Conversations with Major Dick Winters Quotes

“Leadership’s defining quality is honesty. To honesty, add fairness and consistency.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“As a leader, you obtain a sense of the better soldiers during training. They have a quiet confidence about them and a swagger that sets them apart.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“Contentment and satisfaction in your life are the result of knowing that you have been honest, done your best, and treated those who are a part of your life with kindness.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed; and I earnestly pray that a Merciful God will extend to you His blessing and protection. —ROBERT E. LEE IN HIS FAREWELL ADDRESS TO THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“Because Chamberlain, Moore, and Winters were leaders of character first, competence second, and courage third.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“If you are a leader, you lead the way, not just in the easy ones, but on the tough ones, too. The key to being a successful combat leader is to earn respect, not because of rank, but because you are a man.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“Self-discipline keeps you doing your job. Without it, you lose your pride and you forget the importance of self-respect in the eyes of your fellow men. Pride keeps you going on. This is what I feared I would lose—the loss of the will to measure up to my men.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“But with Taylor in command, he told you what you needed to do here—he had to run everything. You can’t do a good job if you do not have a chance to use your imagination or your creativity.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“Dick addressed the pressure he was under to ensure his men remained safe. “Since I am in the army, I daydream of fights, fighting Jerries, outmaneuvering, outthinking, outshooting, and outfighting them,” he wrote. “But they’re tense, cruel, hard, and bitter. They consist of about 80 percent of my dreams, but they pay off. You’d be surprised. Sometimes when you dream about a problem over and over, you get the solution, and by gosh, crazy as it may seem in the cold morning light, it usually works. In fact, to date, they’ve always worked.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“Colonel Robert Sink, commanding officer of the 506th PIR, ordered me to prepare a written summary of the battle since no senior officer witnessed the engagement. I purposely avoided the use of the first personal pronoun ‘I’ because I wanted each soldier to receive credit for what he had done. Later Sink issued a citation to the 1st Platoon that shouldered the principal burden of the fight.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“Once you perform once, twice, or even three times, soldiers develop confidence in your leadership. You can only hope that this confidence will be passed to other leaders within the company.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“With soldiers, a leader develops a sense about which soldiers you can trust. You look for the soldiers who perform consistently. That is generally no more than fifteen percent of an organization. Solid leadership and association with your top performers can influence another seventy percent of your unit.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“When confronted with unexpected and ambiguous circumstances, you can either see opportunity or obstacles. I believe that opportunity is present even in chaotic situations.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“D-Day was my first time in combat. I was mentally prepared and felt that I had done everything necessary to prepare myself for this precise moment. And yet you never know if you will measure up as a leader until the minute arrives when you face the enemy for the first time. Baptism by fire is a soldier’s sacrament. There is always doubt. Hopefully, in combat, you perform as you train.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“The name Currahee itself derives from a Cherokee word that means ‘We stand alone, together.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

“Ninety percent of morale is pride in your outfit and confidence in your leaders and fellow fighters.”
― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

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― Cole C. Kingseed, Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers