75+ Leadership Quotes, Sayings about Leaders
Leadership is defined as the action of leading a group of people or an organization, but in reality it is much more than this. There are few questions which often arises in our minds are:
1) How to Be a Leader?
2) How our leadership should be?
There are different views on leaders and leadership, as according to Warren Bennis, “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality” and Mitt Romney, “leadership is about taking responsibility, not making excuses”.
Sharing few best motivational leadership quotes of all times, which would help you to understand the concept of leadership in a better way.
Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.
Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (2013)
A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.
John C. Maxwell
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, in the Tao Te Ching
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
John F. Kennedy, Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas, TX, November 22, 1963
Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.
John Maxwell
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.
Max de Pree
Remember the difference between a boss and a leader; a boss says “Go!” – a leader says “Let’s go!”
E.M. Kelly
A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.
Arnold H. Glasow
Leading means running fast enough to keep ahead of your people
S. M. Stirling
Great leaders don’t set out to be a leader…They set out to make a difference. It’s never about the role – always about the goal.
Lisa Haisha
A leader is someone who demonstrates what’s possible.
Mark Yarnell
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
John Quincy Adams
A leader leads by example not by force.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Chapter IX · Movement and Development of Troops
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
Great leaders inspire greatness into others.
Anonymous
Be The Change You Wish To See In The World.
Mahatma Gandhi
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
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.
John Buchan, Montrose and Leadership (1930)
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
Henry A. Kissinger
Be the kind of leader that you would follow.
Anonymous
I never thought in terms of being a leader. I thought very simply in terms of helping people.
John Hume
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
Peter Drucker, and Warren Bennis, as quoted in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989) by Stephen R. Covey
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.
Jack Welch
Leadership is not a position or a title, it is action and example.
Anonymous
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, As quoted in The Federal Career Service: A Look Ahead (1954)
Don’t find fault, find a remedy.
Henry Ford
Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders.
Tom Peters
One of the most important leadership lessons is realizing you’re not the most important or intelligent person in the room at all times.
Mario Batali
Leadership cannot be given, it must be earned, it cannot be taken away you lost it be lack of performance.
Anonymous
The most powerful leadership tool you have is your own personal example.
Anonymous
The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
Ralph Nader
Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not “making friends and influencing people”, that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.
Peter F. Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1985)
Leadership is action, not position.
Donald H. McGannon
The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.
Ray Kroc
Attitude Reflects Leadership.
Anonymous
If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.
Thomas Aquinas
LEADERS ON LEADERSHIP: 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
First rule of leadership: everything is your fault.
A Bug’s Life, (A 1998 computer animated film)
The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.
Jim Rohn
Being positive in a negative situation is not naive. It’s leadership.
Ralph Marston
Leadership – The leader always sets the trail for others to follow.
Anonymous
Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not “making friends and influencing people”, that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.
Peter F. Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1985)
True leaders always practice the three R’s: Respect for self, Respect for others, Responsibility for all their actions.
Anonymous
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, Quoted in Together with Business Studies XI
Education is the mother of leadership.
Wendell Willkie
Positive leadership uplifts everyone, all it takes is you, the best version of you.
Anonymous
A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.
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
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
Earn your leadership every day.
Michael Jordan
Leadership is based on inspiration, not domination; on cooperation, not intimidation.
William Arthur Wood
Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.
Warren Bennis, cited in: Dianna Daniels Booher (1991) Executive’s portfolio of model speeches for all occasions
Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.
John C. Maxwell
Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average.
Jim Rohn
Enlightened leadership is spiritual if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight and focused attention.
Deepak Chopra
Leaders don’t force people to follow, they invite them on a journey.
Charles S. Lauer
Leadership is about taking responsibility, not making excuses.
Mitt Romney
I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.
Mother Teresa
An army of sheep led by a lion can defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.
African Proverb
A true leader is one who is humble enough to admit their mistakes.
Anonymous
I want to inspire people. I want someone to look at me and say because of you, I didn’t give up.
Anonymous
Great leaders don’t tell you what to do…they show you how its done.
Guru Eduardo
Great leaders find ways to connect with their people and help them fulfill their potential.
Steven J. Stowell
As a leader every action has a consequence. Make sure it is the one you intend.
Katherine Bryant
The role of a great leader is not to give greatness to human beings, but to help them to extract the greatness they already have inside them.
J.Buchan
People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.
John C. Maxwell
Real leadership is being the person others will gladly and confidently follow.
John C. Maxwell, Developing the Leader Within You (1993)
When the leader lacks confidence, the followers lack commitment.
John C. Maxwell, Developing the Leader Within You (1993)
To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
Bible, Proverb 29-18
You manage things; you lead people.
Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, The Wit and Wisdom of Grace Hopper (1987)
A leader is a dealer in hope.
Napoléon Bonaparte, in Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916) edited by Jules Bertaut
Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.
Robert Louis Stevenson
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
Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men — the other 999 follow women.
Groucho Marx