Motivational Quotes

Leadership

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

- Bennis, Warren

Best Quotes about Leadership

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.

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

Leadership must be established from the top down.

Nunn, Sam

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.

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

Ford, Henry

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

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

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

Proverb, French

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

Barker, Joel A.

10.

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.

11.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

12.

The world cannot be governed without juggling.

Selden, John

13.

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

Ward, Ted

14.

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

Milton, John

15.

Morale is faith in the man at the top.

Johnston, Albert Sidney

16.

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

17.

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

18.

Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.

Diogenes of Sinope

19.

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

20.

I don't think that a leader can control to any great extent his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.

Nixon, Richard M.

21.

Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.

Syrus, Publilius

22.

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

23.

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

24.

Popularity is not leadership.

Marcinko, Richard

25.

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.

26.

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

Lukas, Wayne

27.

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

28.

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

29.

An order that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

30.

Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too.

Half, Robert

31.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

32.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

33.

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.

34.

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

35.

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

Lao-Tzu

36.

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

Miller, Henry

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.

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

39.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

40.

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

Churchill, Winston

41.

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

Kissinger, Henry

42.

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.

43.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

44.

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

45.

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

Newcomb, Arthur W.

46.

The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, We did it ourselves.

Lao-Tzu

47.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

48.

Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one's self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

49.

When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

50.

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