Top 63 Strategist Quotes & Sayings

A leader has to be one of two things: he either has to be a brilliant visionary himself, a truly creative strategist, in which case he can do what he likes and get away with it; or else he has to be a true empowerer who can bring out the best in others.

Trees die from the top”. No one should ever become a strategist unless he or she is willing to have his or her character serve as a model for subordinates

There's no more exciting moment for me as a brand strategist than a turnaround.

Someone who traffics in much more than what Jeff Sessions said back then will be with the president every day in the White House as his senior strategist.

During my time as a political strategist, one of the most vexing problems was figuring out why so many people vote against their perceived interests.

As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he's a great military man, I want you to know that.

Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.

I'm an excellent soldier and a good strategist. I love to fight.

A thorough understanding of game theory, should dim these greedy hopes. Knowledge of game theory does not make one a better card player, businessman or military strategist.

I am a local economic revitalization strategist. But I am also a TV/radio host, and a small business owner. I find ways to use money more efficiently to realize positive goals for everyone.

It is thus more potent, as well as more economical, to disarm the enemy than to attempt his destruction by hard fighting ... A strategist should think in terms of paralysing, not of killing.

The chief strategist of an organization has to be the leader - the CEO.

There are a lot of people being duped with misinformation, and they're all rejoicing over Donald Trump. And having a white nationalist be his chief strategist and have a racist be your attorney general, this is a really dangerous situation for our country.

The smart strategist allows strategy to be shaped by events. Good reactions can make great strategy. Strategy involves competition of goals, and the risk is the difference between those goals and the ability of the organization to achieve them. So part of the risk is created by the strategy.

I give Bill Gates an A for vision because, as a business person and a strategist, he's brilliant. His flaw is that his view is not informed by a humanistic or compassionate vision of how to make computers work for people.

The task of the strategist and leadership team is to reduce uncertainty in the areas that they can directly influence in order to pursue attractively difficult objectives.

D'you think he would have thought ahead like that?" said Henry. "Assuredly," said Will. "The man's a strategist." He tapped his temple. "Like me.

If you want to know how Hillary Clinton could try to distance herself from President Obama's much-criticized foreign policy, listen closely to the words of her former top strategist, Anne-Marie Slaughter.

In the media's eyes Bannon made Trump. Trump is too dumb to have made himself. Trump is too rough around the edges. Trump is not a deep enough thinker, and he's not nearly a brilliant strategist. Trump couldn't have gotten himself elected. That's what they all think. Bannon did that.

The strategist's method is very simply to challenge the prevailing assumptions with a single question: Why?

Once again, as a flawed evaluator of dictators and failed strategist who has permitted Russia back in as a major player in the Middle East, is Hillary Clinton guilty or not guilty?

There are three things you need to do as a CEO-founder. Think strategically, drive design, and drive technology. Some people who are really good at one can build a pretty foundational company. Most people who are very successful are good at two. But Jack is the only person in the Valley I've met who's all three. He's a first-rate strategist, a first-rate designer, and a first-rate technologist.

The real heart of strategy is the strategist.

I'm not a military strategist.

I am the worst strategist ever.

I was deputy assistant to the president. My job was strategist in the office of the chief strategist, Stephen Bannon. Somebody once described me as the president's national security utility infielder.

He is neither a strategist nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general. Other than that he's a great military man.

In seeking a lawyer, you are looking for an advocate, an expert advisor on the law and on your rights and responsibilities, a strategist, a negotiator, and a litigator.

The leader is the organization's top strategist... systematically envisioning the future and specifically mapping out how to get there.

For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one. Putin is a serious strategist – on the premises of Russian history. Understanding US values and psychology are not his strong suits. Nor has understanding Russian history and psychology been a strong point among US policymakers.’

Lee Atwater,[Ronald] Reagan's strategist, had no patience for CPAC, because he thought they were sort of wild and immature, basically.

I am not a politician or a military strategist. I am just a citizen voicing my opinions.

The worst enemy of the strategist is the clock. Time trouble... Reduces us all to pure reflex and reaction, tactical play. Emotion and instinct cloud our strategic vision when there is no time for proper evaluation.

People expect your behavior to conform to known patterns and conventions. Your task as a strategist is to upset their expectations.

I am the first to admit that I am not the greatest campaign strategist or political analyst.

I think choosing Steve Bannon as a chief strategist this is a stunning, historic decision for Donald Trump in a bad way. Stephen Bannon has said - and you`ve got to lay this out a little bit so people understand it - that he wanted Breitbart, the news service, the far-right news service, to be a platform for the alt-right.

The spirit of defeating a man is the same for ten million men. The strategist makes small things into big things, like building a great Buddha from a one foot model.

The difference between a reporter, a newspaper columnist, a paid speaker, a television personality, a radio talk show host, a blogger, a movie producer, a publicist, and a political strategist, is growing less - and not more - distinct.

President Nixon was a pragmatic strategist. He would engage, not contain, China, but he would also quietly set pieces into place for a fallback position should China not play according to the rules as a good global citizen.

Government tends to stifle innovation, and it abhors improvisation. Any good military strategist will tell you that a battle plan rarely survives past the first engagement. After that, you have to improvise to survive and to win.

He was not only the most brilliant strategist of all our generals, but he had a good political sense. A man of that quality was too difficult for Hitler to swallow for long. At conferences Manstein often differed from Hitler, in front of others, and would go so far as to declare that some of the ideas which Hitler put forward were nonsense.

Lou Holtz is a brilliant strategist, a first-class motivator, and an inspiring role model. Winning Every Day coaches you through the hard-won lessons of life that Coach Holtz has gleaned from a lifetime of learning. Using personal behind-the-scenes experiences he shows you how to break through obstacles, capitalize on fleeting opportunities, and achieve success. There is no better mentor than Lou Holtz.

The tactician must know what to do whenever something needs doing; the strategist must know what to do when nothing needs doing

I argue that once it became clear that the most important function of the CEO was to develop and enact the corporate strategy, that often had the effect of distancing him from people below him in the organization. It also encouraged the idea that if a CEO were a great strategist for a company in one industry, he would probably be a great strategist in another industry. And that usually hasn't proved to be the case.

Putin is not a strategist at all. He has brilliant tactics, but he is a very bad strategist overall. And I think he is acting very opportunistically there, just to play the cards with America. He was very proud of himself when he convinced us to give up on chemical weapons so that it could be played down and prevent an invasion, and that was very helpful for Obama because Obama saved his face and didn't order airstrikes at that very moment. Putin was extremely proud. That's the kind of thing Putin does.

In action be primitive; in foresight, a strategist.

I don't want to throw mud at anyone - I really admire Gandhi as a brilliant strategist - but Gandhi was pretty manipulative, you know.

Ho Chi Minh rarely wrote about Sun Tzu, but when he did mention the ancient Chinese military strategist, he was always laudatory, and he sometimes cited his ideas as a model for the Vietnamese revolutionary movement to follow.

I'm sick of the pussies on the right, if I can use that word, they're pathetic. The poll-tested, Republican strategist driven candidate whose job is to try and not get into a battle with the mainstream media and be liked by Katie Couric is a threat to America. It's a clear and present danger to a country that's in steep peril.

I'm a strategist, not a motivator. I'm obsessed with finding strategies that create real results in the shortest period of time.

General McChrystal had to go. Whatever his virtues as a strategist and commander, the 'Rolling Stone' interview fatally compromised his ability to represent the United States in dealing with allies and to act within the circle of people who must make decisions in Afghanistan.

The infallible criterion by which to distinguish the true from the would-be strategist is the degree of originality of his conceptions. It makes little difference whether this originality is carried to excess, as was the case with Steinitz and Nimzowitsch.

A strategist is one who helps people relax into their creative skills. People won't rally unless an idea is beautiful... Everyone is hanging on every word... Amazing.

If you want to be a good strategist, you can never just go off a principle you read in a book. You need to adapt what you do to the situation; no rule of thumb is true all the time.

Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist, appears to imagine an alliance between Trump, Le Pen, Geert Wilders and Nigel Farage. Call it the populist international, a fraternal association of the nationalist right, binding people who want borders, across borders.

Most importantly: Don't adjust your results to build up the ego of the chief strategist. Especially if the strategist is you.

A designer is an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist.

I think being able to be malleable is a great weapon and I'm a very, very good strategist. I create the most amazing strategies in my head and I have created the most extraordinary strategies in my head for my career.

I think a leader has many roles to play. So, you know, one role is that of incubating talent; the other is that of being a strategist. It's a very interesting job I've got.

One of the reasons a strategist never sits in a stadium and gets caught up in the crowds - and never sits watching a debate in person - is because the vast majority of American voters watch these political events on television.