Leadership Quotes
A great person attracts great people and knows how
to hold them together.
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want
to test a man’s character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln
It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you
look funny on a horse.
- Adlai E. Stevenson II
Surround yourself with a trusted and loyal team. It
makes all the difference.
- Alison Pinkus
There are two kinds of stones, as everyone knows,
one of which rolls.
- Amelia Earhart
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
I think we need leadership that helps us remember
that part of what we are about is caring about more
than the person right next to us, but the folks across
the way.
- Anna Deavere Smith
One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recog-
nize a problem before it becomes an emergency.
- Arnold Glasow
Whatever you are, be a good one.
- Abraham Lincoln
A good leader takes a little more than his share of
the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.
- Arnold Glasgow
Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to be-
come better.
- Bill Bradley
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will
be those who empower others.
- Bill Gates
Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers
think and talk about the problems.
- Brian Tracy
Become the kind of leader that people would follow
voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.
- Brian Tracy
True leadership lies in guiding others to success--in
ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, do-
ing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well.
- Bill Owens
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Use these relevant leadership quotes in your next presentation, meeting, in
your email signature, or any time you need to add a little inspiration to a project
or event.
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There are no office hours for leaders.
- Cardinal J. Gibbons
The role of leadership is to transform the complex
situation into small pieces and prioritize them.
- Carlos Ghosn
Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers,
who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to
offer a solution everybody can understand.
- Colin Powell
Those who let things happen usually lose to those
who make things happen.
- Dave Weinbaum
Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing
how to do it, and virtue is doing it.
- David Star Jordan
Control is not leadership; management is not
leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek
to lead, invest at least 50 percent of your time in
leading yourself--your own purpose, ethics, principles,
motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20 percent leading
those with authority over you and 15 percent leading
your peers.
- Dee Hock
The important thing is this: to be able to give up
in any given moment all that we are for what we can
become.
- DeSeaux
There exist limitless opportunities in every industry.
Where there is an open mind, there will always be a
frontier.
- Charles F. Kettering
Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to
communicate something people want.
- Dianne Feinstein
Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because
it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.
- Diogenes of Sinope
If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to
dream more, learn more, do more and become more,
then, you are an excellent leader.
- Dolly Parton
A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the
courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion
to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out
to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his
actions and the integrity of his intent.
- Douglas MacArthur
Leadership is an action, not a position.
- Donald McGannon
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When people talk, listen completely.
- Ernest Hemmingway
I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.
- Estée Lauder
The only safe ship in a storm is leadership.
- Faye Wattleton
Where the is no vision, there is no hope.
- George Washington Carver
Never be limited by other people’s limited
imaginations.
- Dr. Mae Jemison
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do
something you want done because he wants to do it.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you
look funny on a horse.
- Adlai E. Stevenson II
I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think
things through--then follow through.
- Edward Rickenbacker
Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll
be criticized anyway.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
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
You manage things, you lead people.
- Grace Murray Hopper
Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only
be learned.
- Harold Geneen
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead
where there is no path and leave a trail.
- Harold R. McAlindon
The growth and development of people is the high-
est calling of leadership.
- Harvey S. Firestone
Look over your shoulder now and then to be sure
someone’s following you.
- Henry Gilmer
When one door of happiness closes, another opens;
but often we look so long at the closed door that we
do not see the one which has opened for us.
- Hellen Keller
To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others,
use your heart.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
I work really hard at trying to see the big picture
and not getting stuck in ego. I believe we’re all put on
this planet for a purpose, and we all have a different
purpose… When you connect with that love and that
compassion, that’s when everything unfolds.
- Ellen DeGeneres
The supreme quality of leadership is integrity.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Don’t tell people how to do things. Tell them what to
do and let them surprise you with their results.
- George S. Patton Jr.
To do great things is difficult; but to command great
things is more difficult.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
I learned to always take on things I’d never done be-
fore. Growth and comfort do not coexist.
- Ginni Rometty
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The task of the leader is to get their people from
where they are to where they have not been.
