Quote Lady's Quotes by Subject, Leadership

Leadership

see also Motivation

Asking "who ought to be the boss" is like asking "who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?" Obviously, the man who can sing tenor.--Henry Ford
The beauty of empowering others is that your own power is not diminished in the process.-- Barbara Colorose
Become the leader of your life. Lead yourself to where you want to be. Breathe life back into your ambitions, your desires, your goals, your relationships.--Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.-—Jack Welch
The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.--Theodore Roosevelt
The best leaders are clear. They continually light the way, and in the process, let each person know that what they do makes a difference.
The best test as a leader is: Do those served grow as persons; do they become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become leaders?--Robert Greenleaf
A boss creates fear, a leader confidence.
A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes.
A boss knows all, a leader asks questions.
A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting.
A boss is interested in himself or herself, a leader is interested in the group.--Russell H. Ewing
The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.--Jim Rohn (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine March 18, 2003)
The chief executive who knows his strengths and weaknesses as a leader is likely to be far more effective than the one who remains blind to them. He also is on the road to humility - that priceless attitude of openness to life that can help a manager absorb mistakes, failures, or personal shortcomings.--John Adair
The crowd will follow a leader who marches twenty paces ahead of them, but if he is a thousand paces ahead of them, they will neither see nor follow him.--Georg Brandes (Ferdinand Lasalle)
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.--Muriel Strode
Eagles don't flock--you have to find them one at a time.--H. Ross Perot
Effective leaders treat individuals differently but equally.--John Adair (Develop Your Leadership Skills)
Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.--Peter Drucker
The essence of leadership is relationship; influencing people to achieve things together that can't be achieved alone.--Leonard Sweet (Summoned to Lead)
Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.--Warren G. Bennis
The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on... The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.--Walter Lippmann
The first and last task of a leader is to keep hope alive.-–John W. Gardner
Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that gives their work meaning.--Warren Bennis
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
A great leader's courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.--John Maxwell
Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.-–Colin Powell
Great leaders outlast themselves: I may not get there with you. But I want you to know that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.--Martin Luther King, Jr.
I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a "transformer" in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader.--Stephen R. Covey
I don't think we expect enough of students. They just need someone to show them the way.--Rafe Esquith (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)
I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation. Someone once wrote that the sound of surprise is jazz, and if there's any one thing that we must try to get used to in this world, it's surprise and the unexpected. Truly, we are living in world where the only thing that's constant is change.--Warren G. Bennis
If you command wisely, you'll be obeyed cheerfully.--Thomas Fuller (Gnomologia)
I'm really glad that your young people missed the Depression and missed the big war. But I do regret that they missed the leaders that I knew, leaders who told us when things were tough and that we'd have to sacrifice, and that these difficulties might last awhile... They brought us together and they gave us a sense of national purpose.--Ann Ri
Integrity is the most valuable and respected quality of leadership. Always keep your word.--Brian Tracey (The Treasury of Quotes)
It is the responsibility of leadership to provide opportunity, and the responsibility of individuals to contribute.--Bill Pollard
The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.--Kenneth Blanchard
A leader is a dealer in hope.--Napoleon Bonaparte (Maxims)
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
The leader must know, most know that he knows, and must be able to make it abundantly clear to those about him that he knows.--Clarence B. Randall (Making Good in Management)
A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be.--Rosalynn Carter
A leader who doesn't hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.--Golda Meir
Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them. They make the impossible happen.--Robert Jarvik
Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find strength in eloquence, some in judgment, some in courage.--John W. Gardner (On Leadership)
Leaders don’t just tell a better story; they make the story better.--Mark Sanborn (Fred 2.0)
Leaders exhibit two essential characteristics, the willingness to confront adversity and a clearly articulated future preference.--Martin O'Malley
The leaders I met, whatever walk of life they were from, whatever institutions they were presiding over, always referred back to the same failure something that happened to them that was personally difficult, even traumatic, something that made them feel that desperate sense of hitting bottom--as something they thought was almost a necessity. It's as if at that moment the iron entered their soul; that moment created the resilience that leaders need.--Warren Bennis
Leaders keep their eyes on the horizon, not just on the bottom line.--Warren G. Bennis
Leaders know where to find what they don't know.--LLN (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)
Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.--John Maxwell
Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard.--Warren G. Bennis
Leaders need to provide strategy and direction and to give employees tools that enable them to gather information and insight from around the world. Leaders shouldn't try to make every decision.--Bill Gates
A leader's role is to raise people's aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.--David Gergen
