-murdered in order to kill innocents. Because they believe Osama's teachings, these young men cut themselves off from a lifetime of service to God, a lifetime of fathering children who would grow up to serve God. Instead they die in service of Osama's ambition. They are, in effect, suffering the same fate as the eunuchs who served as loyal slaves in the court of the Sultan in Istanbul. Cut off from the hope of having families of their own, their lives were spent in the service of Sultans who claimed to be religious leaders but were really nothing more than vicious exploiters and oppressors of the Muslim

1072. If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.

1095. The great irony of war is this: While war is the ultimate expression of mistrust, it cannot be waged without absolute trust. A soldier trusts his comrades to stand beside him and his commander to lead him wisely, so that he will not be led to a meaningless death. And the commander trusts his subordinates and soldiers to act with wisdom and courage in order to compensate for his own ignorance, stupidity, incompetence, and fear, which all commanders possess in ample measure. -Empire

1109. [They] have a higher allegiance to their own conscience than to the rules others set down for them. It's a failing, if your object is to maintain order, but if your goal is to learn and adapt, it's a virtue.