Discover the finest leadership quotes from our Top 70 List of Favorites

Discover the finest leadership quotes from our Top 70 List of Favorites

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1.
“In the face of leadership flaws, too many people assume cynical perspectives, rather than do the hard work of building relationships in which they can have more positive influence.” – Ira Chaleff

2.
“In the simplest terms, a leader is one who knows where he wants to go, and gets up and goes.”  – John Erskine, author

3.
“In this world a man must either be an anvil or hammer.” –  Henry W. Longfellow

4.
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. ” – Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple

5.
“Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships. ”  – Charles Simic

6.
“It is absolutely necessary…for me to have persons that can think for me, as well as execute orders.”  – George Washington

7.
“It is absurd that a man should rule others, who cannot rule himself. ”   – Latin Proverb

8.
“It is impossible to imagine anything which better becomes a ruler than mercy.”   – Seneca

9.
“It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him.” – John Steinbeck

10.
“It takes leaders to grow other leaders.” – Ray Blunt

11.
“It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.” ― Adlai E. Stevenson II

12.
“Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson

13.
“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” –  Mother Teresa

14.
“Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”  – Gen. George S. Patton

15.
“Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them.”   – Robert Jarvik

16.
“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.”  – Vince Lombardi

17.
“Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders. ”  – Tom Peters 

18.
“Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them. ”   – John C. Maxwell

19.
“Leaders need to be optimists.  Their vision is beyond the present.”   – Rudy Giuliani

20.
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” ― John F. Kennedy

21.
“Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.”   – Harold Geneen

22.
“Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise. ”  – Woodrow Wilson

23.
“Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it. ” – John Naisbitt, author

24.
“Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy.”  – U.S. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

25.
“Leadership is an action, not a position. ”   – Donald McGannon

26.
“Leadership is based on a spiritual quality; the power to inspire, the power to inspire others to follow.”   – Vince Lombardi

27.
“Leadership is difficult but it is not complex.”   – Michael McKinney

28.
“Leadership is intentional influence. ”  – Michael McKinney

29.
“Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” – Peter Drucker

30.
“Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flow charts. It is about one life influencing another.”    – John C. Maxwell

31.
“Leadership is the ability to establish standards and manage a creative climate where people are self-motivated toward the mastery of long term constructive goals, in a participatory environment of mutual respect, compatible with personal values.”   – Mike Vance

32.
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

33.
“Leadership is the capacity to transform vision into reality.”  – Warren G. Bennis

34.
“Leadership is the creation of an environment in which others are able to self-actualize in the process of completing the job.” – John Mellecker

35.
“Leadership:  the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. ”  – Dwight D. Eisenhower

36.
“Learn to see things backwards, inside out, and upside down. ”  – John Heider 

37.
“Let him who would be moved to convince others, be first moved to convince himself. ”  – Thomas Carlyle

38.
“Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power.” – Henry George

39.
“Liberty without learning is always in peril; learning without liberty is always in vain.” –  John F. Kennedy

40.
“Look over your shoulder now and then to be sure someone's following you. ”  – Henry Gilmer

41.
“Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.” –  Ray Kroc

42.
“Make sure you're not just waiting for someone else to fix things, or hoping that things will improve…Figure out what's going on and make a plan to improve things.” – Kenneth W. Thomas

43.
“Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow men.” – Mahatma Gandhi

44.
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”    – Peter F. Drucker

45.
“Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall. ”  – Stephen R. Covey

46.
“Management is nothing more than motivating other people. ”  – Lee Iacocca

47.
“Management is the art of making problems so interesting that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.”  – Paul Hawken

48.
“Men are governed only by serving them; the rule is without exception. ”  – V. Cousin

49.
“Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better. ”  – Harry Truman

50.
“Misfortunes, untoward events, lay open, disclose the skill of a general, while success conceals his weakness, his weak points. ”  – Horace

51.
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed no help at all.” – Dale Carnegie

52.
“My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better. ” – Steve Jobs

53.
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln

54.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

55.
“Never give an order that can't be obeyed.”   – General Douglas MacArthur

56.
“Never has man reached his destination by persistence in deviation from the straight path.” – Mahatma Gandhi

57.
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”   – George Patton 

58.
“No executive has ever suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective.” – Peter Drucker

59.
“No general can fight his battles alone. He must depend upon his lieutenants, and his success depends upon his ability to select the right man for the right place.”   – Philip Armour

60.
“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

61.
“No man can stand on top because he is put there.”   – H. H. Vreeland

62.
“No man is a leader until his appointment is ratified in the hearts and minds of his men. ”  – Author Unknown

63.
“No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.”   – Abraham Lincoln

64.
“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

65.
“Not one single leadership principle requires permission from anyone other than you.” – Jim Trinka and Les Wallace

66.
“Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.” – Chinese Proverb

67.
“Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself. ”  – Thomas J. Watson

68.
“Nothing so undermines organizational change as the failure to think through the losses people face.” – William Bridges

69.
“One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you.”   – Dennis A. Peer

70.
“Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men–the other 999 follow women.”    – Groucho Marx