Motivational Quotes

Leadership

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.

- Rockefeller, John D.

Best Quotes about Leadership

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

The person who renders loyal service in a humble capacity will be chosen for higher responsibilities, just as the biblical servant who multiplied the one pound given him by his master was made ruler over ten cities...

Forbes, B. C.

If I advance, follow me! If I retreat, kill me! If I die, avenge me!

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

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

Hesburgh, Theodore M.

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

Packard, Vance

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

Diderot, Denis

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

Miller, Henry

The world cannot be governed without juggling.

Selden, John

Tell a person they are brave and you help them become so.

Carlyle, Thomas

10.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

11.

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

Maxwell, John C.

12.

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

Churchill, Winston

13.

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

14.

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

Churchill, Winston

15.

The well being of the people is the supreme law.

16.

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

17.

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.

18.

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

19.

Who has not served cannot command.

Florio, John

20.

Leadership is the other side of the coin of loneliness, and he who is a leader must always act alone. And acting alone, accept everything alone.

Marcos, Ferdinand E.

21.

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

Newcomb, Arthur W.

22.

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

Lindner, Robert

23.

An order that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

24.

Those who can command themselves command others.

Hazlitt, William

25.

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.

26.

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

27.

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.

Kissinger, Henry

28.

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.

29.

An army of deer would be more formidable commanded by a lion, than an army of lions commanded by a stag.

Proverb

30.

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

Ervin, Sam

31.

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

Stendhal, Henri B.

32.

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

Lao-Tzu

33.

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

Confucius

34.

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

Meir, Golda

35.

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

36.

To lead people walk behind them.

Lao-Tzu

37.

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

38.

A crown, golden in show is but a wreath of thorns.

Milton, John

39.

Leadership is not a position. You are not a leader because you have the title of manager. Leadership is something that we earn from followers on a day to day basis.

The EMS Manager Newsletter

40.

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

41.

Do your best to be the lead dog otherwise the view never changes.

42.

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

43.

Great leaders understand human behavior rather than the cybernetics of any function.

Schorr, James

44.

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

Hennessy, Edward

45.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

46.

Ronald Reagan has held the two most demeaning jobs in the country; President of the United States and radio broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs.

Will, George F.

47.

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

Townsend, Robert

48.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

49.

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!

50.

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

Iacocca, Lee