Somehow, things just didn’t work out the way the books on administration and on leadership said they should, and I early became aware that I could never qualify as a leader, if it were really necessary that I possess the twenty or so qualities most books or articles on leadership claimed to be necessary. So far, I have found no one in the Navy or in industry who possesses more than a few of these qualities, and so I have regretfully come to the conclusion that the only person who ever possessed all of them died some 1900 years ago.

Hyman Rickover (1900-1986) Polish-American naval engineer, admiral [b. Chaim Gdala Rykower]

Speech (1954-03-16), “Administering a Large Military Development Project,” US Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California
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