“Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”

— Karl Popper

Colin Powell in My American Journey (1995)
Misattributed

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Karl Popper 82

Austrian-British philosopher of science 1902–1994

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“The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

“There’s always another problem behind the one you just solved. Does that mean that you should stop solving problems?”

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“If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want to do what's right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it, you can use it to frighten people. Or you can show leadership and solve this problem once and for all, so the people who wear the uniform in this crowd can do the job we expect them to do.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

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2000s, 2007

“The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to. … No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

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also quoted by Freeman Dyson in "Wise Man" http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18350, The New York Review of Books (20 October 2005)
Context: The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to. … No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it. You say you are a nameless man. You are not to your wife and to your child. You will not long remain so to your immediate colleagues if you can answer their simple questions when they come into your office. You are not nameless to me. Do not remain nameless to yourself — it is too sad a way to be. Know your place in the world and evaluate yourself fairly, not in terms of the naïve ideals of your own youth, nor in terms of what you erroneously imagine your teacher's ideals are.

“Coaching teaches me a lot; mentally, it’s helping, but skill-wise, no. The juniors have the same problems every day, you have to remind them all the time. Adult players know their problems, so you don’t need to remind them every day, every single shot.”

Beiwen Zhang (1990) badminton player

"Beiwen Zhang – Adapting To Every Challenge" in Badminton Pan America http://www.badmintonpanam.org/beiwen-zhang-adapting-to-every-challenge/ (15 December 2020)

“Whenever you work on something and try to solve one problem, and you end up helping or solving many other problems, it is a sign that what you are doing is good.”

Nathan Seiberg (1956) American physicist

as quoted by Sandhya Ramesh in: [Interview: 'There's No Conflict Between Lack of Evidence of String Theory and Work Being Done on It', The Wire, Bengaluru, 7 January 2018, https://thewire.in/science/theres-no-conflict-lack-evidence-string-theory-work-done]

“All of us have been in situations where we've lost our confidence, even the greatest leaders in the world. We are at the end of the day human — I have no problem telling you, yeah [I have days when] I think, you know, What am I doing? Remember why you're doing what you're doing; talk yourself off the ledge. You know you have to become your own best counselor because really no one is going to take the time and the energy to understand your problems quite like you can.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

Interview to Cosmopolitan (2016)

“Leadership tip: Sound confident even when you have no idea. Just do not make a habit of it. They will find you out.”

Glen Cook book Water Sleeps

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 87 (p. 313)

“They will return, these Gods you have never stopped longing for. Time will bring back the order of ancient days.”

Gérard de Nerval (1808–1855) French Romantic poet

Quoted from Hinduism Today : Pagan Power in Modern Europe https://web.archive.org/web/20080407092807/https://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1999/7/1999-7-07.shtml By Hughes Henry, Belgium, July 1999

“Believe that problems do have answers. Believe that they can be overcome. Believe that they can be handled. And finally, believe that you can solve them.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

‪You Can If You Think You Can‬ (1987), p. 36

“Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”

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Karl Popper 82

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