When things go badly, it is your fault, not theirs. You are responsible. Analyze how it happened, make the necessary fixes, and move on. No mass puni… - Colin Powell

When things go badly, it is your fault, not theirs. You are responsible. Analyze how it happened, make the necessary fixes, and move on. No mass punishment or floggings. Fire people if you need to, train harder, insist on a higher level of performance, give halftime rants if that shakes a group up. But never forget that failure is your responsibility.

Whenever you place the cause of one of your actions outside yourself, it’s an excuse and not a reason.

Share the credit, take the blame, and quietly find out and fix things that went wrong. A psychotherapist who owned a school for severely troubled kids had a rule: “Whenever you place the cause of one of your actions outside yourself, it’s an excuse and not a reason.” This rule works for everybody, but it works especially for leaders.

Always do your very best. Even when no one else is looking, you always are. Don't disappoint yourself.

To achieve his purpose, a successful leader must set demanding standards and make sure they are met. Followers want to be “in a good outfit,” as we say in the Army. I never saw a good unit that wasn’t always stretching to meet a higher standard. The stretching was often accompanied by complaints about the effort required. But when the new standard was met, the followers celebrated with high-fives, pride, and playful gloating.

People seem to be awfully gullible. They'll believe anything. ~in The NPR Interviews, 1996, edited by Robert Siegel