“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.” – Malala Yousafzai, activist
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – President John Quincy Adams, former U.S. President
“If you want to make enemies, try to change something.”– Woodrow Wilson, former U.S. President
“I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.” – Alexander the Great, former king of Macedonia
“In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skilful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.” – Harry Truman, former U.S. President
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – President Abraham Lincoln, former U.S. President
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” – Winston Churchill, former British Prime Minister
“Leadership is an action, not a position.” – Donald McGannon
“One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about others.” – Jack Welch
“Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.” – Tom Peters
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams
Leadership Quotes for Work
“Knowing what must be done does away with fear.” – Rosa Parks, civil rights activist
“Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground”. – Theodore Roosevelt, former U.S. President
“Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you’re in control, they’re in control.” – Tom Landry, former Dallas Cowboys coach
“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” – Ronald Reagan, former U.S. President
“It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.” – Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State
“A person always doing his or her best becomes a natural leader, just by example.” – Joe DiMaggio, former New York Yankees outfielder & Hall of Fame Baseball Player
“The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.” ― Henry Kissinger, former U.S. National Security Advisor and Secretary of State
“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.” – Gen. Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State
“A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” – Rosalynn Carter, former first lady of the United States
“To be a leader, you have to make people want to follow you, and nobody wants to follow someone who doesn’t know where he is going.” – Joe Namath, former New York Jets quarterback
“If you don’t believe in yourself, why is anyone else going to believe in you.” – Tom Brady, New England Patriots quarterback
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” – John F. Kennedy, former U.S. President
“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” – Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights activist
“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.” – Mahatma Gandhi, Indian independence movement leader
“A leader is a dealer in hope.” – Napoleon Bonaparte, French military leader and emperor
“If ‘leadership’ has come to be known as something much bigger than us, aligned to changing the world, then we are spending way too much time celebrating things that hardly anyone can do and not celebrating things we can do every day.”- Drew Dudley, founder of Day One Leadership
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” —Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father and former U.S. President
“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.” – John Kenneth Galbraith, economist and diplomat
“A leader. . .is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” – Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa
“You don’t need a title to be a leader.” – Mark Sanborn
“Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.” – Stephen Covey
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs
“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.” – Martin Luther King
“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” – Ronald Reagan
“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” – Jack Welch
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” – John F. Kennedy
“A leader is a dealer in hope.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
“If you can’t swallow your pride, you can’t lead. Even the highest mountain had animals that step on it.” – Jack Weatherford
“There is a troublesome humor some men have, that if they may not lead, they will not follow; but had rather a thing were never done, than not done their own way, tho’ other ways very desirable.” – William Penn, early Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania
“I think one of the keys to leadership is recognizing that everybody has gifts and talents. A good leader will learn how to harness those gifts toward the same goal.” – Ben Carson, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” – Mark Twain, writer
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou, poet and civil rights activist
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein, physicist
“Success isn’t about how much money you make; it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.” – Michelle Obama, former First Lady of the United States
“I learned that things are never as complicated as we imagine them to be. It is only our arrogance which seeks to find complicated answers to simple problems.” – Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize Winner
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle, Greek philosopher
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet and essayist
Leadership Quotes for Students
“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.” – Edward R. Murrow, American broadcast journalist
“To lead people, walk beside them. As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence … When the best leader’s work is done, the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!’” – Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher
“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” – Leonardo da Vinci, scientist, artist, astronomer, and mathematician
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” – Amelia Earhart, American aviation pioneer
“If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.” – Dolly Parton, singer and songwriter
“The best is he who calls men to the best. And those who heed the call are also blessed. But worthless who call not, heed not, but rest.” – Hesiod, 8th Century BC Greek poet
“High sentiments always win in the end, The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.” – George Orwell, author and journalist
“He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.” – Niccolò Machiavelli, philosopher and writer
“If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself and the organization gets pulled up with you.” – Indra Nooyi, Pepsi CEO
“Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead.” – Pete Hoekstra
“I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” – Ralph Nader
“Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter does not understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.” – Albert Einstein
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – Barack Obama, former U.S. President
“There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.” – Indira Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India
“The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.” – Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
“Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, former U.S. President
“Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas?” – Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
“Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership.” –James Humes
“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.” –Woodrow Wilson
“A good leader leads the people from above them. A great leader leads the people from within them.” –M.D. Arnold
“Don’t follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.” –Margaret Thatcher
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” –Kurt Vonnegut
“Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.” –Seth Godin
“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” –Ronald Reagan
“To add value to others, one must first value others.” –John Maxwell
“A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.” –Douglas MacArthur
“The task of the leader is to get their people from where they are to where they have not been.” –Henry Kissinger
“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them become what they are capable of being.” –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.” –Mahatma Gandhi
“There are no office hours for leaders.” –Cardinal J. Gibbons
“When people talk, listen completely.” –Ernest Hemingway
“I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through–then follow through.” –Edward Rickenbacker
“One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” –Arnold Glasow
“The important thing is this: to be able to give up in any given moment all that we are for what we can become.” –DeSeaux
“The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.” –Ray Kroc
“Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway.” –Eleanor Roosevelt
“I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.” –Herbert Swope
Leadership Quotes by Famous People
“True leadership lies in guiding others to success–in ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well.” –Bill Owens
“Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.” –Warren Bennis
“Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it.” –David Star Jordan
“Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50 percent of your time in 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.” –Dee Hock
“Leaders don’t inflict pain, they share pain.” –Max Depree
“Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.” –Diogenes of Sinope
“The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” –Harvey S. Firestone
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right thing.” –Peter F. Drucker
“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” –Ralph Nader
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” –Warren G. Bennis
“There exist limitless opportunities in every industry. Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.” –Charles F. Kettering
“A leader is a person you will follow to a place you would not go by yourself.” –Joel Barker
“A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.” –Arnold Glasow
“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes.” –Peter F. Drucker
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” –John Maxwell
“Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.” –Brian Tracy
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” –Dwight D. Eisenhower
“The things we fear most in organizations–fluctuations, distubances, imbalances–are the primary sources of creativity.” –Margaret Wheatley
“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
“A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” –Rosalynn Carter
“The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.” –Tony Blair
“The price of greatness is responsibility.” –Winston Churchill
“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” –Martin Luther King Jr.
