Motivational Quotes

Leadership

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

Best Quotes about Leadership

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

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

Fuller, R. Buckminster

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

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

Batten, Joe

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

Marden, Orison Swett

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

Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.

Ford, Henry

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

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

Schwarzkopf, Norman

10.

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.

11.

Leadership has to do with direction. Management has to do with the speed, coordination and logistics in going in that direction. The WORKERS are chopping their way through the jungle. The MANAGERS are coordinating, making sure the tools are sharp, etc. The LEADERS climb a tree and shout Wrong jungle!! The MANAGERS shout back Be quiet! We're making progress!

12.

Ronald Reagan has held the two most demeaning jobs in the country; President of the United States and radio broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs.

Will, George F.

13.

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

Townsend, Robert

14.

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

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

15.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

16.

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

17.

When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

18.

Reason and judgment are the qualities of a leader.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

19.

There is great force hidden in a gentle command.

Herbert, George

20.

Leadership is not a position. You are not a leader because you have the title of manager. Leadership is something that we earn from followers on a day to day basis.

The EMS Manager Newsletter

21.

The crowd gives the leader new strength.

Evenius

22.

Those who can command themselves command others.

Hazlitt, William

23.

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.

24.

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

Iacocca, Lee

25.

The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such.

Maurois, Andre

26.

Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.

Syrus, Publilius

27.

Popularity is not leadership.

Marcinko, Richard

28.

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

Parker, Dorothy

29.

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

30.

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

Lukas, Wayne

31.

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

32.

Education is the mother of leadership.

Willkie, Wendell L.

33.

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

Laura Preble

34.

There is no such thing as a perfect leader either in the past or present, in China or elsewhere. If there is one, he is only pretending, like a pig inserting scallions into its nose in an effort to look like an elephant.

Liu Shao-Ch'I

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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.

38.

Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.

Bennis, Warren

39.

Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you're in control, they're in control.

Landry, Tom

40.

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

41.

You cannot antagonize and influence at the same time.

Knox, John

42.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

John F. Kennedy

43.

Every ruler is harsh whose laws are new.

Aeschylus

44.

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