Leadership Quote by Charles Simmons

A politician warning that the inability to say "no" is not just unfortunate but morally corrosive is quietly incendiary. Simmons frames refusal as a civic muscle: fail to use it and you invite not only personal inconvenience but real harm. The line works because it treats passivity as participation. In politics, a weak "yes" can be a stronger endorsement than a debated one, and an unspoken "no" becomes permission for other people to spend your credibility, your budget, your time, your country.

"Prompt and decided" is the tell. He is not praising contrarianism or theatrical toughness; he is describing the practical tempo of power. Decisions get made at speed, often under pressure, with incomplete information and plenty of interested parties trying to turn hesitation into leverage. If you cannot refuse quickly, someone else will set the terms for you. The misfortune is being pushed around; the evil is the damage you do while being pushed around.

The subtext is also about character management. Politicians are trained to keep doors open, to speak in conditional verbs, to avoid alienating donors, colleagues, voters. Simmons is arguing that endless accommodation curdles into cowardice, then into complicity. A delayed "no" is how bad bills pass, wars drift forward, corruption metastasizes: not through villainy alone, but through people who want to be liked, or re-elected, or simply left alone.

It reads like a small piece of self-indictment turned into advice: power requires boundaries, and boundaries require the courage to disappoint.