Leaders who win the respect of others are the ones who deliver more than they promise, not the ones who promise more than they can deliver.--Mark A. Clement
Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.--Jesse Jackson
The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.--Elaine Agather
Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.--Gen. H. Norman Schwartzkopf
Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.--Tom Landry
Leadership is more likely to be assumed by the aggressive than by the able, and those who scramble to the top are more often motivated by their own inner torments.--Bergen Evans (The Spoor of the Spook)
Leadership is not a right - it is a responsibility.--John Maxwell
Leadership is not the private reserve of a few charismatic men and women. It is a process ordinary people use when they are bringing forth the best from themselves and others.--Unknown
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.--Dwight D. Eisenhower
Leadership is the art of the future.--Leonard Sweet (Summoned to Lead)
Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.--Warren G. Bennis
Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.--Marian Anderson
Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time.--George Bush
Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny.--Kin Hubbard
The man who gets the most satisfactory results is not always the man with the brilliant single mind, but rather the man who can best co-ordinate the brains and talents of his associates.--W. Alton Jones
The man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.--James Crook
Management means, in the last analysis, the substitution of thought for brawn and muscle, of knowledge for folkways and superstition, and of cooperation for force. It means the substitution of responsibility for obedience to rank, and of authority of performance for the authority of rank.--Peter Drucker
The manager has his eye always on the bottom line; the leader has his eye on the horizon.--Warren Bennis
Managers help people see themselves as they are; Leaders help people to see themselves better than they are.--Jim Rohn (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine March 18, 2003)
Micro-management does little more than annoy the micro-managed.--Michael Rawls
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
No person can be a great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the successes of those under him.--W. H. Auden
Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.--Chinese proverb
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
One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.--Arnold Glasow
Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.--Sam Walton
People underestimate their capacity for change. There is never a right time to do a difficult thing. A leader's job is to help people have vision of their potential.Roger Porter (speech in Detroit, MI, June 1990)
Perhaps the most central characteristic of authentic leadership is the relinquishing of the impulse to dominate others.--David Cooper (Psychiatry and Anti-Psychiatry)
The person who knows "how" will always have job. The person who knows "why" will always be his boss.--Diane Ravitch
The pessimist complains about the wind.
The optimist expects it to change.
The leader adjusts the sails.--John Maxwell (Developing the Leader Within You)
The price of greatness is responsibility.-- Winston Churchill
The prime role of a leader is to offer an example of courage and sacrifice.--Regis Debray (Revolution in the Revolution)
The real leader has no need to lead--he is content to point the way.--Henry Miller (The Wisdom of the Heart)
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
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 (Leadership is an Art)
The single most important factor in determining the climate of an organization is the top executive.--Charles Galloway
The speed of the leader is the speed of the gang.--Mary Kay Ash (Mary Kay)
Today a reader - tomorrow a leader.--W. Fusselman
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
A true leader is hated by most, and respected by all. A follower is liked by all, and respected by none.--Scott Smigler
The true leader makes each team member twice the person they were before.--Leonard Sweet (Summoned to Lead)
True leaders don't give consoling answers, they take constructive actions.--Amit Kalantri
The ultimate leader is one who is willing to develop people to the point that they eventually surpass him or her in knowledge and ability.--Fred A. Manske, Jr.
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.--Theodore Hesburgh
We lead by being human. We do not lead by being corporate, professional, or institutional.--Paul G. Hawken
What makes a good follower? The single most important characteristic may well be a willingness to tell the truth. In a world of growing complexity leaders are increasingly dependent on their subordinates for good information, whether the leaders want to hear it or not. Followers who tell the truth and leaders who listen to it are an unbeatable combination.--Warren Bennis
When choosing a leader, we always kept in mind that humility provides clarity where arrogance makes a cloud. The last thing we wanted was to be lead by someone whose judgment and actions were clouded by arrogance.--The Lakota Way
When you get right down to it, one of the most important tasks of a leader is to eliminate his people's excuse for failure.--Robert Townsend
Where much is expected from an individual, he may rise to the level of events and make the dream come true.--Elbert Hubbard
A women's organization was the catalyst to trigger a flip-flop in my mind that I wasn't a follower, I was a leader. And in spite of my first reaction, that of fear, and a feeling I couldn't' do it, I took the risk. Don't listen to other people's negativity: they filter through their own experiences. Learn to trust your own feelings.--Ginger Purdy
You can judge a leader by the size of the problem he tackles... Other people can cope with the waves, it's his job to watch the tide.--Antony Jay (Management and Machiavelli: An inquiry into the Politics of Corporate Life)
You have to understand that as long as there are organizations, there will always be a job for chiefs. But if you're going to be a chief you'll be an Indian for a long time.--William W. Duffy
You know what makes leadership? It is the ability to get men to do what they don't want to do and like it.--Harry S. Truman ("Leadership: The Biggest Issue" Time Nov. 8, 1976)
You manage things; you lead people.--Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper