Famous Leadership Quotes

Leadership is action, not position.
By Donald H. McGannon on Action

The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.
By Elaine Agather on Bones

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.
By Jesse Jackson on Bringing People Together

It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.
By Adlai Stevenson on Calvary

Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.
By George S. Patton on Delegating

Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too.
By Robert Half on Delegating

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.
By Winston Churchill on Dictators

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others.
By Robert Louis Stevenson on Fear

I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.
By Everett Dirksen on Flexibility

Forethought and prudence are the proper qualities of a leader.
By Tacitus on Forethought

If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants.
By Isaac Newton on Giants

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.
By Vince Lombardi on Hard Work

A leader is a dealer in hope.
By Napoleon Bonaparte on Hope

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.
By Kenneth Blanchard on Influence

It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.
By Noam Chomsky on Intellectuals

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
By Carl Sagan on Laughter

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worse when they despise him....But of a good leader who talks little when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, "We did it ourselves."
By Lao Tzu on Leaders

Leaders are the ones who keep faith with the past, keep step with the present, and keep the promise to posterity.
By Harold J. Seymour on Leaders

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.
By Desmond Tutu on Leaders

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?
By Benjamin Disraeli on Leadership

The only test of leadership is that somebody follows.
By Robert K. Greenleaf on Leadership

Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.
By Marian Anderson on Leadership

The main characteristics of effective leadership are intelligence, integrity or loyalty, mystique, humor, discipline, courage, self sufficieny and confidence.
By James L. Fisher on Leadership

Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.
By Peter Ferdinand Drucker on Leadership

There are many elements to a campaign. Leadership is number one. Everything else is number two.
By Bernd Brecher on Leadership

I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
By Ralph Nader on Leadership

Leadership in today's world requires far more than a large stock of gunboats and a hard fist at the conference table.
By Hubert H. Humphrey on Leadership

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
By John F. Kennedy on Learning

In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
By Eric Hoffer on Learning

What you always do before you make a decision is consult. The best public policy is made when you are listening to people who are going to be impacted. Then, once policy is determined, you call on them to help you sell it.
By Elizabeth Dole on Listening

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
By Theodore Roosevelt on Management

Leaders shouldn't attach moral significance to their ideas: Do that, and you can't compromise.
By Peter F. Drucker on Moral Significance

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
By Dwight Eisenhower on Motivation

Great necessities call forth great leaders.
By Abigail Adams on Necessities

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
By Albert Einstein on Opposition

If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
By Grace Hopper on Permission

American philanthropic custom owes much to leadership by business and professional people.
By Robert L. Payton on Philanthropy

Abraham Lincoln did not go to Gettysburg having commissioned a poll to find out what would sell in Gettysburg. There were no people with percentages for him, cautioning him about this group or that group or what they found in exit polls a year earlier. When will we have the courage of Lincoln?
By Robert Coles on Public Opinion

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.
By Max DePree on Reality

In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.
By Margaret Wheatly on Relationships

The price of greatness is responsibility.
By Winston Churchill on Responsibility

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
By Peter F. Drucker on Rightness

The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.
By Tony Blair on Saying No

The first step to leadership is servanthood.
By John Maxwell on Servanthood

A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
By Henrik Ibsen on Ships

Don't be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small steps.
By David Loyd George on Steps

A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.
By Charles deGaulle on Surprise

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.
By Theodore M. Hesburgh on Vision

Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men - the other 999 follow women.
By Groucho Marx on Women

To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against.
By Christina Baldwin on Work