A President's hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the difficulty leaders face in determining the right course of action rather than simply executing it.
Lyndon B. Johnson's quote highlights the complex nature of leadership, where making the right decision may be more challenging than taking action. It suggests that ethical clarity and moral judgment are crucial for leaders, and the ability to discern the right path is a significant burden they carry. This underscores the importance of wisdom and insight in leadership roles.
In practice
During a keynote speech on leadership at a conference.
You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.
Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time.
We do this in order to slow down aggression. We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of South Vietnam who have bravely born this brutal battle for so many years with so many casualties. And we do this to convince the leaders of North Vietnam-and all who seek to share their conquest-of a simple fact: We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired. We will not withdraw either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement.
So far are we generally from thinking what we often say of the shortness of life, that at the time when it is necessarily shortest we form projects which we delay to execute, indulge such expectations as nothing but along train of events can gratify, and suffer those passions to gain upon us which are only excusable in the prime of life.
You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.
If government is to serve any purpose it is to do for others what they are unable to do for themselves.
For the employee, the goal is to have full access to necessary information and as much independent decision-making ability as possible. For the entrepreneur, the goal is to grant as much information and independent decision-making ability to employees or contractors as possible.
Leadership is providing inspiration and vision, then developing and empowering others to achieve this vision.
If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway.
Leaders don't make excuses. They create results
Show me a poorly uniformed troop and I'll show you a poorly uniformed leader.
The greatest impact you can have on people is never what you say but how you live... You set the standard with your actions. The words can come after.
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