While you cannot deliver policies without principles, you cannot deliver principles without having power. You have quickly to move to a stage where, emphasising your principles, you build a programme, then call for popular support.
Interpretation
Principles are essential for policies, but they require power to be implemented effectively.
This quote by Gordon Brown emphasizes the intertwined relationship between principles and power in leadership. It suggests that while a leader must uphold strong principles to guide their policies, these principles alone are not sufficient for action; effective leadership requires the authority or support to transform those principles into tangible programs that resonate with the public and garner their backing.
In practice
In a motivational speech about leadership ethics, you could use this quote to highlight the need for principled action.
Our mission is, in truth, historic and world changing - to build, over the next fifty years and beyond, a global low carbon economy. And it is not overdramatic to say that the character and course of the coming century will be set by how we measure up to this challenge
No one should be held back from realising their potential by fears that they will not be able to afford to go to university or that they will graduate with unmanageable levels of debt.
To my astonishment, everything that I had assumed was now questioned by the findings. What started off as a search for identity that appeared to be purely Scottish in origin ended up as a discovery of my migrant roots - indeed an understanding that almost all of our families, at some stage, have been migrants - and my European roots.
Collective European Union action could mean no hiding places for evaders, no safe haven for tax avoiders, and no treasure islands for money launderers.
Leadership is not something you do to people. It's something you do with people.
Presidents are evaluated not by what they did by the stroke of their own pen; it's what they persuade Congress to do.
A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group - that's teamwork.
Engage your brain before you engage your weapon.
If you see players who hate practice, their coach isn't doing a very good job.
...the best leaders are servant leaders - they serve those they lead.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.