quotations about leadership
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
GEORGE S. PATTON
"Reflections and Suggestions", War As I Knew It
Leadership is a matter of performance not position. The person who sets a good example in your office is a leader. So is the father who proudly watches his daughter sell Girl Scout cookies in their neighborhood, and the teenager who holds the door open for you in the grocery store, even though his friends are snickering in the background. The best leaders help you move from where you are to where you need to be. Most important, they realize and cultivate the potential in others to be a positive influence regardless of their position.
RANDY PENNINGTON
"Leadership Choices for a Positive Future", Huffington Post, April 26, 2016
You know you're a good leader when people follow you out of curiosity.
COLIN POWELL
"10 Leadership Tenets from Colin Powell", Stanford Graduate School of Business
The first act of leadership is coming to grips with yourself, who you are, where you are, and what is of value to you, and shaping yourself by acts of conscious will into what you want to become.
FENWICK W. ENGLISH
The Art of Educational Leadership
The right man comes at the right time.
ITALIAN PROVERB
Once you've given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject.
FRANK HERBERT
Dune
Leadership is the name that people use to make sense out of complex events and the outcomes of events they otherwise would not be able to explain. In other words, people attribute leadership to certain individuals who are called leaders because people want to believe that leaders cause things to happen rather than have to explain causality by understanding complex social forces or analyzing the dynamic interaction among people, events, and environment.
JOSEPH CLARENCE ROST
Leadership for the Twenty-first Century
Today's leaders find the magic in their players.
STEVE CHANDLER & SCOTT RICHARDSON
100 Ways to Motivate Others
It often happens that less depends upon the valor of an army than the skill of the leader.
ARISTOPHANES
attributed, Day's Collacon
That's what leadership is all about, identifying quality people, giving them the opportunity and experience to create and develop to continue to make the company successful. The best leaders identify and mentor potential leaders. A leader's most important legacy is the leaders he or she develops.
KENNETH E. STRONG & JOHN A. DICICCO
Leadership Is a Choice
He who thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Leading from the Lockers
No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.
ANDREW CARNEGIE
attributed, Managing Software Development Projects: Formula for Success
Leadership in today's world requires far more than a large stock of gunboats and a hard fist at the conference table.
HUBERT H. HUMPHREY
speech in Gainesville, Florida, Oct. 20, 1966
In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.
SHERYL SANDBERG
Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
Leadership is caring for the most vulnerable.
ELIZABETH CARDNO
"Leadership is caring for the most vulnerable", The Hamilton Spectator, April 26, 2016
When the shepherd is a wolf, the flock becomes only so much meat.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVEN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Corrino
A cowardly leader is the most dangerous of men.
STEPHEN KING
Under the Dome
What I want is men who will support me when I am in the wrong.
LORD MELBOURNE
attributed, Lord M.
There are two kinds of leaders: those who are interested in the flock, and those who are interested in the fleece.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Little leading makes much following.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish