105 Leadership quotes and sayings to let out the best in you. Here are the best leadership quotes that will give you pointers on how to bring out your best self, leadership sayings to find out what does leaders do, how to one and to achieve your goals, short leadership quotes with positive thoughts about being a leader that you can read for you to learn how to gain the trust, respect, and be able to lead others into the right path of success in life. You can share these inspiring leadership quotes with your friends, family, and loved ones.
1. 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
2. A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see. - Leroy Eimes
3. You don’t lead by hitting people over the head—that’s assault, not leadership. - Dwight Eisenhower
4. He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command. - Niccolò Machiavelli
5. 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.
6. The supreme quality of leadership is integrity. - Dwight Eisenhower
7. If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself and the organization gets pulled up with you. - Indra Nooyi
8. You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too. - Sam Rayburn
9. 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
10. As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others. - Bill Gates
11. A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. - George Patton
12. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful. - Edward R. Murrow
13. The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. - Ralph Nader
14. There are three essentials to leadership: humility, clarity and courage. - Fuchan Yuan
15. You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. - Mark Twain
16. The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing people around a shared vision. - Ken Blanchard
17. A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit. - John Maxwell
18. 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
19. A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops. - John J. Pershing
20. Leadership is unlocking people's potential to become better. - Bill Bradley
21. 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
22. Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths. - John Zenger
23. We live in a society obsessed with public opinion. But leadership has never been about popularity. - Marco Rubio
24. 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
25. Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. - Steve Jobs
26. 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
27. 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
28. 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
29. To have long term success as a coach or in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way. - Pat Riley
30. The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes. - Tony Blair
31. Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned. - Harold Geneen
32. To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult. - Friedrich Nietzsche
33. 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
34. Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand. - Colin Powell
35. The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership. - Harvey Firestone
36. 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
37. Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
38. The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men, the conviction and the will to carry on. - Walter Lippman
39. A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. - Martin Luther King Jr.
40. The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there. - John Buchan
41. One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency. - Arnold Glasow
42. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better. - Harry Truman
43. 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
44. Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow. - Chinese Proverb
45. 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
46. Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out. - Stephen Covey
47. Never give an order that can't be obeyed. - General Douglas MacArthur
48. When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful. - Malala Yousafzai
49. Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want. - Dianne Feinstein
50. Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall. - Stephen Covey
51. If you don’t believe in yourself, why is anyone else going to believe in you. - Tom Brady
52. 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
53. Leadership is the key to 99 percent of all successful efforts. - Erskine Bowles
54. 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
55. Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead. - Pete Hoekstra
56. Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy. - Norman Schwarzkopf
57. 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
58. The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them. - Carlos Ghosn
59. Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise. - Woodrow Wilson
60. Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing. - Tom Peters
61. A person always doing his or her best becomes a natural leader, just by example. - Joe DiMaggio
62. 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
63. Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day. - Jesse Jackson
64. 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
65. 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
66. Lead and inspire people. Don’t try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be led. - Ross Perot
67. A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd. - Max Lucado
68. The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. - William Arthur Ward
69. It is absurd that a man should rule others, who cannot rule himself. - Latin Proverb
70. 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
71. Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others. - Robert Louis Stevenson
72. I am reminded how hollow the label of leadership sometimes is and how heroic followership can be. - Warren Bennis
73. Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen. - Michael Jordan
74. Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. - Harold R. McAlindon
75. Don't necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership. - Donald Rumsfeld
76. We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations. - Chuck Swindoll
77. Doing what is right isn't the problem. It is knowing what is right. - Lyndon B Johnson
78. The leader has to be practical and a realist yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist. - Eric Hoffer
79. Each group and each youngster is different. As a leader or coach, you get to know what they need. - Mike Krzyzewski
80. 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
81. 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
82. True leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed... Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection. - Sheryl Sandberg
83. Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. - Jack Welch
84. People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision. - John C. Maxwell
85. 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
86. Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. - Vince Lombardi
87. Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another. - John C. Maxwell
88. 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
89. Leadership is something you earn, something you’re chosen for. You can’t come in yelling, ‘I’m your leader!’ If it happens, it’s because the other guys respect you. - Ben Roethlisberger
90. Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position. - Brian Tracy
91. A great leader's courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position. - John C. Maxwell
92. Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal. - Walt Disney
93. Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult. - Warren Bennis
94. The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority. - Kenneth Blanchard
95. One of the most important things for any leader is to never let anyone else define who you are. And you define who you are. I never think of myself as being a woman CEO of this company. I think of myself as a steward of a great institution. - Ginni Rometty
96. 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
97. Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it. - David Star Jordan
98. It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. - Bill Gates
99. Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. - Publilius Syrus
100. Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. - Warren Bennis
101. A leader is a person you will follow to a place you would not go by yourself. - Joel Barker
102. Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them. - Diogenes of Sinope
103. 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
104. A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. - John C. Maxwell
105. My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence. - General Montgomery
1. 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
2. A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see. - Leroy Eimes
3. You don’t lead by hitting people over the head—that’s assault, not leadership. - Dwight Eisenhower
4. He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command. - Niccolò Machiavelli
5. 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.
