quotations about leadership
The real leader has no need to lead -- he is content to point the way.
HENRY MILLER
The Wisdom of the Heart
Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50 percent of your time leading yourself--your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20 percent leading those with authority over you and 15 percent leading your peers. If you don't understand that you work for your mislabeled 'subordinates,' then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny.
DEE HOCK
attributed, 100 Ways to Motivate Others
Woe to the country which hath lost its leader; woe to the ship when its captain is no more.
TALMUD
Man, like all other animals of a gregarious nature, is more inclined to follow than to lead. There are few who are endued with that impetus of soul which prompts them to stand foremost as leaders in the storming of the breach, whether it be of a fortress of stone, or the more dangerous one of public opinion, when failure in the one case may precipitate them on the sword, and in the other consign them to the scaffold.
FREDERICK MARRYAT
King's Own
Life is the leader's laboratory, and exemplary leaders use it to conduct as many experiments as possible. Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, learn. That's the leader's mantra. Leaders are learners. They learn from their failures as well as their successes, and they make it possible for others to do the same.
JAMES M. KOUZES & BARRY Z. POSNER
The Leadership Challenge
Leadership is evoking in others the capacity to dream.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Leadership Gold
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY
attributed, Managing Innovation, Design and Creativity
The multitude who require to be led, still hate their leaders.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
If you're a leader, you don't push wet spaghetti, you pull it.
BILL MAULDIN
The Brass Ring
A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice.
JAMES CALLAGHAN
The Harvard Business Review, Nov. 1, 1986
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.
DANIEL GOLEMAN, RICHARD BOYATZIS & ANNIE MCKEE
Primal Leadership
Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.
ALAN KEITH
attributed, The Leadership Challenge
Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.
COLIN POWELL
The Powell Principles
Leadership is about creating the future, not predicting it.
MARSHALL SASHKIN & MOLLY G. SASHKIN
Leadership that Matters
People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Developing the Leader Within You
Leadership is taken, not given.
LOUISE STERLING & SUE DAVIDOFF
The Courage to Lead
Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
The Power of Leadership
If the experience of leadership is like being at the edge of an unfamiliar chasm, the act of leadership is building a bridge across that chasm.
KEVIN CASHMAN
Leadership from the Inside Out
And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
BIBLE
Matthew 15:14
True leaders understand that leadership is not about them but about those they serve. It is not about exalting themselves but about lifting others up.
SHERI L. DEW
Saying It Like It Is