Motivational Quotes

Leadership

It is very comforting to believe that leaders who do terrible things are, in fact, mad. That way, all we have to do is make sure we don't put psychotics in high places and we've got the problem solved.

- Wolfe, Thomas

Best Quotes about Leadership

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

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

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

Faith in the ability of a leader is of slight service unless it be united with faith in his justice.

George Goethals

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

Lukas, Wayne

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

Milton, John

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

Peters, Thomas J.

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

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

10.

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

11.

Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.

Syrus, Publilius

12.

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

Ward, Ted

13.

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

14.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

15.

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.

16.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

17.

Leadership in today's world requires far more than a large stock of gunboats and a hard fist at the conference table.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

18.

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

Meir, Golda

19.

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

Barker, Joel A.

20.

The wealth of kings is in the affections of their subjects.

Motto

21.

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

Saying, Zen

22.

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

23.

Those that rule must hear and be deaf, must see and be blind.

Proverb, German

24.

There is great force hidden in a gentle command.

Herbert, George

25.

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

26.

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

27.

Search others for their virtue, and yourself for your vices.

Fuller, R. Buckminster

28.

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

29.

Leadership must be established from the top down.

Nunn, Sam

30.

Reason and judgment are the qualities of a leader.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

31.

You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think.

Parker, Dorothy

32.

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

33.

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

Churchill, Winston

34.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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.

I learned that a great leader is a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don't want to do and like it.

Truman, Harry S

37.

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

38.

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

39.

To lead people walk behind them.

Lao-Tzu

40.

Those who can command themselves command others.

Hazlitt, William

41.

A boss creates fear, a leader confidence. A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions. A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting. A boss is interested in himself or herself, a leader is interested in the group.

Ewing, Russell H.

42.

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

Churchill, Winston

43.

It is a great pity when the one who should be the head figure is a mere figure head.

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

44.

Six traits of effective leaders: 1. Make others feel important 2. Promote a vision 3. Follow the golden rule 4. Admit mistakes 5. Criticize others only in private 6. Stay close to the action Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

45.

An order that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

46.

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

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

47.

Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.

Naisbitt, John

48.

The penalty of leadership is loneliness.