6. The supreme quality of leadership is integrity. - Dwight Eisenhower
7. If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself and the organization gets pulled up with you. - Indra Nooyi
8. You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too. - Sam Rayburn
9. 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
10. As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others. - Bill Gates
11. A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. - George Patton
12. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful. - Edward R. Murrow
13. The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. - Ralph Nader
14. There are three essentials to leadership: humility, clarity and courage. - Fuchan Yuan
15. You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. - Mark Twain
16. The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing people around a shared vision. - Ken Blanchard
17. A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit. - John Maxwell
18. 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
19. A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops. - John J. Pershing
20. Leadership is unlocking people's potential to become better. - Bill Bradley
21. 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
22. Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths. - John Zenger
23. We live in a society obsessed with public opinion. But leadership has never been about popularity. - Marco Rubio
24. 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
25. Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. - Steve Jobs
26. 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
27. 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
28. 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
29. To have long term success as a coach or in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way. - Pat Riley
30. The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes. - Tony Blair
31. Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned. - Harold Geneen
32. To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult. - Friedrich Nietzsche
33. 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
34. Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand. - Colin Powell
35. The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership. - Harvey Firestone
36. 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
37. Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
38. The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men, the conviction and the will to carry on. - Walter Lippman
39. A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. - Martin Luther King Jr.
40. The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there. - John Buchan
41. One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency. - Arnold Glasow
42. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better. - Harry Truman
43. 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
44. Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow. - Chinese Proverb
45. 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
46. Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out. - Stephen Covey
47. Never give an order that can't be obeyed. - General Douglas MacArthur
48. When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful. - Malala Yousafzai
49. Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want. - Dianne Feinstein
50. Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall. - Stephen Covey
51. If you don’t believe in yourself, why is anyone else going to believe in you. - Tom Brady
52. 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
53. Leadership is the key to 99 percent of all successful efforts. - Erskine Bowles
54. 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
55. Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead. - Pete Hoekstra
56. Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy. - Norman Schwarzkopf
57. 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
58. The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them. - Carlos Ghosn
59. Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise. - Woodrow Wilson
60. Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing. - Tom Peters
61. A person always doing his or her best becomes a natural leader, just by example. - Joe DiMaggio
62. 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
63. Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day. - Jesse Jackson
64. 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
65. 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
66. Lead and inspire people. Don’t try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be led. - Ross Perot
67. A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd. - Max Lucado
68. The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. - William Arthur Ward
69. It is absurd that a man should rule others, who cannot rule himself. - Latin Proverb
70. 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
71. Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others. - Robert Louis Stevenson
72. I am reminded how hollow the label of leadership sometimes is and how heroic followership can be. - Warren Bennis
73. Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen. - Michael Jordan
74. Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. - Harold R. McAlindon
75. Don't necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership. - Donald Rumsfeld
76. We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations. - Chuck Swindoll
77. Doing what is right isn't the problem. It is knowing what is right. - Lyndon B Johnson
78. The leader has to be practical and a realist yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist. - Eric Hoffer
79. Each group and each youngster is different. As a leader or coach, you get to know what they need. - Mike Krzyzewski
80. 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
81. 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
82. True leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed... Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection. - Sheryl Sandberg
83. Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. - Jack Welch
84. People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision. - John C. Maxwell
85. 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
86. Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. - Vince Lombardi
87. Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another. - John C. Maxwell
88. 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
89. Leadership is something you earn, something you’re chosen for. You can’t come in yelling, ‘I’m your leader!’ If it happens, it’s because the other guys respect you. - Ben Roethlisberger
90. Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position. - Brian Tracy
91. A great leader's courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position. - John C. Maxwell
92. Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal. - Walt Disney
93. Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult. - Warren Bennis
94. The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority. - Kenneth Blanchard
95. One of the most important things for any leader is to never let anyone else define who you are. And you define who you are. I never think of myself as being a woman CEO of this company. I think of myself as a steward of a great institution. - Ginni Rometty
96. 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
97. Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it. - David Star Jordan
98. It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. - Bill Gates
99. Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. - Publilius Syrus
100. Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. - Warren Bennis
101. A leader is a person you will follow to a place you would not go by yourself. - Joel Barker
102. Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them. - Diogenes of Sinope
103. 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
104. A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. - John C. Maxwell
105. My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence. - General Montgomery