Top 100 Leadership Quotes

1

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.2

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

3

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

4

He that cannot obey, cannot command.

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if ...5

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

6

A leader. . .is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.

7

The true leader serves. Serves people. Serves their best interests, and in doing so will not always be popular, may not always impress. But because true leaders are motivated by loving concern than a desire for personal glory, they are willing to pay the price.

8

To have a successful career, you have to approach it as an entrepreneur, even if you are working for someone else. Your career is your own private business. You have to market yourself and your abilities and knowledge just as you would a product or service.

9

Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.

10

I was never the smartest guy in the room. From the first person I hired, I was never the smartest guy in the room. And that's a big deal. And if you're going to be a leader - if you're a leader and you're the smartest guy in the world - in the room, you've got real problems.

11

I never wear a watch, because I always know it's now - and now is when you should do it.

12

The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.

13

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.

14

It is impossible to imagine anything which better becomes a ruler than mercy.

15

Leadership can be thought of as a capacity to define oneself to others in a way that clarifies and expands a vision of the future.

16

What you allow you encourage.

17

To achieve the impossible; it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.

If there is such a thing as good leadership, it is to give a good ...18

If there is such a thing as good leadership, it is to give a good example. I have to do so for all the Ikea employees.

19

You did what your heart told you to do,' Brain complimented. 'It is what leaders, not followers, do.

20

While society cannot provide employment for its members, the production/work/income nexus has to be abandoned as a justification for our present parsimony to the unemployed. An assumption cannot be used to justify making second-class citizens of those who are unfortunate enough to constitute living proof of the inaccuracy of that assumption.

To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.21

To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.

22

Leadership: Lions led by donkeys.

23

The new leader is one who commits people to action, who converts followers into leaders, and who may convert leaders into agents of change.

24

Cooperation with others. Perception, experience, tenacity. Know when to lead and when to follow.

25

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?

MAMMON, n. The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple ...26

MAMMON, n. The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.

27

We treat employees as a member of the family. If management take the risk of hiring them, we have to take the responsibility for them.

28

You cannot switch teachers on and off as if they were PowerPoint presentations.

29

If we're all on the same page, no one's reading the whole book.

30

Human growth is not like rhubarb. It can be nurtured and encouraged but it cannot be forced.

31

Schools that cannot tolerate interesting & enthusiastic eccentrics who work better alone than together are devoid of flexibility & spirit

32

Sustainable leadership does not compromise the future by expanding and accelerating too quickly in the present.

33

The Common Curriculum can easily become the karaoke curriculum, where everyone just follows the bouncing ball of the script.

34

When the house is on fire, don't tell me what your spiritual gift is. Just grab a hose and put out the fire.

35

When Nehemiah's heart was broken he paid attention to his broken heart.

36

Two primary ways to keep volunteers motivated - Food and T-shirts.

37

Leaders of the future will have to be visionary and be able to bring people in - real communicators. These are things that women bring to leadership and executive positions, and it's going to be incredibly valuable and incredibly in demand.

38

I believe in businesses where you engage in creative thinking, and where you form some of your deepest relationships. If it isn't about the production of the human spirit, we are in big trouble.

39

Turnaround or growth, it's getting your people focused on the goal that is still the job of leadership.

40

If I were to command a general to turn into a seagull, and if the general did not obey, that would not be the general's fault. It would be mine.

41

The most enthusiastic man in a cause is rarely chosen as the leader.

42

The secret to success is doing the best that you can do. Forget about whether you might win or lose. By working hard and practicing the skills that you need to perform, the results will take care of themselves. Being successful is about doing your best.

43

Leadership is creating a state of mind in others. The difference between being a leader and manager, all due respect to managers, is that leaders have to create states of mind. But a leader, first of all, has to have a clear state of mind, which is usually her own vision, which energizes her, motivates others, and then creates that state of mind in others.

44

We can't have two standards, one set for the dedicated young men who want to do something ambitious and one set for those who don't.

45

Leadership is something you earn, something you're chosen for. You can't come in yelling, 'I'm your leader!' If it happens, it's because the other guys respect you.

46

Do not do that which you would not have known.

47

What's emerging is a new synthesis of science, spirituality and leadership as different facets of a single way of being.

48

Tony Blair has turned his back on the principles he claimed he believed in before he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with George W. Bush. He was an entirely different kind of leader.

49

If I'd had some set idea of a finish line, don't you think I would have crossed it years ago?

50

I do think this next century, hopefully, will be about a more global view. Where you don't just think, 'Yes, my country is doing well,' but you think about the world at large.

51

There is a certain responsibility that accrued to me when I got to this unexpected position.

52

Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that.

53

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.

54

Public office is supposed to be a public trust. This is a clear sign of the rampant corruption at the highest levels of the Republican leadership.

