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

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

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

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

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

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

Batten, Joe

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

John F. Kennedy

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

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

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

Proverb, German

10.

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

Laura Preble

11.

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

Lao-Tzu

12.

He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.

Seneca

13.

The crowd gives the leader new strength.

Evenius

14.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

15.

If you want to be comfortable -- take an easy job. If you aspire to leadership, take off your coat.

16.

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

Allen, Norman

17.

Leadership appears to be the art of getting others to want to do something you are convinced should be done.

Packard, Vance

18.

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.

19.

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

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

20.

Management is nothing more than motivating other people.

Lee Iacocca

21.

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

Johnson, Lyndon B.

22.

Those who can command themselves command others.

Hazlitt, William

23.

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

24.

The highest of distinctions is service to others.

King George VI

25.

Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.

Syrus, Publilius

26.

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.

27.

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

Kissinger, Henry

28.

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

Hesburgh, Theodore M.

29.

When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

30.

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

31.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

32.

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.

33.

It's important for the explorer to be willing to be led astray.

Oech, Roger Von

34.

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

35.

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

Iacocca, Lee

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Diogenes of Sinope

39.

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

Hoover, Herbert Clark

40.

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

Depree, Max

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

Barker, Joel A.

44.

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

Walters, J. Donald

45.

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