It seems to be so encouraging to read leadership quotes, especially when we are told to be a leader ourselves. Trust us, it is not easy to become a leader—a good leader, to be exact. Sometimes, when people are talking about their boss, they tend to ‘map’ their boss as a bossy-boss or a true leader. And many times, bosses fail to be a good leader.
Well, leadership is one thing that must be consistently learned and implemented. Otherwise, what you get from hundreds of leadership quotes won’t be enough to teach you. Quotes of leadership can be truly encouraging, but at the same time, it is hard to implement.
Leadership, according to Wikipedia, can be described as a practical skill in which it encompasses the ability of someone, an group of people, or an organization to ‘lead’, persuade, and guide other people, other groups, and/or an entire organization.
Many quotes about leadership mentioned about the features of a great leader. Some of them will be mentioned as follows.
- Clear communicator – without an adept skill in communication, someone is hard to tell as a great leader. Communication requires you to have various skills ranging from listening and speaking, and all of these must be learned to be a great communicator. This, indeed, won’t be solved by reading leader quotes
- Focus on team needs and interests – a great leader puts the team as number one. You may have seen this in many quotes on leadership—and this can be hard for everyone. A great leader facilitates the team to do better in their job, not tell them to do so.
- Inspire and encourage the team – leaders are great examples for the rest of the team. Well, everyone is not perfect, and leaders have, too. But in terms of work, leaders must provide the team inspiration. Encouragement comes next as something that many leaders provide for the team.
Leadership Quotes Inspiration
Are you being promoted now and must supervise a team? Well, don’t be afraid and show that you are capable of being a great leader. Leadership quote can help you to be a great leader, but what speaks better than implementation?
“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” —Jack Welch, American business executive, chemical engineer, and writer
“You don’t need a title to be a leader.” —Unknown
When people talk, listen completely. – Ernest Hemingway
Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work. – Seth Godin
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 price of greatness is responsibility. – Winston Churchill
Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. – Margaret Fuller
A good leader leads the people from above them. A great leader leads the people from within them. – M.D. Arnold
One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency. – Arnold Glasow
Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems. – Brian Tracy
Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway. – Eleanor Roosevelt
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet. – Theodore Hesburgh
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
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
The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes. – Tony Blair
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
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. – Winston Churchill
It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. – Bill Gates
“Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it’s not. It takes patience, it takes commitment and it comes with plenty of failure along the way.” – Barack Obama
“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
“More leaders have been made by accident, circumstance, sheer grit, or will than have been made by all the leadership courses put together.” – Warren Bennis
“It is well to respect the leader. Learn from him. Observe him. Study him. But don’t worship him. Believe you can surpass. Believe you can go beyond. Those who harbor the second-best attitude are invariably second-best doers.” – David J. Schwartz
The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership. – Harvey S. Firestone
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
That said, not only you should learn of being a great leader, but you also need to keep practicing. By keep practicing, the features of a great leader can be instilled deeper into your mind, making it as a habit, and turning it as an unconscious act. Doesn’t it sound better than great leadership quotes?
Best Leadership Quotes – Leadership Quotes Examples
If you think you need piles of famous leadership quotes, you can simply scroll the page and save the quotes for future use. Make it as something you can refer to when it comes to becoming a great leader for your team.
“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, anthropologist
“The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.” —Padmasree Warrior, CEO & founder of Fable
“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, philosopher and writer
A leader is a dealer in hope.” —Napoleon Bonaparte, French military and political leader
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” —John Maxwell, author, speaker, and pastor
“Leadership should be more participative than directive, more enabling than performing.” —Mary D. Poole, author
“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence, and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.” —Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook
“Rarely are opportunities presented to you in a perfect way. In a nice little box with a yellow bow on top. ‘Here, open it, it’s perfect. You’ll love it.’ Opportunities – the good ones – are messy, confusing and hard to recognize. They’re risky. They challenge you.” —Susan Wojcicki, CEO of Youtube
“The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born—that there is a genetic factor to leadership. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.” —Warren Bennis, American scholar, organizational consultant, and author
“Leadership is about the team – the culture they keep and embrace; it’s about empathy for your customers, clients, employees and the communities where you do business; it’s about doing the right thing for the right reasons, being confident enough to take risks and responsible enough to think of those who your decisions and risks may affect.” —Kat Cole, COO & President of FOCUS Brands
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” —Muriel Strode, poet
“Leadership is the ability to guide others without force into a direction or decision that leaves them still feeling empowered and accomplished.” —Lisa Cash Hanson, author and entrepreneur
“Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good.” —Joanne Ciulla, author and educator
“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, American writer, and activist
“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, American entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker
“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, American editor and journalist
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” —John Quincy Adams, former U.S. President
“Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.” —Bill Bradley, American politician and former professional basketball player
“As a leader, it’s a major responsibility on your shoulders to practice the behavior you want others to follow.” —Himanshu Bhatia, CEO of Chesterfield
“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, author
“I learned to always take on things I’d never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist.” —Ginni Rometty, Executive Chairman of IBM
“Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good.” —Joanne Ciulla, American philosopher
“Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want.” —Dianne Feinstein, Senior United States Senator
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” —Steve Jobs, chairman of Apple
“Leadership is not about men in suits. It is a way of life for those who know who they are and are willing to be their best to create the life they want to live.” —Kathleen Schafer, CEO of Human Being Store
“I believe in a quiet, strong and grounded leadership. I think some of the best leaders are those whose work is widely known and respected but who, themselves, are relatively unknown.” —Rachael Chong, founder and CEO of Catchafire
“If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.” —Thomas Aquinas, Italian philosopher
“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, entrepreneur and author
“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, Executive Chairman of IBM
“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
“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, quarterback, Pittsburgh Steelers
“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
“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
“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
“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.” —Mahatma Gandhi, Indian Independence Movement leader
“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
“Leaders don’t force people to follow – they invite them on a journey.” —Charles S. Lauer, author and businessman
“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” —George Patton, general in the United States Army
“A good leader must hate the wrong thing more than they hate the pain of doing the right thing.” —Angela Jiang, product manager
“In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.” —Sheryl Sandberg, American business executive, billionaire, and philanthropist
“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” —William Arthur Ward, writer
“You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.” —Steve Jobs, chairman of Apple
“Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.” —Tina Fey, actress, comedian, and writer
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” —Stephen R. Covey, American educator
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for 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
“Good leaders build products. Great leaders build cultures. Good leaders deliver results. Great leaders develop people. Good leaders have vision. Great leaders have values. Good leaders are role models at work. Great leaders are role models in life.” —Adam Grant, American psychologist and author
“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” —Lao Tzu, philosopher and writer
“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” —Warren Buffett, investor
“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, revolutionary, statesman, and philanthropist
“Leadership distilled down to 3 words: Make a difference.” —Robin Sharma, Canadian writer
“The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones.” —Brandon Sanderson, author
“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” —Peter F. Drucker, Austrian-American management consultant, educator, and author
“Leading people is the most challenging and, therefore, the most gratifying undertaking of all human endeavors.” —Jocko Willink, American author, podcaster, and retired United States Navy Officer
“No leader sets out to be a leader. People set out to live their lives, expressing themselves fully. When that expression is of value, they become leaders. So the point is not to become a leader. The point is to become yourself, to use yourself completely – all your skills, gifts and energies – in order to make your vision manifest. You must withhold nothing. You must, in sum, become the person you started out to be, and to enjoy the process of becoming.” —Warren Bennis, American scholar, organizational consultant, and author
“Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal.” —E. Joseph Cossman, inventor and businessman
“As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.” —Toni Morrison, author
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French writer, poet, and aristocrat
“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, Austrian-American management consultant, educator, and author
“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
“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
“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
“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.” —Chuck Swindoll, Christian pastor and radio preacher
“True leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed… Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection.” —Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook
“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
“Outstanding leaders go out of the way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” —Sam Walton, founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club
“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, former U.S. President
“The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first.” —Iyanla Vanzant, American inspirational speaker, author, and lawyer
“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, musician
“‘Restore connection’ is not just for devices, it is for people too. If we cannot disconnect, we cannot lead.” —Arianna Huffington, founder & CEO, Thrive Global
“We need to accept that we don’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes. Understand that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.” —Arianna Huffington, founder & CEO, Thrive Global
“A cowardly leader is the most dangerous of men.” —Stephen King, author
“Leadership is a series of behaviors rather than a role for heroes.” —Margaret Wheatley, writer, teacher, and speaker
“Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else.” —Sara Blakely, founder & CEO of Spanx
“You have to look at your career and personal life at the big-picture level: it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Doing that helps me feel OK during the weeks when one part of my life overwhelms the other.” —Joanna Horsnail, partner at Mayer Brown LLP
“If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.” —Maya Angelou, civil rights activist and poet
“The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.” —Tony Blair, British politician
“A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.” —Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, German poet, playwright, and novelist
“I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” —Ralph Nader, American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney
“Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.” —Brian Tracy, Canadian-American motivational public speaker
“One of the criticisms I’ve faced over the years is that I’m not aggressive enough or assertive enough or maybe somehow, because I’m empathetic, it means I’m weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong.” —Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand
“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, British Army Officer
“It’s okay to admit what you don’t know. It’s okay to ask for help. And it’s more than okay to listen to the people you lead – in fact, it’s essential.” —Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors
And that doesn’t mean you cannot share the good words with your colleagues! Sharing the inspirational leadership quotes will help others be good leader as well—at least for themselves. So, no longer you will find bossy boss in your workplace. Doesn’t it sound like a great idea?