Motivational Quotes

Leadership

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

- Churchill, Winston

Best Quotes about Leadership

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

Schwarzkopf, Norman

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

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

A good leader needs to have a compass in his head and a bar of steel in his heart.

Townsend, Robert

No affection and a great brain, these are the people to command the world.

Disraeli, Benjamin

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

Ervin, Sam

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

Those who can command themselves command others.

Hazlitt, William

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

10.

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

11.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

Kissinger, Henry

15.

The highest of distinctions is service to others.

King George VI

16.

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.

17.

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

Parker, Dorothy

18.

Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men -- the other 999 follow women.

Marx, Groucho

19.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

20.

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

Proverb

21.

Six traits of effective leaders: 1. Make others feel important 2. Promote a vision 3. Follow the golden rule 4. Admit mistakes 5. Criticize others only in private 6. Stay close to the action Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

22.

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.

23.

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

Kissinger, Henry

24.

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

25.

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

26.

The wise man who is not heeded is counted a fool, and the fool who proclaims the general folly first and loudest passes for a prophet and F?hrer, and sometimes it is luckily the other way round as well, or else mankind would long since have perished of stupidity.

Jung, Carl

27.

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.

28.

The successful man doesn't use others, other people use the successful man, for above all the success is of service.

Caine, Mark

29.

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

30.

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

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

31.

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

32.

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.

33.

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

Bennis, Warren

34.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

35.

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

Batten, Joe

36.

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

Lao-Tzu

37.

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

38.

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

39.

If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you.

Thatcher, Margaret

40.

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.

41.

Men are lead by trifles.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

42.

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

Motto

43.

Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too.

Half, Robert

44.

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

Perot, H. Ross

45.

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

46.

The first thing a great person does, is make us realize the insignificance of circumstance.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

47.

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

Packard, Vance

48.

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

Bennis, Warren

49.

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