“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” –Margaret Fuller
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” –Margaret Mead
“The highest of distinctions is service to others.” –King George VI
“If you’re not sure where you are going, you’re liable to end up someplace else.” –Robert F. Mager
“Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.” –Publilius Syrus
“Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.” –Brian Tracy
“You manage things; you lead people.” –Grace Murray Hopper
“A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.” –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.” –John C. Maxwell
“People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.” –John C. Maxwell
“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” –Jack Welch
“Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” –Peter F. Drucker
“Doing what is right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what is right.” –Lyndon B Johnson
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” –Winston Churchill
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” –Harold R. McAlindon
“Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” –Robert Louis Stevenson
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” –Edith Wharton
“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” –William Arthur Ward
“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.” –Vince Lombardi
Leadership Quotes About Change
“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
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” –Eleanor Roosevelt
“You take people as far as they will go, not as far as you would like them to go.” –Jeanette Rankin
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” –John F. Kennedy
“The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them.” –Carlos Ghosn
“Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead.” –Pete Hoekstra
“Average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire others to raise their own bar.” –Orrin Woodward
“To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
“Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want.” –Dianne Feinstein
“Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.” –Stephen Covey
“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.” –John Kenneth Galbraith
“The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.” –John Buchan
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” –Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.” –Colin Powell
“Anyone, anywhere can make a positive difference.” – Mark Sanborn
“The secret of leadership is simple: Do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there. People will follow.” – Seth Godin
“A leader is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” – Nelson Mandela
“Efficiency is doing the thing right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.” – Peter F. Drucker
“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do, and let them surprise you with their results.” – George Patton
“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” – William Arthur Ward
“Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.” – Colin Powell
“A leader is not an administrator who loves to run others, but someone who carries water for his people so that they can get on with their jobs.” –Robert Townsend
“Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.” –Harold Geneen
“Look over your shoulder now and then to be sure someone’s following you.” –Henry Gilmer
“Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not ‘making friends and influencing people,’ that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” –Peter F. Drucker
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” –Steve Jobs
“Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths.” –John Zenger
“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” –John D. Rockefeller
“Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.” –Bill Bradley
“The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing people around a shared vision.” –Ken Blanchard
“The supreme quality of leadership is integrity.” –Dwight D. Eisenhower
“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” -Ralph Nader
“Earn your leadership every day.” –Michael Jordan
“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” –Bill Gates
“You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.” –Sam Rayburn
“Those who let things happen usually lose to those who make things happen.” –Dave Weinbaum
“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” –Eleanor Roosevelt
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”–Abraham Lincoln
“Leadership is an ever-evolving position.” –Mike Krzyzewski
“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” –Nancy D. Solomon
“Leadership is an action, not a position.” –Donald McGannon
“Don’t tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” –George S. Patton Jr.
“Whatever you are, be a good one.” –Abraham Lincoln
“A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see.” –Leroy Eimes
“The most effective way to lead is to lead from within.” –(could not help myself) Lolly Daskal
“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” —Dalai Lama
“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” —Albert Einstein
“Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” —George Addair
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” —Helen Keller
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” —Michael Jordan
Leadership Quotes About Teamwork
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” —Henry Ford
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.” —John C. Maxwell
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.” —Mother Teresa
“Nothing will work unless you do.” —Maya Angelou
“A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.” —Arnold H. Glasow
“The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.” —Ray Kroc
“Average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire others to raise their own bar.” —Orrin Woodward
“The challenge of leadership is to be strong but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” —Jim Rohn
“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” — William Arthur Ward
“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.”—Eleanor Roosevelt
“Don’t find fault, find a remedy.” —Henry Ford
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” —Maya Angelou
“My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.” —Steve Jobs
“Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.” —Bill Bradley
“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” —George Patton
“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” —Bob Dylan
“Think little goals and expect little achievements. Thing big goals and win big success.” —David Joseph Schwartz
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” —Albert Einstein
“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” —Ayn Rand
“Do or do not. There is no try.” —Yoda
Leadership Quotes About Trust
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” —Les Brown
“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.” —Plutarch
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” —Theodore Roosevelt
“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” —Napoleon Hill
“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” —Henry Ford
“Leadership is a choice, not a position.” —Stephen Covey
“The key to successful leadership is influence, not authority.” – Kenneth H. Blanchard
“My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.” – Steve Jobs
“Leadership is a series of behaviors rather than a role for heroes.” – Margaret Wheatley
“Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