55

It has always been my thought that the most important single ingredient to success in athletics or life is discipline. I have many times felt that this word is the most ill-defined in all of our language. My definition isas follows: 1. Do what has to be done; 2. When it has to be done; 3. As well as it can be done; and 4. Do it it that way all the time.

56

Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.

57

The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones.

58

The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.

59

When a man begins to feel that he is the only one who can lead in this republic, he is guilty of treason to the spirit of our institutions.

60

I loved the game - I loved the competition. But I never had any fun. All hard work - all the time.

61

A serious athlete to me is one who is committed to excellence at any level, at any age, in any endeavor and in either sex. This commitment begins with a dream and a sense of talent and skill and determination to make that dream come true.

62

I am an organizer, not a union leader. A good organizer has to work hard and long. There are no shortcuts. You just keep talking to people, working with them, sharing, exchanging and they come along.

63

There are many reasons for why a man does what de does. To be himself he must be able to give it all. If a leader cannot give it all he cannot expect his people to give anything.

64

The principal value of a garden is not understood. It is not to give the possessors vegetables and fruit (that can be better and cheaper done by the market-gardeners), but to teach him patience and philosophy, and the higher virtues - hope deferred, and expectations blighted, leading directly to resignation, and sometimes to alienation.

65

Kindness is more powerful than compulsion.

66

I never said it was possible. I only said it was true.

67

We need women leaders. But we need them to have a vision for something.

68

Remember you live in a community. You have a responsibility to be accountable to your family and your community as well as yourself.

69

He is a leader among leaders.

70

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.

71

Being a CEO still means sitting across the table from big institutional investors and showing your leadership and having them believe in you.

72

Speak out, educate, do not be intimidated by the apologists, and do not let extreme racism be mainstreamed. Hopefully there will come a time when we don't need to tell our kids that Halloween is no excuse for hate, and that blackface has no place in a civilized society.

73

As a world leader, America must be prepared to confront any challenge.

74

Al Qaeda is not the organization now that it was before. It is under stress organizationally. Its leadership spends more time trying to figure out how to keep from getting caught than they do trying to launch operations.

75

It’s sad. Marxism didn’t work. Communism didn’t work. Capitalism doesn’t work. Nothing works. Even democracy doesn’t work. Democracy-the greatest form of government and we have two choices for who’s our leader. In fascism you only have one choice. That’s great. We have one more choice than the worst form of government.

76

Leading in a complex world means recognizing the simple things you can do to make things better.

77

If you lead the people with correctness, who will dare not be correct?

78

Quorum and group leaders should provide the leading voice and laboring oar in every ward and branch council regarding retention of converts.

79

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

80

I happen to be extremely left-brained; my instinct is to draw a chart rather than a picture. I'm trying to get my right-brain muscles into shape. I actually think this shift toward right-brain abilities has the potential to make us both better off and better in a deeper sense.

81

I don't think it's a Western thing to really talk about intrinsic motivation and the drive for autonomy, mastery and purpose. You have to not be struggling for survival. For people who don't know where their next meal is coming, notions of finding inner motivation are comical.

82

In economic terms, we've always thought of work as a disutility - as something you do to get something else. Now it's increasingly a utility - something that's valuable and worthy in its own right.

83

Successful people keep moving, even when they are discouraged and have made mistakes.

84

There are a few things that you can do that will yield better results than doing a whole lot of other things.

85

It is rare for people to say they want to be held accountable, but in reality, everyone wants everyone else to be held accountable.

86

Even though your responsibilities increase when you become a manager, you lose some of the rights or freedoms you may have enjoyed in the past.

87

We all need people who will help us look at situations from a different perspective.

88

First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them to go get on with it.

89

Manage yourself first and others will take your orders.

90

You can't teach court savvy

91

If you don't understand that you work for your mislabeled 'subordinates,' then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny.

92

Positive questions bring out the best in people, inspire positive action, and create possibilities for positive futures.

93

It's important not to look like a tool in front of your posse.

94

On a dog sled team, unless you're the lead dog the view never changes.

95

Vision remains vision until you focus, do the work, and bring it down to earth where it will do some good.

96

Sometimes I'll trust my gut more than my head. Logical information might lead me in one direction and my feelings in another. Whereas I would have followed my head ten years ago, now I'm as likely or more likely to go with my gut feeling. It's ironic - you'd think the opposite would be true as you move to the top but it's not.

97

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.

98

The sharp employ the sharp.

99

The difference between good and great is just a little extra effort.

100

In order to be a leader a man must have followers. And to have followers, a man must have their confidence. Hence, the supreme quality for a leader 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. If a man's associates find him guilty of being phony, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other. The first great need, therefore, is integrity and high purpose.

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