Motivational Quotes

Leadership

Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.

- Diogenes of Sinope

Best Quotes about Leadership

The high sentiments always win in the end, the leaders who offer blood, toil, tears, and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

Orwell, George

A leader who doesn't hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.

Meir, Golda

Leadership is like the old galley ships. 100s are rowing, but only one (the captain) knows where they are going

The secret of a leader lies in the tests he has faced over the whole course of his life and the habit of action he develops in meeting those tests.

Sheehy, Gail

We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.

Patton, George S.

The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.

Stendhal, Henri B.

The person who renders loyal service in a humble capacity will be chosen for higher responsibilities, just as the biblical servant who multiplied the one pound given him by his master was made ruler over ten cities...

Forbes, B. C.

You do not lead by hitting people over the head -- that's assault, not leadership.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope.

Pope John XXIII

10.

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.

Kissinger, Henry

11.

In the great mass of our people there are plenty individuals of intelligence from among whom leadership can be recruited.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

12.

Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

13.

Popularity is not leadership.

Marcinko, Richard

14.

Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one's self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

15.

Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.

Diderot, Denis

16.

One secret of leadership is that the mind of a leader never turns off. Leaders even when they are sightseers or spectators, are active; not passive observers.

Humes, James

17.

Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

18.

You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think.

Parker, Dorothy

19.

Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men -- the other 999 follow women.

Marx, Groucho

20.

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

Schwarzkopf, Norman

21.

The measure of a great leader, is their success in bringing everyone around to their opinion twenty years later.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

22.

The world of the 90s and beyond will belong to managers or those who make the numbers dance, as we used to say, or those who are conversant with all the business jargon we used to sound smart. The world will belong to passionate, driven leaders -- people who not only have an enormous amount of energy but who can energize those whom they lead.

Welch, John

23.

The best leaders are those most interested in surrounding themselves with assistants and associates smarter than they are. They are frank in admitting this and are willing to pay for such talents.

Parrish, Amos

24.

The chief executive who knows his strengths and weaknesses as a leader is likely to be far more effective than the one who remains blind to them. He also is on the road to humility -- that priceless attitude of openness to life that can help a manager absorb mistakes, failures, or personal shortcomings.

Adair, John

25.

I don't believe in just ordering people to do things. You have to sort of grab an oar and row with them.

Geneen, Harold S.

26.

Leadership appears to be the art of getting others to want to do something you are convinced should be done.

Packard, Vance

27.

Every ruler is harsh whose laws are new.

Aeschylus

28.

Right or wrong, the customer is always right.

Field, Marshall

29.

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

Roosevelt, Theodore

30.

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.

Gandhi, Mahatma

31.

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on. The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.

Lippmann, Walter

32.

Do your best to be the lead dog otherwise the view never changes.

33.

Leadership is not a position. You are not a leader because you have the title of manager. Leadership is something that we earn from followers on a day to day basis.

The EMS Manager Newsletter

34.

The successful man doesn't use others, other people use the successful man, for above all the success is of service.

Caine, Mark

35.

Morale is faith in the man at the top.

Johnston, Albert Sidney

36.

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

Kissinger, Henry

37.

Faith in the ability of a leader is of slight service unless it be united with faith in his justice.

George Goethals

38.

In really good companies, you have to lead. You have to come up with big ideas and express them forcefully. I have always been encouraged -- or sometimes forced -- to confront the very natural fear of being wrong. I was constantly pushed to find out what I really thought and then to speak up. Over time, I came to see that waiting to discover which way the wind was blowing is an excellent way to learn how to be a follower.

Enrico, Roger

39.

Most of the ladies and gentlemen who mourn the passing of the nation's leaders wouldn't know a leader if they saw one. If they had the bad luck to come across a leader, they would find out that he might demand something from them, and this impertinence would put an abrupt and indignant end to their wish for his return.

Lapham, Lewis H.

40.

Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.

Ford, Henry

41.

A leader is a person you will follow to a place you wouldn't go by yourself.

Barker, Joel A.

42.

Leadership in today's world requires far more than a large stock of gunboats and a hard fist at the conference table.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

43.

It is a great pity when the one who should be the head figure is a mere figure head.

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

44.

The golden rule for every business man is this: Put yourself in your customer's place.

Marden, Orison Swett

45.

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.

Lombardi, Vince

46.

Education is the mother of leadership.

Willkie, Wendell L.

47.

Leadership is action, not position.

Mcgannon, Donald H.

48.

The well being of the people is the supreme law.

49.

It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead -- and find no one there.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

50.

A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.

Updike, John