- Henry Kissinger
Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning
for leadership.
- James Humes
I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can
give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to
please everybody.
- Herbert Swope
You take people as far as they will go, not as far as
you would like them to go.
- Jeanette Rankin
As a leader, it’s a major responsibility on your
shoulders to practice the behavior you want others
to follow.
- Himanshu Bhatia
As a leader, it’s a major responsibility on your
shoulders to practice the behavior you want others
to follow.
- Himanshu Bhatia
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
A leader is a person you will follow to a place you
would not go by yourself.
- Joel Barker
The way to achieve your own success is to be willing
to help somebody else get it first.
- Iyanla Vanzant
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be,
and you help them become what they are capable
of being.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is our choices, that show what we truly are, far
more than our abilities.
-J.K. Rowling
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into
humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is
already there.
-John Buchan
Don’t blow off another’s candle for it won’t make
yours shine brighter.
-Jaachynma N.E. Agu
Leadership is not about titles, positions, or
flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.
-John C. Maxwell
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing
yourself. When you become a leader, success is all
about growing others.
-Jack Welch
People buy into the leader before they buy into
the vision.
-John C. Maxwell
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Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for
the great.
- John D. Rockefeller
Dedicate yourself to a core set of values. Without
them, you will never be able to find personal
fulfillment, and you will never be able to
lead effectively.
- Kenneth Chenault
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful
about what we pretend to be.
- Kurt Vonnegut
A leader is best when people barely know he exists,
when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say:
we did it ourselves.
- Lao Tzu
I wake up every morning and think to myself, ‘How
far can I push the company forward in the next
24 hours?
- Leah Busque
A leader is one who sees more than others see, who
sees farther than others see, and who sees before
others see.
- Leroy Eimes
Doing what is right isn’t the problem. It is knowing
what is right.
- Lyndon B Johnson
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.
- Lee Hock
The highest of distinction is service to others.
- King George VI
Leadership and learning are indispensable to
each other.
- John F. Kennedy
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
Great leaders are not defined by the absence of
weakness, but rather by the presence of
clear strengths.
- John Zenger
Leadership is not about men in suits. It is a way of
life for those who know who they are and are willing
to be their best to create the life they want to live.
- Kathleen Schafer
The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing
people around a shared vision.
- Ken Blanchard
Whenever I think about an issue, I always argue the
opposite side of it. So, when I ultimately decide on
a course of action, I’ve already been through all the
conceivable scenarios, and I’m going to go for it.
- Kenneth Chenault
Do not wait on a leader...look in the mirror, its you!
- Katherine Miracle
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A good leader leads the people from above them. A
great leader leads the people from within them.
- M. D. Arnold
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but
a molder of consensus.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he
stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at
times of challenge and controversy.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Leadership should be more participative than
directive, more enabling than performing.
- Mary D. Poole
If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally
transform one million realities.
- Maya Angelou
You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.
- Nancy D. Solomon
Leadership is an ever-evolving position.
- Mike Krzyzewski
Earn your leadership every day.
- Michael Jordan
The speed of the leader is the speed of the gang.
- Mary Kay Ash
Leaders don’t inflict pain, they share pain.
- Max Depree
We treat our people like royalty. If you honor and
serve the people who work for you, they will honor
and serve you.
- Mary Kay Ash
I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but
today it means getting along with people.
- Mahatma Gandhi
Leadership is a series of behaviors rather than a role
for heroes.
- Margaret Wheatley
My father had a simple test that helps me measure
my own leadership quotient: When you are out of the
office, he once asked me, does your staff carry on
remarkably well without you?
- Martha Peak
Diversity: the art of thinking independently together.
- Malcolm Stevenson Forbes
Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.
- Margaret Fuller
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it is
the only thing that ever has.
- Margaret Mead
The things we fear most in organizations--
fluctuations, distubances, imbalances--are the primary
sources of creativity.
- Margaret Wheatley
Don’t follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.
- Margaret Thatcher
