Motivational Quotes

Leadership

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

Best Quotes about Leadership

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

Self-regulation will always be a challenge, but if somebody's going to be in charge, it might as well be me.

Daniel Akst

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

Impatience is the cause of most of our irregularities and extravagances Command by obeying.

Motto

No man has ever risen to the real stature of spiritual manhood until he has found that it is finer to serve somebody else than it is to serve himself.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

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

Proverb, French

A boss creates fear, a leader confidence. A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions. A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting. A boss is interested in himself or herself, a leader is interested in the group.

Ewing, Russell H.

The leader seeks to communicate his vision to his followers. He captures their attention with his optimistic intuition of possible solutions to their needs. He influences them by the dynamism of his faith. He demonstrates confidence that the challenge can be met, the need resolved, the crisis overcome.

Haggai, John

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

Hesburgh, Theodore M.

10.

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

11.

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

Tutu, Bishop Desmond

12.

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.

13.

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

14.

It is time for a new generation of leadership, to cope with new problems and new opportunities. For there is a new world to be won.

Kennedy, John F.

15.

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

16.

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

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

19.

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.

20.

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

21.

If you have fear of those that command you, spare those that obey you.

Azai, Rabbi Ben

22.

A prince should be slow to punish, and quick to reward.

Ovid

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.

I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.

Lao-Tzu

25.

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

26.

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

Packard, Vance

27.

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

Hennessy, Edward

28.

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

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.

Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.

Naisbitt, John

31.

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

Schwarzkopf, Norman

32.

The person who has no enemies has no followers.

Piatt, Don

33.

A good leader needs to have a compass in his head and a bar of steel in his heart.

Townsend, Robert

34.

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

Batten, Joe

35.

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

Bennis, Warren

36.

He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.

Seneca

37.

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

38.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

39.

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

40.

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

Ervin, Sam

41.

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

42.

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

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

43.

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

Maurois, Andre

44.

The world cannot be governed without juggling.

Selden, John

45.

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.

46.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

47.

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

48.

We are reformers in the spring and summer, but in autumn we stand by the old. Reformers in the morning, and conservers at night.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

49.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

50.

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