Motivational Quotes

Leadership

Reason and judgment are the qualities of a leader.

- Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

Best Quotes about Leadership

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

Keep cool and you will command everyone.

Justinian

Leadership is an opportunity to serve. It is not a trumpet call to self-importance.

Walters, J. Donald

No affection and a great brain, these are the people to command the world.

Disraeli, Benjamin

The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert.

Lombardi, Vince

The best leaders of all, the people know not they exist. They turn to each other and say We did it ourselves.

Saying, Zen

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

Schorr, James

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.

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

Batten, Joe

10.

There is great force hidden in a gentle command.

Herbert, George

11.

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

12.

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

Newcomb, Arthur W.

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Lindner, Robert

16.

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

Miller, Henry

17.

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

Rohn, Jim

18.

Do what is right, not what you think the high headquarters wants or what you think will make you look good.

Schwarzkopf, Norman

19.

To lead people walk behind them.

Lao-Tzu

20.

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

21.

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

22.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

Machiavelli, Niccolo

23.

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

Hesburgh, Theodore M.

24.

Leaders don't inflict pain -- they share pain.

Depree, Max

25.

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

Proverb

26.

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

27.

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

Churchill, Winston

28.

It is time for a new generation of leadership, to cope with new problems and new opportunities. For there is a new world to be won.

Kennedy, John F.

29.

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.

30.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

31.

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

32.

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

Lao-Tzu

33.

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

34.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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.

38.

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

39.

The penalty of leadership is loneliness.

Robinson, H. Wheeler

40.

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

Gandhi, Mahatma

41.

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

Barker, Joel A.

42.

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

43.

I'm their leader, I've got to follow them.

Ledru-Rollin, Alexandre

44.

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

Proverb, French

45.

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

46.

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

47.

The best leaders are those most interested in surrounding themselves with assistants and associates smarter than they are. They are frank in admitting this and are willing to pay for such talents.

Parrish, Amos

48.

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

Ervin, Sam

49.

Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.

Ford, Henry

50.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.