Motivational Quotes

Leadership

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

- Miller, Henry

Best Quotes about Leadership

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.

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

Iacocca, Lee

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

Maxwell, John C.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

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.

Public sentiment is everything, with it nothing can fail, without it nothing can succeed.

Lincoln, Abraham

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

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

Bennis, Warren

10.

The person who has no enemies has no followers.

Piatt, Don

11.

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

Lindner, Robert

12.

The penalty of leadership is loneliness.

Robinson, H. Wheeler

13.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

14.

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

Schwarzkopf, Norman

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

Ward, Ted

18.

A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.

Updike, John

19.

Leadership is action, not position.

Mcgannon, Donald H.

20.

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

21.

Men are lead by trifles.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

22.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

23.

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

Marx, Groucho

24.

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

Batten, Joe

25.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

26.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

27.

Morale is faith in the man at the top.

Johnston, Albert Sidney

28.

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

29.

When the best leader's work is done the people say, We did it ourselves.

Lao-Tzu

30.

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

Ervin, Sam

31.

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

Kissinger, Henry

32.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

33.

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

34.

Leadership has to do with direction. Management has to do with the speed, coordination and logistics in going in that direction. The WORKERS are chopping their way through the jungle. The MANAGERS are coordinating, making sure the tools are sharp, etc. The LEADERS climb a tree and shout Wrong jungle!! The MANAGERS shout back Be quiet! We're making progress!

35.

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

36.

In the great mass of our people there are plenty individuals of intelligence from among whom leadership can be recruited.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

37.

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

38.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

39.

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

Proverb, French

40.

Right or wrong, the customer is always right.

Field, Marshall

41.

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

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

42.

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

43.

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

44.

A leader knows what's best to do; a manager knows merely how best to do it.

Adelman, Ken

45.

Who has not served cannot command.

Florio, John

46.

The world cannot be governed without juggling.

Selden, John

47.

The right man comes at the right time.

Proverb, Italian

48.

Those who can command themselves command others.

Hazlitt, William

49.

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.

50.

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.