Motivational Quotes

Leadership

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

Best Quotes about Leadership

You cannot antagonize and influence at the same time.

Knox, John

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.

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.

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

Stendhal, Henri B.

We will make them think it's their idea. That's how all great leaders fool people.

Laura Preble

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

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

Skill in the art of communication is crucial to a leader's success. He can accomplish nothing unless he can communicate effectively.

Allen, Norman

The minute a person whose word means a great deal to others dare to take the open-hearted and courageous way, many others follow.

Anderson, Marian

10.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

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.

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

13.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

14.

Every ruler is harsh whose laws are new.

Aeschylus

15.

Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average.

Rohn, Jim

16.

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

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

17.

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

Patton, George S.

18.

To lead people walk behind them.

Lao-Tzu

19.

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

20.

He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.

Seneca

21.

The first duty of a leader is to make himself be loved without courting love. To be loved without'playing up'to anyone - even to himself.

Andre Malraux

22.

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.

Hesburgh, Theodore M.

23.

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

Miller, Henry

24.

The highest of distinctions is service to others.

King George VI

25.

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

Diderot, Denis

26.

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

27.

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

Peter Drucker

28.

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

Churchill, Winston

29.

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

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

30.

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

31.

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

32.

A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.

Lauren, Ralph

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.

Management is nothing more than motivating other people.

Lee Iacocca

35.

Every leader needs to look back once in a while to make sure he has followers. Source Unknown Effective leaders are known by the questions they ask rather than the statements they make.

36.

No affection and a great brain, these are the people to command the world.

Disraeli, Benjamin

37.

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.

38.

Each person must decide for himself what he wants each day. As a leader, I will expose you to the options and the likely consequences of those options. I'll even share my opinion if asked, but I'll never confuse it with the opinion, which simply doesn't exist.

Dyer, Wayne

39.

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

Ford, Henry

40.

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

Meir, Golda

41.

Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.

Syrus, Publilius

42.

There are many elements to a campaign. Leadership is number one. Everything else is number two.

Brecht, Bertolt

43.

The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert.

Lombardi, Vince

44.

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

Gandhi, Mahatma

45.

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

46.

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

47.

The first task of a leader is to keep hope alive.

Batten, Joe

48.

All business success rests on something labeled a sale, which at least momentarily weds company and customer.

Peters, Thomas J.

49.

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

Packard, Vance

50.

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