Motivational Quotes

Leadership

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

Best Quotes about Leadership

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

Peters, Thomas J.

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

Kissinger, Henry

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

The person who has no enemies has no followers.

Piatt, Don

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

Townsend, Robert

Efficiency tends to deal with Things. Effectiveness tends to deal with People. We manage things, we lead people

I've always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team.

Iacocca, Lee

The world cannot be governed without juggling.

Selden, John

It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope.

Pope John XXIII

10.

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

11.

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

Hennessy, Edward

12.

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

Schwarzkopf, Norman

13.

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

Proverb, German

14.

He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.

Seneca

15.

Certainly a leader needs a clear vision of the organization and where it is going, but a vision is of little value unless it is shared in a way so as to generate enthusiasm and commitment. Leadership and communication are inseparable.

Taylor, Claude

16.

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

17.

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.

18.

Who has not served cannot command.

Florio, John

19.

You do not lead by hitting people over the head -- that's assault, not leadership.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

20.

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

Bennis, Warren

21.

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

22.

Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

23.

Popularity is not leadership.

Marcinko, Richard

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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.

27.

When placed in command -- take charge.

Schwarzkopf, Norman

28.

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

Milton, John

29.

The person who renders loyal service in a humble capacity will be chosen for higher responsibilities, just as the biblical servant who multiplied the one pound given him by his master was made ruler over ten cities...

Forbes, B. C.

30.

Skill in the art of communication is crucial to a leader's success. He can accomplish nothing unless he can communicate effectively.

Allen, Norman

31.

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

32.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

33.

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

34.

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

Schorr, James

35.

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

Lukas, Wayne

36.

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

37.

Leadership must be established from the top down.

Nunn, Sam

38.

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

39.

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

Daniel Akst

40.

The crowd gives the leader new strength.

Evenius

41.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

42.

The secret of a leader lies in the tests he has faced over the whole course of his life and the habit of action he develops in meeting those tests.

Sheehy, Gail

43.

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

44.

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

Depree, Max

45.

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

46.

When we think we lead we are most led.

Byron, Lord

47.

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

Proverb

48.

In the great mass of our people there are plenty individuals of intelligence from among whom leadership can be recruited.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

49.

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

50.

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