Motivational Quotes

Leadership

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

- Churchill, Winston

Best Quotes about Leadership

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

Bennis, Warren

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

Carlyle, Thomas

True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not the enrichment of the leaders.

Townsend, Robert

A leader has been defined as one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.

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

Leadership is not magnetic personality--that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not making friends and influencing people --that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.

Drucker, Peter F.

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

The person who has no enemies has no followers.

Piatt, Don

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.

10.

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

Patton, George S.

11.

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

12.

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

Patton, George S.

13.

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

Stendhal, Henri B.

14.

Those who can command themselves command others.

Hazlitt, William

15.

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

16.

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

Schorr, James

17.

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.

18.

'Tis a dainty thing to command, though 'twere but a flock of sheep.

Cervantes, Miguel De

19.

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.

20.

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

Lao-Tzu

21.

The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.

Rohn, Jim

22.

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

23.

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

Perot, H. Ross

24.

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

25.

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

Barker, Joel A.

26.

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.

27.

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

28.

I don't believe in just ordering people to do things. You have to sort of grab an oar and row with them.

Geneen, Harold S.

29.

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

30.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

31.

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

32.

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

Ervin, Sam

33.

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.

34.

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

Laura Preble

35.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

36.

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

Parker, Dorothy

37.

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.

38.

The first duty of a leader is to make himself be loved without courting love. To be loved without'playing up'to anyone - even to himself.

Andre Malraux

39.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

John F. Kennedy

40.

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

Johnson, Lyndon B.

41.

The right man comes at the right time.

Proverb, Italian

42.

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

Meir, Golda

43.

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

Proverb

44.

All business success rests on something labeled a sale, which at least momentarily weds company and customer.

Peters, Thomas J.

45.

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

46.

The golden rule for every business man is this: Put yourself in your customer's place.

Marden, Orison Swett

47.

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

48.

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

Proverb, French

49.

The high sentiments always win in the end, the leaders who offer blood, toil, tears, and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

Orwell, George

50.

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

Hesburgh, Theodore M.