Motivational Quotes

Leadership

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

Best Quotes about Leadership

Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.

Machiavelli, Niccolo

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

Allen, Norman

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

Bennis, Warren

Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.

Lombardi, Vince

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.

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

Packard, Vance

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

Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.

Syrus, Publilius

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

Saying, Zen

10.

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

Barker, Joel A.

11.

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.

12.

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

Ford, Henry

13.

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.

14.

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

Maurois, Andre

15.

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

16.

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

Bennis, Warren

17.

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.

18.

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

19.

Who has not served cannot command.

Florio, John

20.

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

21.

Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.

Bennis, Warren

22.

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

Melbourne, Lord

23.

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

Miller, Henry

24.

I don't think that a leader can control to any great extent his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.

Nixon, Richard M.

25.

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

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

26.

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

27.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

28.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

29.

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

Meir, Golda

30.

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

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.

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.

33.

The well being of the people is the supreme law.

34.

I learned that a great leader is a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don't want to do and like it.

Truman, Harry S

35.

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

Hennessy, Edward

36.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

37.

Education is the mother of leadership.

Willkie, Wendell L.

38.

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

39.

Some men must follow, and some command, though all are made of clay.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

40.

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

Naisbitt, John

41.

Perhaps in His wisdom the Almighty is trying to show us that a leader may chart the way, may point out the road to lasting peace, but that many leaders and many peoples must do the building.

Roosevelt, Eleanor

42.

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

43.

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

Iacocca, Lee

44.

Popularity is not leadership.

Marcinko, Richard

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

50.

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

Patton, George S.