Leadership Quotes

Leadership

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people. Mohandas Gandhi

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.  John F. Kennedy

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.  Nelson Mandela

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.  Peter Drucker

Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.  Peter Drucker

No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.   Peter Drucker

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.   Jim Rohn

I have a different vision of leadership. A leadership is someone who brings people together.   George W. Bush

Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time.   George W. Bush

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.   Dwight D. Eisenhower

You don’t lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.   Dwight D. Eisenhower

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out. Stephen Covey

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.   Stephen Covey

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.   Eric Hoffer

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.  Warren G. Bennis

Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.  Warren G. Bennis

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.   John D. Rockefeller

Absolute identity with one’s cause is the first and great condition of successful leadership.   Woodrow Wilson

Leadership is influence.    John C. Maxwell

The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it.   Mao Tse-Tung

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.   John Kenneth Galbraith

Educationists should build the capacities of the spirit of inquiry, creativity, entrepreneurial and moral leadership among students and become their role model.     Abdul Kalam

Leadership in today’s world requires far more than a large stock of gunboats and a hard fist at the conference table.    Hubert H. Humphrey

Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved. It’s being able to take it as well as dish it out. That’s the only way you’re going to get respect from the players.  Larry Bird

Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you’re ready to play as tough as you’re able to, you’d better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you’re not giving it all you’ve got.  Larry Bird

Leadership is intangible, and therefore no weapon ever designed can replace it.   Omar N. Bradley

We must recognize that as the dominant power in the world we have a special responsibility. In addition to protecting our national interests, we must take the leadership in protecting the common interests of humanity.  George Soros

Don’t necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.  Donald Rumsfeld

Leadership is getting someone to do what they don’t want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.   Tom Landry

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.   Tom Landry

Leadership is, among other things, the ability to inflict pain and get away with it – short-term pain for long-term gain.    George Will

I think a major act of leadership right now, call it a radical act, is to create the places and processes so people can actually learn together, using our experiences.    Margaret J. Wheatley

I believe that the capacity that any organization needs is for leadership to appear anywhere it is needed, when it is needed.    Margaret J. Wheatley

Leadership does not depend on being right.  Ivan Illich

I think what actually works best is local-level individual targeting of key leadership nodes.   John Abizaid

I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.  Ralph Nader

Honor bespeaks worth. Confidence begets trust. Service brings satisfaction. Cooperation proves the quality of leadership.  James Cash Penney

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.   Ken Blanchard

This assumption of Negro leadership in the ghetto, then, must not be confined to matters of religion, education, and social uplift; it must deal with such fundamental forces in life as make these things possible.  Carter G. Woodson

Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.   Harold S. Geneen

Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.   Harold S. Geneen

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

Without initiative, leaders are simply workers in leadership positions.    Bo Bennett

The secret to success is good leadership, and good leadership is all about making the lives of your team members or workers better.  Tony Dungy

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.    John Updike

I emphasize self-esteem, self-confidence, and dignity, not as an ideal, but as a real test of community organization. Without leadership development, community organizations do not have staying power.   Paul Wellstone

The leadership lost its nerve. Instead of taking the lead in the reform movement… they pulled the plug on it. They tried and are still trying to return the church to the dry ice of the previous century and a half.   Andrew Greeley

It is the responsibility of leadership to provide opportunity, and the responsibility of individuals to contribute.   William Pollard

The biggest difference is in the leadership. It was better for us. We had more coaches and mentors to help us. A lot of the younger players today suffer from a lack of direction.   Isaiah Thomas

The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers. Are the followers reaching their potential? Are they learning? Serving? Do they achieve the required results? Do they change with grace? Manage conflict?    Max de Pree

One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.   Arnold H. Glasow

I recognize we will pay more attention when we have different leadership.   Octavia Butler

Clearly you need a new team to go out to bat on your behalf; to fight for your rights and to report back to you personally and to the leadership of the IFP.   Mangosuthu Buthelezi

The art of leadership… consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.    Adolf Hitler

The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.    Harvey S. Firestone

 I think the greater responsibility, in terms of morality, is where leadership begins.   Norman Lear

The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.   James Buchanan

Leadership is hard to define and good leadership even harder. But if you can get people to follow you to the ends of the earth, you are a great leader.  Indra Nooyi

