Leadership quotes

What some people have had to say about leadership

Leadership is making happen what wouldn’t happen anyway and this always entails working at the edge of what is acceptable

Richard Pascale

Leadership is not rank, privileges, title or money. It is responsibility

Peter Drucker

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

Max DePree

A good leader must be tough enough to win a fight, but not tough enough to kick a man when he is down

WG Bennis and EH Schein

Let us have faith that might makes right, and let us do our duty as we understand it

Abraham Lincoln

Leadership is the art of mobilising others to want to struggle for shared aspirations

James Kouzes and Barry Posner

Is there not a difference between good leaders and leaders for good?

John Lord

The speed of the boss is the speed of the team

Lee Iacocca

A leader is someone who knows what they want to achieve and can communicate that. But you will only succeed if you know what you are doing is right and you know how to bring out the best in people

Margaret Thatcher

Leaders should not be easily provoked

St Paul

You can buy a man’s (person’s) time, you can even buy his physical presence at a given place, but you cannot buy enthusiasm… You cannot buy loyalty… You cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds, or souls.

You must earn these

Charles Frances

The only interesting thing about leadership is the bit we can’t define

George Braque

As you grow, hire people who are smarter than you are and then get them to sell your organization to new clients, not yourself. You cannot do it all

Mark McCormack

One of the simplest and most effective ways of distinguishing between the role of leadership and the function of management is to take authority out of the equation. If the manager did not have the authority to tell people what to do, would they still do what he or she wants them to?

W Goldsmith and D Clutterbuck

Take the course opposite to custom and you will almost always do well

Jean Jacques Rousseau

You will never be a leader unless you first learn to follow and be led

Tiorio

It’s no exaggeration to say that a strong positive self-image is the best possible preparation for leadership in life

Dr. Joyce Brothers

The most self-conscious people in the world are its leaders. They may also be the most anxious and insecure. As men (people) of action, leaders face risks and uncertainty, and often display remarkable courage in shouldering brave responsibility. But beneath their fortitude, there often lies an agonizing sense of doubt and a need to justify themselves

Abraham Zaleznik

A leader is a man (person) who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do and like it

Harry Truman

Coaches who can outline plays on the blackboard are a dime a dozen. The ones who succeed are those who can get inside their players and motivate them

Vince Lombardi

Leaders have a significant role in creating the state of mind that is the society. They can serve as symbols of the moral unity of the society.

They can express the values that hold the society together. Most importantly, they can conceive and articulate goals that lift people out of their petty pre-occupations, carry them above the conflicts that tear a society apart, and unite them in the pursuit of objectives worthy of their best efforts

John Gardner

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing

Albert Schweitzer

Leadership is like the Abominable Snowman, whose footprints are everywhere but who is nowhere to be seen

Bennis & Nanus

There are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept

Stogdill

A leader is best when people barely know that he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. ‘Fail to honour people’ they fail to honour you.’ But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will all say, ‘We did this ourselves’

Lao Tzu, Chinese founder of Taoism

A leader shapes and shares a vision which gives point to the work of others

Charles Handy

Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader

General George S. Patton Jr.

Leaders are individuals who establish direction for a working group of individuals who gain commitment to this direction and who then motivate these members to achieve the direction’s outcomes

JA Conger

If you treat people as they are, they will stay as they are. But if you treat them as they ought to be, they will become bigger and better persons

Goethe

Leadership (according to John Sculley) revolves around vision, ideas, direction, and has more to do with inspiring people as to direction and goals than with day-to-day implementation. A leader must be able to leverage more than his own capabilities. He must be capable of inspiring other people to do things without actually sitting on top of them with a checklist

Warren Bennis

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other

John F. Kennedy

Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy

Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf

Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential

Warren Bennis

Leadership is discovering the company’s destiny and having the courage to follow

Joe Jaworski

Leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less

John Maxwell

Leadership is interpersonal influence, exercised in a situation, and directed, through the communication process, toward the attainment of a specified goal or goals

Tannenbaum, Weschler and Massarik

Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion and a shared vision of the good

Joanne Ciulla

Leadership is the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations

J.M. Kouzes, & B.Z. ‘Posner

Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality

Warren G. Bennis

Leadership requires using power to influence the thoughts and actions  of other people

Abraham Zaleznik

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether th

e ladder is leaning against the right wall

Stephen R. Covey

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss… The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives

President Theodore Roosevelt

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind in others the conviction and will to carry on

Walter Lippman

The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers

Ralph Nadar

The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership

Harvey S. Firestone

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority

Kenneth Blanchard,

The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers

The Drucker Foundation, 1996

You manage things, you lead people

Admiral Grace Murray Hooper

It is not enough to do our best. Sometimes we have to do what is required

Winston Churchill

A leader is the person in a group who directs and coordinates taskoriented group activities

F Fiedler

Leadership is a social process in which one individual influences the behaviour of others without the use of threat or violence

Buchannan and Huczynski

Leadership is about articulating visions, embodying values, and creatingthe environment within which things can be accomplished

Richards and Engle

Leadership is the ability to step outside the culture to start evolutionary change processes that are more adaptive

Edgar Schein

Leadership is the lifting of a man’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a man’s personality beyond its normal limitations

Peter Drucker

Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group in efforts toward goal achievement in a given situation

P Hersey and K Blanchard

Leadership: the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it

President Dwight D Eisenhower

Leadership is all hype. We’ve had three great leaders in this century – Hitler, Stalin and Mao

Peter Drucker