True leadership lies in guiding others to success. In ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well.

There are many leaders, not just one. Leadership is distributed. It resides not solely in the individual at the top, but in every person at every level who, in one way or another, acts as a leader to a group of followers — wherever in the organization that person is, whether shop steward, team head, or CEO.

Source: Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee (2002) Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. p. xiii-xiv.

The speed of the leader is the speed of the gang.

Source: The Mary Kay Way: Timeless Principles from America’s Greatest Woman Entrepreneur (2009) by Mary Kay Ash.

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The real leader has no need to lead – he is content to point the way.

Source: Henry Miller, “The Wisdom of the Heart” in The Wisdom of the Heart (1941).

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.

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.

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.

Source: Max De Pree, in Leadership Is an Art (1989), page 9.