Leadership Quotes

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
John Quincy Adams

He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.
Aristotle

A leader is someone you would follow to a pace you would not go to by yourself.
Joel Barker

I am reminded how hollow the label of leadership sometimes is and how heroic followership can be.
Warren Bennis

Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.
Warren Bennis

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is genetic factor to leadership. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.
Warren Bennis

Where there is no vision, the people perish.
Proverbs 29:18

The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.
Tony Blair

The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing people around a shared vision.
Ken Blanchard

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.
Ken Blanchard

A leader is a dealer in hope.
Napoleon Bonaparte

Leadership is the key to 99 percent of all successful efforts.
Erskine Bowles

Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.
Bill Bradley

Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave.
Constantin Brancusi

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.
Andrew Carnegie

A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they didn't necessarily want to go but ought to be.
Rosalynn Carter

The nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are keeping their ears to the ground.
Winston Churchill

Good is the enemy of great.
Jim Collins

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.
James Cook

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.
Stephen R. Covey

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
Stephen R. Covey

What you do has far greater impact than what you say.
Stephen R. Covey

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.
Max DePree

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?
Benjamin Disraeli

Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked leadership is defined by results not attributes.
Peter F. Drucker

Leadership is defined by results not attributes.
Peter F. Drucker

Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.
Peter F. Drucker

So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
Peter F. Drucker

The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers.
Peter F. Drucker

Leadership is much more an art, a belief, a condition of the heart, than a set of things to do. The visible signs of artful leadership are expressed, ultimately, in its practice.
Max Dupree

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

The supreme quality of leadership is integrity.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

You don’t lead by hitting people over the head—that’s assault, not leadership.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.
Harvey Firestone

If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.
Benjamin Franklin

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.
John Kenneth Galbraith

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
Bill Gates

Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.
Harold S. Geneen

One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.
Arnold H. Glasgow

A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.
Eric Hoffer

You manage things; you lead people.
Grace Hopper

It's not the position that makes the leader; it's the leader that makes the position.
Stanley Huffty

A person, who no matter how desperate the situation, gives others hope, is a true leader.
Daisaku Ikeda

Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.
Jesse Jackson

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Thomas Jefferson

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
Steve Jobs

Earn your leadership every day.
Michael Jordan

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy

You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.
Ken Kesey

A cowardly leader is the most dangerous of men.
Stephen King

The more you are willing to accept responsibility for your actions, the more credibility you will have.
Brian Koslow

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.
Lao Tzu

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.
Abraham Lincoln

Whatever you are, be a good one.
Abraham Lincoln

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men, the conviction and the will to carry on.
Walter Lippman

Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.
Vince Lombardi

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.
Max Lucado

A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and
Douglas MacArthur

Never give an order that can’t be obeyed.
Douglas MacArthur

To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less.
Andre Malraux

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.
Nelson Mandela

A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.
John C. Maxwell

A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.
John C. Maxwell

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.
John C. Maxwell

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.
John C. Maxwell

Leadership ability determines a person's level of effectiveness.
John C. Maxwell

Leadership is influence.
John C. Maxwell

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.
John C. Maxwell

The true measure of leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less.
John C. Maxwell

To be a leader you must be able to create positive change.
John C. Maxwell

The world leaders in innovation and creativity will also be world leaders in everything else.
Harold R. McAlindon

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way.
Henry Miller

My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence
General Bernard Montgomery

I am endlessly fascinated that playing football is considered a training ground for leadership, but raising children isn’t.
Dee Dee Myers

I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
Ralph Nader

To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult.
Friedrich Nietzsche

A ruler should be slow to punish and swift to reward.
Ovid

True leadership lies in guiding others to success. In ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well.
Bill Owens

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.
George S. Patton

Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.
George S. Patton

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
George S. Patton

A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops.
John J. Pershing

Leadership is about tapping the wellsprings of human motivation - and about fundamental relations with one's fellows.
Tom Peters

Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.
Tom Peters

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.
Colin Powell

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.
Colin Powell

He who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk.
Proverb

Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.
Chinese Proverb

It is absurd that a man should rule others, who cannot rule himself.
Latin Proverb

To have long term success as a coach or in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way.
Pat Riley

The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.
Jim Rohn

The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.
Jim Rohn

Do what you feel in your heart to be right–for you’ll be criticized anyway.
Eleanor Roosevelt

We live in a society obsessed with public opinion. But leadership has never been about popularity.
Marco Rubio

Don’t necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.
Donald Rumsfeld

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.
Norman Schwarzkopf

He who has great power should use it lightly.
Seneca

The individual leads in order that those who are led can develop their potential as human beings and thereby prosper.
Socrates

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula or failure, which is: Try to please everybody.
Herbert Swope

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
Publilius Syrus

Being in power is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
Margaret Thacher

Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position.
Brian Tracy

Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.
Brian Tracy

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.
Harry S. Truman

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.
Jack Welch

Education is the mother of leadership.
Wendell Willkie

Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise.
Woodrow Wilson

Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.
Oprah Winfrey

There are three essentials to leadership: humility, clarity and courage.
Fuchan Yuan

Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths.
John Zenger