Motivational Quotes

Leadership

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

Best Quotes about Leadership

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

Meir, Golda

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

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

Patton, George S.

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.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you.

Thatcher, Margaret

The speed of the leader determines the rate of the pack.

Lukas, Wayne

The secret of a leader lies in the tests he has faced over the whole course of his life and the habit of action he develops in meeting those tests.

Sheehy, Gail

10.

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

11.

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

Johnson, Lyndon B.

12.

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

Townsend, Robert

13.

Every ruler is harsh whose laws are new.

Aeschylus

14.

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.

15.

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

Newcomb, Arthur W.

16.

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

Lindner, Robert

17.

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

18.

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.

19.

A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.

Glasgow, Arnold H.

20.

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.

21.

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

Iacocca, Lee

22.

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

Hennessy, Edward

23.

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

Diderot, Denis

24.

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

Barker, Joel A.

25.

Leadership must be established from the top down.

Nunn, Sam

26.

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

27.

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.

28.

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

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

29.

When we think we lead we are most led.

Byron, Lord

30.

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

Batten, Joe

31.

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.

Gandhi, Mahatma

32.

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.

33.

The minute a person whose word means a great deal to others dare to take the open-hearted and courageous way, many others follow.

Anderson, Marian

34.

The lead dog gets the best view. The rest of the dogs view is butt ugly. Of course, the lead dog is also the first to fall into the ravine.

Saunders, Richard

35.

Who has not served cannot command.

Florio, John

36.

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

Marx, Groucho

37.

To be a leader, you have to make people want to follow you, and nobody wants to follow someone who doesn't know where he is going.

Namath, Joe

38.

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

Ward, Ted

39.

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

Proverb, French

40.

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

Hesburgh, Theodore M.

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

44.

Those who can command themselves command others.

Hazlitt, William

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.

An order that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

47.

Eagles don't flock, you have to find them one at a time.

Perot, H. Ross

48.

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

Stendhal, Henri B.

49.

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

50.

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

Bennis, Warren