The Best Quotes About Leadership
I've collected thousands of quotes over the past 10+ years.
Here are the best ones I've found so far about leadership...
“I am more afraid of an army of one hundred sheep led by a lion than an army of one hundred lions led by a sheep.” -Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
"Leadership, it turns out, is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge." -Simon Sinek
“It is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.” -W. Somerset Maugham
"The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves." -Ray Kroc
"Leadership is not a position to earn, it's an inherent power to claim...Leader is not a title that the world gives to you—it's an offering that you give to the world." -Abby Wambach
"Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult." -Warren Bennis
"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
"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." -John F. Kennedy
"Don't tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results." -General George Patton
"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others." -Pericles
"The best leaders help people with more than their jobs...They help them to become better people, not just better workers." -John Maxwell
"Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected." -Steve Jobs
"Brave leaders are never silent around hard things. Our job is to excavate the unsaid." -Brené Brown
"Management is the opportunity to help people become better people. Practiced that way, it's a magnificent profession." -Clayton Christensen
“What we need for leaders are men of heart who are so helpful that they, in effect, do away with the need of their jobs. But leaders like that are never out of a job, never out of followers. Strange as it sounds, great leaders gain authority by giving it away.” -Admiral James B. Stockdale
“As a leader, you’re probably not doing a good job unless your employees can do a good impression of you when you’re not around.” -Patrick Lencioni
“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.” -General Colin Powell
"People get to leadership positions with titles because earlier in their career they were leaders without a title." -Sam Hawgood
“It is not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It is the manager’s job to make it safe to take them.” -Ed Catmull
"I've come to believe that a leader is anyone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes. The term leader has nothing to do with position, status, or number of direct reports." -Brené Brown
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” -General Dwight D. Eisenhower
“The key to becoming an effective leader is not to focus on making other people follow, but on making yourself the kind of person they want to follow.” -John Maxwell
Biographer Bob Thomas shared how Walt Disney once described his job in a funny interaction with a child:
"My role? I was stumped one day when a little boy asked, ‘Do you draw Mickey Mouse?’
I had to admit that I do not draw any more.
‘Then do you think up all the jokes and ideas?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t do that.’
Finally he looked at me and said, ‘Mr. Disney, just what do you do?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘sometimes I think of myself as a little bee. I go from one area of the studio to another and gather pollen and sort of stimulate everybody. I guess that’s the job I do.’”
“Your people won’t mind the heat if you sweat with them, and they won’t mind the cold if you shiver with them.” -Anonymous
“A leader is a dealer in hope.” -Napoleon Bonaparte
"Energy is highly infectious, and negativity feeds on itself. Leaders have a disproportionate impact on the energy of others." -Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz
"Good leaders give their teams a reason why they might want to do things that they want done. Make sure your vision and your goals are not just yours, but theirs too." -Prakash Iyer
"I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential." -Brené Brown
"It's your role and your responsibility as leader to manage and regulate your energy because it's contagious." -Kristin Meek
“I’ve sometimes said that while I might not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, over the years I’ve always thought I was pretty good at getting most of the bulbs to light up.” -Jack Welch
"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
"In any situation, the person who can most accurately describe reality without laying blame will emerge as the leader, whether designated or not." -Edwin Freidman
"It is the role of leadership to maintain a culture of brutal honesty." -Frank Slootman
"Leaders needn't be the loudest. Leadership is not about theater. It's not about dominance. It is about putting the lives of others before any other priority." -Susan Cain
"Leaders who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say." -Andy Stanley
"Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence." -Harvard Business School
"No competitor, no incompetence, and no amount of bad luck will bring down a leader as swiftly and devastatingly as her or his ego." -Bill Robinson
"Leadership is communicating people's worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves.” -Stephen M.R. Covey
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