Being president is like running a cemetery: you've got a lot of people under you and nobody's listening.
Interpretation
Being in a leadership position often feels isolating, as your concerns may go unheard by those you lead.
This quote by William J. Clinton humorously expresses the challenges of leadership, particularly in a high-stakes position like the presidency. It suggests that, while leaders have many responsibilities and people looking to them for guidance, they often feel disconnected and unheard, much like a caretaker of a cemetery who oversees many yet lacks engagement from the living.
In practice
A motivational speech on the challenges of leadership at a business summit.
You know, there was a recent poll which said that young people in the generation of the students here felt it was far more likely that they would see a UFO than that they would draw Social Security... It's very important you understand this. Once you understand this, you realize this is not an episode from the X Files, and you're not more likely to see a UFO if you do certain specific things.
When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.
For too long we've been told about 'us' and 'them.' Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that 'they' are the problem, not 'us.' But there can be no 'them' in America. There's only us.
There is a huge body of business evidence now showing that energy savings give better service at lower cost with higher profit. We have to tear down barriers to successful markets and we have to create incentives to enter them.
Demand that your government pays more attention. It's immoral that people in Africa die like flies of diseases that no one dies of in the United States. And the more disease there is, the more political unrest there will be, leading to more Darfurs, which the U.S. will have to pay to fix.
I was not elected to produce a pile of vetoes.
There's an enormous number of managers who have retired on the job.
To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.
To maintain our entrepreneurial spirit, we have to create a culture in which everyone remembers that every order, big or small - and every interaction, every moment - will define what our company is today and what it will become tomorrow.
It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of activity or methods. It must always relate directly to how life is better for everyone. . . . The aim of the system must be clear to everyone in the system. The aim must include plans for the future. The aim is a value judgment.
Must! Is must a word to be addressed to princes? Little man, little man! Thy father, if he had been alive, durst not have used that word.
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