Top 51 Most Powerful Quotes on Leadership

“Leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.” ― Andy Stanley

“Do what is right, not what is easy.” ― Anonymous

“The task of the leader is to get their people from where they are to where they have not been.” ― Henry Kissinger

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

“The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.” ― John Maxwell

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” ― Peter Drucker

“Before you are a leader, success is about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” ― Jack Welch

“One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” ― Arnold Glasow

“I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through–then follow through.” ― Edward Rickenbacker

“A leader is a person you will follow to a place you would not go by yourself.” ― Joel Barker

“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

“The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.” ― Henry Kissinger

“As a leader your every action has a consequence, make sure it is one you intend.” ― Kathrine Bryant

“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

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt

“To add value to others, one must first value others.” ― John Maxwell

“There are no office hours for leaders.” ― Cardinal J. Gibbons

“Leadership is action, not position.” ― Donald H. McGannon

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” ― John Quincy Adams

“There is no investment you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to scatter sunshine and good cheer through your establishment.” ― Orison Swett Marden

“Leaders don’t inflict pain, they share pain.” ― Max Depree

“A leader is someone who demonstrates what’s possible.” ― Mark Yarnell

“Don’t follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.” ― Margaret Thatcher

“The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” ― Harvey S. Firestone

“Leaders instill in their people a hope for success and a belief in themselves. Positive leaders empower people to accomplish their goals.” ― Unknown

“The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” ― Jim Rohn

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” ― Kurt Vonnegut

“Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it.” ― David Star Jordan

“A true leader is one who is humble enough to admit their mistakes.” ― Anonymous

“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“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

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” ― John C. Maxwell

“The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” ― Jim Rohn

“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” ― Warren Bennis

“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

“Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.” ― Seth Godin

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” ― Steve Jobs

“The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.” ― Ray Kroc

“A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.” ― Jim Rohn

“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” ― John F. Kennedy

“A good leader leads the people from above them. A great leader leads the people from within them.” ― M. D. Arnold

“Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.” ― Diogenes of Sinope

“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

“When people talk, listen completely.” ― Ernest Hemingway

“Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.” ― Warren Bennis

“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 Maxwell

“The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.” ― Theodore M. Hesburgh

“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

“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” ― Ralph Nader

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