Motivational Quotes

Leadership

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.

- Augustine, St.

Best Quotes about Leadership

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.

You cannot antagonize and influence at the same time.

Knox, John

When a customer enters my store, forget me. He is king.

Wanamaker, John

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

Bennis, Warren

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.

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

Lao-Tzu

Education is the mother of leadership.

Willkie, Wendell L.

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

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

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

10.

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

11.

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.

12.

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

Bennis, Warren

13.

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

Lindner, Robert

14.

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

Laura Preble

15.

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

16.

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

Fuller, R. Buckminster

17.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

18.

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.

19.

Impatience is the cause of most of our irregularities and extravagances Command by obeying.

Motto

20.

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

21.

Who has not served cannot command.

Florio, John

22.

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

23.

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

24.

The person who has no enemies has no followers.

Piatt, Don

25.

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

26.

I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

27.

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

28.

Popularity is not leadership.

Marcinko, Richard

29.

Those who can command themselves command others.

Hazlitt, William

30.

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

Churchill, Winston

31.

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

Hoover, Herbert Clark

32.

There is great force hidden in a gentle command.

Herbert, George

33.

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

34.

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

Perot, H. Ross

35.

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.

Maxwell, John C.

36.

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

Townsend, Robert

37.

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.

38.

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

39.

The boss drives people; the leader coaches them. The boss depends on authority; the leader on good will. The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm. The boss says I; The leader says WE. The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown. The boss says, GO; the leader says lets, GO!

Selfridge, H. Gordon

40.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

41.

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

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

42.

Reason and judgment are the qualities of a leader.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

43.

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

Schwarzkopf, Norman

44.

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

Depree, Max

45.

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

Patton, George S.

46.

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

Oech, Roger Von

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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.