Leadership Quotes from Famous People


“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” -Jack Welch
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” -John Quincy Adams
“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
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” -John C. Maxwell
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” -Peter Drucker
“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.” -Douglas MacArthur
“A boss has the title, the leader has the people.” -Simon Sinek
“If you think you are leading and turn around to see no one following you, then you are just taking a walk.” -John C. Maxwell
“Leadership is an action, not a position.” -Donald McGannon
“Leadership is influence.” -John C. Maxwell
“Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.” -Bill Bradley
“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
“You manage things; you lead people.” -Grace Murray Hopper
“The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them.” -Carlos Ghosn
“Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.” -Warren G. Bennis
“Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.” -John C. Maxwell
“The task of the leader is to get their people from where they are to where they have not been.” -Henry Kissinger
“Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead.” -Pete Hoekstra
A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see.” -Leroy Eimes
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” -Warren G. Bennis
“There is a difference between being a leader and being a boss. Both are based on authority. A boss demands blind obedience; a leader earns his authority through understanding and trust.” -Klaus Balkenhol
“You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.” -Sam Rayburn
“The supreme quality of leadership is integrity.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.” -Brian Tracy
“The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.” -Tony Blair
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” -John F. Kennedy
“The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.” -Ray Kroc
“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” -Margaret Fuller
“The fastest way to change team culture is to change the leadership.” -Josh Axe
“Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.” -Brian Tracy
“If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself and the organization gets pulled up with you.” -Indra Nooyi
“Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.” -Stephen Covey
“One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” -Arnold Glasow
“A good leader leads the people from above them. A great leader leads the people from within them.” -M. D. Arnold
“The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.” -John C. Maxwell
“Great leaders don’t set out to be a leader, they set out to make a difference. It’s never about the role, it’s always about the goal.” -Lisa Haisha
“The X-factor of great leadership is not personality, it’s humility.” -Jim Collins
“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
“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” -Ralph Nader
“The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.” -John Buchan
“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 single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them.” -John C. Maxwell
“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” -Bill Gates
“You can only lead someone as far as you are willing to go yourself” -Josh Axe
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Winning companies win because they have good leaders who nurture the development of other leaders at all levels of the organization.” -Noel Tichy

“The challenge of leadership is to: be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” -Jim Rohn
“Growing other leaders from the ranks isn’t just the duty of the leader, it’s an obligation.” -Warren G. Bennis
“True leadership is servant leadership. Leaders put the interests of others ahead of their own and look to add value by serving them and meeting their greatest needs.” -Josh Axe

“A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.” -Arnold Glasgow

“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” -Sam Walton
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because they want to do it.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Leadership is like a tree, in order to survive and bear the fruit of success you must have the deep roots of character, convictions, values, and purpose.” -Josh Axe
“Leaders surround themselves with great people, delegate authority, then get out of the way.” -Ronald Reagan
“The most powerful leadership tool you have is your own personal example.” -John Wooden
“The very essence of leadership is casting a vision that people are willing to sacrifice for and then following your lead into seeing that vision become a reality.” -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.” -Josh Axe
“The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” -Lao Tzu
“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.” -Harvey S. Firestone
“The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” -Vince Lombardi
“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.” -Jim Rohn
“If you delegate tasks, you create followers. If you delegate authority, you create leaders.” -Dolly Parton
“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.” -Craig Groeschel
“Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership.” -Steve
“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.” -James Humes
“Servant leadership is all about creating clear goals, then rolling up your sleeves and doing whatever it takes to help your people win.” -Colin Powell
“People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.” -Ken Blanchard
“Earn your leadership every day.” -John C. Maxwell
“Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.” -Michael Jordan
“One of the tests of leadership is to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” -Diogenes of Sinope
“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.” -Arnold Glasgow
“Leaders don’t adapt to the energy in a room, they influence the energy in a room.” -Alexander the Great
“A leader is a dealer in hope.” -Josh Axe
“A leader sees greatness in other people. He nor she can be much of a leader if all she sees is herself.” -Napoleon Bonaparte
“A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader. A great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.” -Maya Angelou
“A genuine leader is not in search of consensus, but a molder of consensus.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” -John C. Maxwell
“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” -Jimmy Dean
“There is little success where there is little laughter.” -Vince Lombardi
“Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent of how I react to it.” -Andrew Carnegie
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” -Charles Swindoll
“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.” -Albert Einstein
“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” -Maya Angelou
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” -William Arthur Ward
“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” -Robert Louis Stevenson
“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” -Albert Einstein
“You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” -Dalai Lama
“Either you run the day, or the day runs you.” -Christopher Columbus
“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” -Jim Rohn
“If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.” -Aristotle
“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” -Sheryl Sandberg
“Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless.” -Joshua J. Marine
“I didn’t fail the test. I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.” -Jamie Paolinetti
“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” -Benjamin Franklin
“You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note.”-Beverly Sills
“The secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven.” -Knute Rockne
“I don’t want yes-men around me. I want everyone to tell the truth, even if it costs them their jobs.” -Samuel Goldwyn
“I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I sure can pick smart colleagues.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Power isn’t control at all ~ power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own.” -Beth Revis
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

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