75 Quotes About Leadership
Here are some of the best leadership quotes to help you become a better leader!
“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership.” – James Humes
“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.” – Woodrow Wilson
“The task of the leader is to get their people from where they are to where they have not been.” – Henry Kissinger
“Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.” – Brian Tracy
“He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.” – Aristotle
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” – John F. Kennedy
“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” – Ronald Reagan
“A good leader leads the people from above them. A great leader leads the people from within them.” – M. D. Arnold
“Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.” – Seth Godin
“To add value to others, one must first value others.” – John Maxwell
“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
“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
“Power isn’t control at all–power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own.” – Beth Revis
“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” – George Patton
“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
“Earn your leadership every day.” – Michael Jordan
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” – Peter F. Drucker
“The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.” – Ray Kroc
“Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” – Albert Schweitzer
“Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.” – Warren Bennis
“Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.” – John C. Maxwell
“You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.” – Steve Jobs
“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.” – Nelson Mandela
“Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.” – Colin Powell
“A leader is a person you will follow to a place you would not go by yourself.” – Joel Barker
“Leaders don’t inflict pain, they share pain.” – Max Depree
“A leader is a dealer in hope.” – Napoleon
“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” – Ralph Nader
“I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.” – Robert E. Lee
“The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.” – Colin Powell
“There is a difference between being a leader and being a boss. Both are based on authority. A boss demands blind obedience; a leader earns his authority through understanding and trust.” – Klaus Balkenhol
“Always remember, son, the best boss is the one who bosses the least. Whether it’s cattle, or horses, or men; the least government is the best government.” – Ralph Moody
“The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.” – Tony Blair
“Leadership is an action, not a position.” – Donald McGannon
“One of the fundamental aspects of leadership, I realized more and more, is the ability to instill confidence in others when you yourself are feeling insecure.” – Howard Schultz
“A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.” – J.P. Morgan
“If you spend your life trying to be good at everything, you will never be great at anything.” – Tom Rath
“Average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire others to raise their own bar.” – Orrin Woodward
“When you put together deep knowledge about a subject that intensely matters to you, charisma happens. You gain courage to share your passion, and when you do that, folks follow.” – Jerry Porras
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Harold R. McAlindon
“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes.” – Peter F. Drucker
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” – Edith Wharton
“Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.” – Harold Geneen
“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” – Jack Welch
“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs
“The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.” – Father Theodore M. Hesburgh
“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.” – Vince Lombardi
“You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.” – Ken Kesey
“Leadership is a two-way street, loyalty up and loyalty down.” – Grace Murray Hopper
“A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.” – Arnold Glasow
“Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.” – Brian Tracy
“See the good in people and help them.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.“ – John Quincy Adams
“The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg
“To have long-term success as a coach or in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way.” – Pat Riley
“The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them.” – Carlos Ghosn
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“There is only one way to avoid criticism: Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” – Aristotle
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin
“The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.” – Oprah Winfrey
“Simplicity is the key to brilliance.” – Bruce Lee
“Always deliver more than expected.” – Larry Page
