Motivational Quotes

Leadership

Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men -- the other 999 follow women.

- Marx, Groucho

Best Quotes about Leadership

I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

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

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

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

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

Maurois, Andre

To lead people walk behind them.

Lao-Tzu

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

The penalty of leadership is loneliness.

Robinson, H. Wheeler

10.

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

11.

The high sentiments always win in the end, the leaders who offer blood, toil, tears, and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

Orwell, George

12.

Leadership is like the old galley ships. 100s are rowing, but only one (the captain) knows where they are going

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

16.

Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

17.

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

18.

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

Hesburgh, Theodore M.

19.

If you lead the people with correctness, who will dare not be correct?

Confucius

20.

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

Barker, Joel A.

21.

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

Proverb, French

22.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

23.

Most of the ladies and gentlemen who mourn the passing of the nation's leaders wouldn't know a leader if they saw one. If they had the bad luck to come across a leader, they would find out that he might demand something from them, and this impertinence would put an abrupt and indignant end to their wish for his return.

Lapham, Lewis H.

24.

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

Churchill, Winston

25.

Doing what's right isn't the problem. It is knowing what's right.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

26.

There is no such thing as a perfect leader either in the past or present, in China or elsewhere. If there is one, he is only pretending, like a pig inserting scallions into its nose in an effort to look like an elephant.

Liu Shao-Ch'I

27.

It is a characteristic of all movements and crusades that the psychopathic element rises to the top.

Lindner, Robert

28.

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

Maxwell, John C.

29.

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

Laura Preble

30.

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

31.

When we think we lead we are most led.

Byron, Lord

32.

Certainly a leader needs a clear vision of the organization and where it is going, but a vision is of little value unless it is shared in a way so as to generate enthusiasm and commitment. Leadership and communication are inseparable.

Taylor, Claude

33.

When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

34.

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

Ward, Ted

35.

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

36.

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

37.

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

Churchill, Winston

38.

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

Daniel Akst

39.

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

Meir, Golda

40.

Show me the leader and I will know his men. Show me the men and I will know their leader.

Newcomb, Arthur W.

41.

Management is nothing more than motivating other people.

Lee Iacocca

42.

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

Ovid

43.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

44.

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

45.

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.

Augustine, St.

46.

Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.

Syrus, Publilius

47.

When the leadership is right and the time is right, the people can always be counted upon to follow -- to the end at all costs.

Seymour, Harold J.

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 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

50.

Leadership must be established from the top down.

Nunn, Sam