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

A crown, golden in show is but a wreath of thorns.

Milton, John

A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.

Glasgow, Arnold H.

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

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

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

Melbourne, Lord

The best leaders... almost without exception and at every level, are master users of stories and symbols.

Peters, Thomas J.

Who has not served cannot command.

Florio, John

Leadership is the activity of influencing people to cooperate towards some goal which they come to find desirable and which motivates them over the long haul.

Tead, Orway

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.

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

Maxwell, John C.

10.

Popularity is not leadership.

Marcinko, Richard

11.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

12.

Outstanding leaders go out of the way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.

Walton, Sam

13.

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

14.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

Machiavelli, Niccolo

15.

Leadership is the other side of the coin of loneliness, and he who is a leader must always act alone. And acting alone, accept everything alone.

Marcos, Ferdinand E.

16.

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

17.

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

Roosevelt, Theodore

18.

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

19.

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

Hennessy, Edward

20.

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

21.

The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such.

Maurois, Andre

22.

Morale is faith in the man at the top.

Johnston, Albert Sidney

23.

There is no necessary connection between the desire to lead and the ability to lead, and even less the ability to lead somewhere that will be to the advantage of the led

Evans, Bergen

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.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

26.

I've always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team.

Iacocca, Lee

27.

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.

28.

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.

29.

Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you're in control, they're in control.

Landry, Tom

30.

Blessed is he who has learned to admire but not envy, to follow but not imitate, to praise but not flatter, and to lead but not manipulate.

Ward, William A.

31.

He is the richest man who enriches his country most; in whom the people feel richest and proudest; who gives himself with his money; who opens the doors of opportunity widest to those about him; who is ears to the deaf; eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. Such a man makes every acre of land in his community worth more, and makes richer every man who lives near him.

Marden, Orison Swett

32.

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

Diderot, Denis

33.

The manager administers; the leader innovates. The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective. The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why. The manager has his eye on the bottom line; the leader has his eye on the horizon. The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.

Bennis, Warren

34.

Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average.

Rohn, Jim

35.

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

36.

Leaders don't inflict pain -- they share pain.

Depree, Max

37.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

38.

Efficiency tends to deal with Things. Effectiveness tends to deal with People. We manage things, we lead people

39.

Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

Patton, George S.

40.

The best leaders of all, the people know not they exist. They turn to each other and say We did it ourselves.

Saying, Zen

41.

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

Stendhal, Henri B.

42.

I'm their leader, I've got to follow them.

Ledru-Rollin, Alexandre

43.

Management is nothing more than motivating other people.

Lee Iacocca

44.

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

Bennis, Warren

45.

A leader is someone who helps improve the lives of other people or improve the system they live under.

Ervin, Sam

46.

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

Schwarzkopf, Norman

47.

Leaders create an environment which everyone has the opportunity to do work which matches his potential capability and for which an equitable differential reward is provided.

Jaques, Elliott

48.

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

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

49.

Leadership must be established from the top down.

Nunn, Sam

50.

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.