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Leadership Quotes

Leadership Quotes

Last updated: May 13, 2020

36 Leadership Quotes organized by Most Popular

“You must know how to obey in order to know how to command.”
— Frederic Gros, A Philosophy of Walking
Tagged: Widsom, Leadership, Being Humble
“I believe that if you hire a man to do a job, you ought to get out of the way and let him do it.”
— Ray Kroc, Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's
Tagged: Leadership, Employees
“Take action. Every story you've ever connected with, every leader you've ever admired, every puny little thing that you've ever accomplished is the result of taking action. You have a choice. You can either be a passive victim of circumstance or you can be the active hero of your own life. Action is the antidote to apathy and cynicism and despair. You will inevitably make mistakes. Learn what you can and move on. At the end of your days, you will be judged by your gallop, not by your stumble.”
— Bradley Whitford, Commencement Address at University of Wisconsin, 2004
Tagged: Commencement Speeches, Leadership, Action, Heroism, Choices, Move Forward
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”
— George S. Patton, War As I Knew It
Tagged: humanity, Leadership
“A symphony conductor knows more about how to lead than most businesspeople.”
— Quincy Jones, In Conversation: Quincy Jones
Tagged: Leadership, Building Social Frameworks, Coordination
“Strong leaders earn loyalty. Weak leaders demand it.”
— Simon Sinek, via twitter.com
Tagged: leaders, Leadership, strong vs.weak leaders, Loyalty
“The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.”
— Ken Blanchard, via twitter.com
Tagged: Leadership, successful leadership, influence, influence vs. authority
“A leader can never be happy until his people are happy.”
— Genghis Khan, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
Tagged: Leadership, Happiness, Followers
“Taking initiative pays off. It is hard to visualize someone as a leader if she is always waiting to be told what to do.”
— Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
Tagged: Initiative, Leadership
“To earn trust, he must extend trust.”
— Simon Sinek, Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't
Tagged: Trust, Leadership, earning trust
“The most transformative and resilient leaders that I’ve worked with over the course of my career have three things in common: First, they recognize the central role that relationships and story play in culture and strategy, and they stay curious about their own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Second, they understand and stay curious about how emotions, thoughts, and behaviors are connected in the people they lead, and how those factors affect relationships and perception. And, third, they have the ability and willingness to lean in to discomfort and vulnerability.”
— Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution
Tagged: Discomfort, Leadership, strength, vulnerability, Courage
“Most people don’t lead their life; they accept their life.”
— John Maxwell, John Maxwell on Leadership, Living Big and Choosing a Life That Matters
Tagged: Lewis Howes Podcast, Acceptance, Leadership
“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
— Winston Churchill, The Gift of a Common Tongue
Tagged: Greatness, Responsibility, leading, Leadership
“When you find a cancer in an organization, you must cut it out before it can spread.”
— Dr. Robert Ford, Westworld, Westworld Season 1: Trace Decay
Tagged: Diagnose ASAP, Management, Leadership
“The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones.”
— Brandon Sanderson, The Alloy of Law
Tagged: Greatness, Leadership, Priority
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Leadership Quotes
Tagged: Leadership Quotes, Business Management, Management
“I have learned that ethical leaders lead by seeing beyond the short-term, beyond the urgent, and take every action with a view toward lasting values.”
— James Comey, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership
Tagged: Ethical Leadership
“People who want the world to be a better place need vision, purpose, and a relentless capacity to ask tough questions.”
— Corey Anton, On the Consequences of Our Interpretations(For Lee Thayer)
Tagged: making the world better, improving the world, Leadership
“People who want the world to be a better place need to accept the painful truth that ‘Truth’ can be quite irrelevant if people do not act upon it.”
— Corey Anton, On the Consequences of Our Interpretations(For Lee Thayer)
Tagged: making the world better, improving the world, Leadership, Politics, Truth Is Not Everything, Coordinating Individuals
“For the very people who think themselves called upon to be leaders are frequently the least qualified to be so.”
— Max Weber, The Vocation Lectures: “Science as a Vocation" & "Politics as a Vocation"(Hackett Classics)
Tagged: Leadership
“Brevity is the soul of command.”
— Xenophon, Xenophon's Cyrus the Great: The Arts of Leadership and War
Tagged: strategy, Leadership
“A great communicator has faith that there's a reserve of goodwill in most relationships, even if it's temporarily absent.”
— Phil Stutz, The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower--and Inspire You to Live Life in Forward Motion
Tagged: strategy, Leadership
“Leadership is not a position or a title. It is example and action.”
— Paulo Coelho, via twitter.com
Tagged: Leadership, definition of leadership
“Leadership is not a journey to rise in the ranks. Leadership is a journey to help those around us rise.”
— Simon Sinek, via twitter.com
Tagged: Leadership, definition of leadership
“Leadership implies a strong faith or belief in something.”
— Walt Disney, Quotable Walt Disney
Tagged: Leadership, Faith, Conviction
“Franklin Roosevelt still surrounded himself with a lot of strong women. I think that they in many ways helped give him the strength that he needed to get us through the Depression and get us through World War II.”
— Larry Flynt, Publisher Larry Flynt | Interviews | Tavis Smiley | PBS
Tagged: Strong Females, Presidents, FDR, Franklin Roosevelt, Leadership
“A leader must be inspired by the people before a leader can inspire the people.”
— Simon Sinek
Tagged: leader, Leadership, inspiration
“To change the world, you must be different than the world. To lead, you must go first. You must divert from the common path, you must navigate unmapped terrain.”
— Brianna Wiest, I Am The Hero Of My Own Life
Tagged: Change, Leadership, Going Your Own Way, Think Different
“Let us all be the leaders we wish we had.”
— Simon Sinek, Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't
Tagged: leader, Leadership, Innovation, Taking Action
“Allow me to pause and emphasize this general rule: Success always calls for greater generosity—though most people, lost in the darkness of their own egos, treat it as an occasion for greater greed.”
— Xenophon, Cyrus the Great
Tagged: strategy, Leadership
“The suffering of the leader is lightened by his glory. As much as possible, you must let others share in your glory so they don't lost heart.”
— Xenophon, Xenophon's Cyrus the Great: The Arts of Leadership and War
Tagged: strategy, Leadership
“It is the responsibility of good leaders to make sure that words remain attached to the meanings and ideals they represent.”
— Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc
Tagged: Action, Leadership, Meaning, Theory and Practice
“Leaders create the conditions where people choose new actions. The choices are voluntary. They’re made by people who see a new landscape, new opportunities and new options. You can’t make people change. But you can create an environment where they choose to.”
— Seth Godin, Leadership
Tagged: Leadership, leading
“One thing I’ve learned as a coach is that you can’t force your will on people. If you want them to act differently, you need to inspire them to change themselves.”
— Phil Jackson, Hugh Delehanty, Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success
Tagged: Coaching, Mentoring, Leadership
“If we be good we will do great.
If we do good we will be great.”
— Simon Sinek
Tagged: Greatness, Do Good, Success, Leadership, qualities
“There are leaders and there are those who lead.
Leaders hold a position of power or influence.
Those who lead inspire us.

Whether individuals or organizations, we follow those
who lead not because we have to, but because we want to.
We follow those who lead not for them, but for ourselves.”
— Simon Sinek, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
Tagged: Leadership, qualities, leader, inspire, follow, influence