Motivational Quotes

Leadership

The boss drives people; the leader coaches them. The boss depends on authority; the leader on good will. The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm. The boss says I; The leader says WE. The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown. The boss says, GO; the leader says lets, GO!

- Selfridge, H. Gordon

Best Quotes about Leadership

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

Daniel Akst

The person who has no enemies has no followers.

Piatt, Don

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

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

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

Milton, John

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

If you want to be comfortable -- take an easy job. If you aspire to leadership, take off your coat.

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

Perot, H. Ross

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.

10.

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

Schorr, James

11.

Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average.

Rohn, Jim

12.

An order that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

13.

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

Johnson, Lyndon B.

14.

Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.

Syrus, Publilius

15.

Morale is faith in the man at the top.

Johnston, Albert Sidney

16.

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

17.

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

Marx, Groucho

18.

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

19.

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

Miller, Henry

20.

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

21.

The measure of a great leader, is their success in bringing everyone around to their opinion twenty years later.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

22.

It is the Vague and Elusive. Meet it and you will not see its head. Follow it and you will not see its back.

Lao-Tzu

23.

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.

24.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

25.

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

26.

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

Lao-Tzu

27.

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

28.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

29.

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

Diderot, Denis

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.

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

Laura Preble

32.

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

Tutu, Bishop Desmond

33.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

34.

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

Hesburgh, Theodore M.

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.

Leaders are readers.

Jones, Charles ''Tremendous''

37.

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

Bennis, Warren

38.

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

Ervin, Sam

39.

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

40.

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

41.

You cannot antagonize and influence at the same time.

Knox, John

42.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

46.

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

Hennessy, Edward

47.

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

48.

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

49.

He is the richest man who enriches his country most; in whom the people feel richest and proudest; who gives himself with his money; who opens the doors of opportunity widest to those about him; who is ears to the deaf; eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. Such a man makes every acre of land in his community worth more, and makes richer every man who lives near him.

Marden, Orison Swett

50.

Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

Patton, George S.