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

Education is the mother of leadership.  Wendell Willkie

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.    Ferdinand Marcos

Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.  Marian Anderson

Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.   Bill Bradley

The only safe ship in a storm is leadership.  Faye Wattleton

Leadership must be established from the top down.  Sam Nunn

Intelligence we gathered at the time indicated that this was in fact leadership and we struck the leadership.  Peter Pace

The art of communication is the language of leadership.   James Humes

Leadership requires the courage to make decisions that will benefit the next generation.   Alan Autry

I don’t know what leadership is. You can’t touch it. You can’t feel it. It’s not tangible. But I do know this: you recognize it when you see it.   Bob Ehrlich

True leadership lies in guiding others to success. In ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well.   Bill Owens

Leadership is an active role; ‘lead’ is a verb. But the leader who tries to do it all is headed for burnout, and in a powerful hurry.    Bill Owens

Leadership offers an opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life, no matter what the project.   Bill Owens

 Actions, not words, are the ultimate results of leadership.   Bill Owens

My philosophy of leadership is to surround myself with good people who have ability, judgment and knowledge, but above all, a passion for service.   Sonny Perdue

Leadership is about doing what you know is right – even when a growing din of voices around you is trying to convince you to accept what you know to be wrong.   Robert. L. Ehrlich

That is what leadership is all about: staking your ground ahead of where opinion is and convincing people, not simply following the popular opinion of the moment.     Doris Kearns Goodwin

Be known for pleasing others, espcecially if you govern them…Ruling other has one advantage: you can do more good than anyone else.   Baltasar Gracián

A leader is a dealer in hope.   Napoleon Bonaparte

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.   John Quincy Adams

To be a great leader and so always master of the situation, one must of necessity have been a great thinker in action. An eagle was never yet hatched from a goose’s egg.  James Thomas

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.  John Buchan

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.   Theodore Roosevelt

To lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!   Lao-Tsu

Do not follow where the path may lead.Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.  Harold R. McAlindon

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.   John F. Kennedy

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure: which is: Try to please everybody.    Herbert B. Swope

I think leadership comes from integrity – that you do whatever you ask others to do. I think there are non-obvious ways to lead. Just by providing a good example as a parent, a friend, a neighbor makes it possible for other people to see better ways to do things. Leadership does not need to be a dramatic, fist in the air and trumpets blaring, activity.  Scott Berkun

The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say “I.” And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say “I.” They don’t think “I.” They think “we”; they think “team.” They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but “we” gets the credit…. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.  Peter Drucker

Leadership is the desire and ability to inspire individual achievement, while a leader is just a guy at the top of the heap worried about his own   – Keith Mullen

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

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.    – Eleanor Roosevelt

It’s amazing how many cares disappear when you decide not to be something, but to be someone. – Coco Chanel

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.   – Maya Angelou

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.   – Theodore Roosevelt

The quality of leadership, more than any other single factor, determines the success or failure of an organization.    - Fred Fiedler & Martin Chemers Improving Leadership Effectiveness

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you.   – Max DePree

A new leader has to be able to change an organization that is dreamless, soulless and visionless … someone’s got to make a wake up call.   - Warren Bennis

Leadership is understanding people and involving them to help you do a job. That takes all of the good characteristics, like integrity, dedication of purpose, selflessness, knowledge, skill, implacability, as well as determination not to accept failure.   - Admiral Arleigh A. Burke

Lead and inspire people. Don’t try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be lead.   – Ross Perot

The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist. - Eric Hoffer

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and will to carry on. - Walter J. Lippmann

Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it. - Marian Anderson

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.   - Jesse Jackson

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it. - Andrew Carnegie

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.   - Henry Kissinger

The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.  - Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald’s

And when we think we lead, we are most led.  – Lord Byron

Never hire or promote in your own image. It is foolish to replicate your strength and idiotic to replicate your weakness. It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom.  - Dee W. Hock, Fast Company

Leadership is the desire and ability to inspire individual achievement, while a leader is just a guy at the top of the heap worried about his own   – Keith Mullen

The best example of leadership, is leadership by example. The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such.   - Andre Maurois

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.   – John Kenneth Galbraith, U.S. economist, “The Age of Uncertainty”

The real leader has no need to lead – he is content to point the way.  – Henry Miller