Motivational Quotes

Leadership

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

Best Quotes about Leadership

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

Do your best to be the lead dog otherwise the view never changes.

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

Meir, Golda

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.

The well being of the people is the supreme law.

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

I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.

Lao-Tzu

When we think we lead we are most led.

Byron, Lord

Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.

Lombardi, Vince

10.

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

Iacocca, Lee

11.

A prince should be slow to punish, and quick to reward.

Ovid

12.

Outstanding leaders go out of the way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.

Walton, Sam

13.

It is a characteristic of all movements and crusades that the psychopathic element rises to the top.

Lindner, Robert

14.

One secret of leadership is that the mind of a leader never turns off. Leaders even when they are sightseers or spectators, are active; not passive observers.

Humes, James

15.

He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.

Seneca

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.

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

Rohn, Jim

18.

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

Laura Preble

19.

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

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

20.

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

Patton, George S.

21.

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

Parker, Dorothy

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.

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

24.

Every leader needs to look back once in a while to make sure he has followers. Source Unknown Effective leaders are known by the questions they ask rather than the statements they make.

25.

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

Schorr, James

26.

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

Schwarzkopf, Norman

27.

I'm their leader, I've got to follow them.

Ledru-Rollin, Alexandre

28.

A leader knows what's best to do; a manager knows merely how best to do it.

Adelman, Ken

29.

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

Saying, Zen

30.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

31.

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

32.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

33.

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

Kissinger, Henry

34.

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

35.

Some men must follow, and some command, though all are made of clay.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

36.

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

Fuller, R. Buckminster

37.

Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.

Peters, Thomas J.

38.

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

39.

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.

40.

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

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

41.

No man has ever risen to the real stature of spiritual manhood until he has found that it is finer to serve somebody else than it is to serve himself.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

42.

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

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

43.

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

44.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

45.

To lead people walk behind them.

Lao-Tzu

46.

There is great force hidden in a gentle command.

Herbert, George

47.

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

Ervin, Sam

48.

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

49.

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

Churchill, Winston

50.

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.

Schwarzkopf, Norman