Motivational Quotes

Leadership

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.

- Galbraith, John Kenneth

Best Quotes about Leadership

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

A leader has been defined as one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.

The world cannot be governed without juggling.

Selden, John

To be a leader, you have to make people want to follow you, and nobody wants to follow someone who doesn't know where he is going.

Namath, Joe

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

Rohn, Jim

Leadership is not magnetic personality--that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not making friends and influencing people --that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.

Drucker, Peter F.

I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion's roar.

Churchill, Winston

The highest of distinctions is service to others.

King George VI

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.

Rohn, Jim

10.

When a blind man bears the standard, pity those who follow.

Proverb, French

11.

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

Peter Drucker

12.

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

13.

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

Kissinger, Henry

14.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

15.

People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher --a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It's the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.

16.

The well being of the people is the supreme law.

17.

Every private in the French army carries a Field Marshall wand in his knapsack.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

18.

Outstanding leaders appeal to the hearts of their followers -- not their minds.

19.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worse when they despise him. But of a good leader who talks little when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: We did it ourselves.

Lao-Tzu

20.

That is no use at all. What I want is men who will support me when I am in the wrong.

Melbourne, Lord

21.

The first thing a great person does, is make us realize the insignificance of circumstance.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

22.

Ethics must begin at the top of an organization. It is a leadership issue and the chief executive must set the example.

Hennessy, Edward

23.

Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.

Syrus, Publilius

24.

A leader knows what's best to do; a manager knows merely how best to do it.

Adelman, Ken

25.

Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you're ready to play as tough as you're able to, you'd better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you're not giving it all you've got. Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved. It's being able to take it as well as dish it out. That's the only way you're going to get respect from the players.

Bird, Larry

26.

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

Schwarzkopf, Norman

27.

'Tis a dainty thing to command, though 'twere but a flock of sheep.

Cervantes, Miguel De

28.

The boss drives people; the leader coaches them. The boss depends on authority; the leader on good will. The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm. The boss says I; The leader says WE. The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown. The boss says, GO; the leader says lets, GO!

Selfridge, H. Gordon

29.

Do what is right, not what you think the high headquarters wants or what you think will make you look good.

Schwarzkopf, Norman

30.

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

Kissinger, Henry

31.

The wise man who is not heeded is counted a fool, and the fool who proclaims the general folly first and loudest passes for a prophet and F?hrer, and sometimes it is luckily the other way round as well, or else mankind would long since have perished of stupidity.

Jung, Carl

32.

It is the Vague and Elusive. Meet it and you will not see its head. Follow it and you will not see its back.

Lao-Tzu

33.

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

Parker, Dorothy

34.

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

Diderot, Denis

35.

The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, We did it ourselves.

Lao-Tzu

36.

The crowd gives the leader new strength.

Evenius

37.

Managers are people who do things right; leaders are people who do the right thing.

Bennis, Warren

38.

No one would have doubted his ability to reign had he never been emperor.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

39.

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

Maxwell, John C.

40.

Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average.

Rohn, Jim

41.

True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not the enrichment of the leaders.

Townsend, Robert

42.

Great leaders understand human behavior rather than the cybernetics of any function.

Schorr, James

43.

If you want to be comfortable -- take an easy job. If you aspire to leadership, take off your coat.

44.

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

45.

Leadership is the wise use of power. Power is the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it.

Bennis, Warren

46.

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

47.

Tell a person they are brave and you help them become so.

Carlyle, Thomas

48.

Leadership is a serving relationship that has the effect of facilitating human development.

Ward, Ted

49.

Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too.

Half, Robert

50.

Six traits of effective leaders: 1. Make others feel important 2. Promote a vision 3. Follow the golden rule 4. Admit mistakes 5. Criticize others only in private 6. Stay close to the action Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire.

Bovee, Christian Nevell