Quotes About Leadership

most of us persist in regarding leadership as synonymous with - indeed solely derived from - high position. Perhaps the notion of grass-roots leadership strikes us as too much of an oxymoron; confronted with apparent paradox, our imaginations fail. ... I believe that in the future, our ideas about the nature of leadership will undergo a radical transformation. As the instrumental use of knowledge continues to redefine the nature and purpose of organizations, we will begin to look at those on the front lines for leadership.

The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership.... a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures.

We think leadership is about rank and power, but better to think of leadership as the responsibility for other human beings. That leadership and rank may not go together. So it manifests in this remarkable way.

Intelligence we gathered at the time indicated that this was in fact leadership and we struck the leadership.

By leadership, I mean taking complete responsibility for an organization's well-being and growth, and changing it for the better. Real leadership is not about prestige, power or status. It is about responsibility.

If you think that running your economy into the ground and having to send troops in in order to prop up your only ally is leadership, then we've got a different definition of leadership.

Leadership - leadership is about taking responsibility, not making excuses.

I speak directly to the people, and I know that the people of California want to have better leadership. They want to have great leadership. They want to have somebody that will represent them. And it doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican, young or old.

Whats happening in America today is parents are emphasizing their relationship with their children instead of leadership. Anyone in leadership will tell you you cannot have a warm, fuzzy relationship with someone youre in charge of leading.

There are no ideas in the Republican Party right now in the Congress. They're the party of no. They desperately need some intellectual leadership. And whatever you think of Newt Gingrich, he can supply intellectual leadership. So I hope he does run.

I think any genuine leader today has to learn leadership the hard way-by doing it. That means embracing turbulence and crisis, not avoiding it. It means "flying through the thunderstorm." That's not to say that there are no basic principles to orient you to the challenge. Indeed, I describe some in the book. But there are no simple recipes. Until you have lived it, you don't really know how to do it. That's what I mean by "leadership the hard way."

We are moving away from the old idea of leadership - leadership has less to do (now) with heroism. We don't look for... unblemished omnipotent heroes, but leaders who are complex, dependent, changeable... We do not need one dominant authority structure telling all our inner voices to shut up.

I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership in the world, to explore, to seek knowledge.

The political structure in different countries has different origins, different developments. Something which suits one country extremely well would perhaps fail completely in another. Germany, through the long centuries of monarchy, has always had a leadership principle. ... The position of the Catholic Church rests now, as before, on the clear leadership principle of its hierarchy. And I think I can also say that of Russia, too.

Good leadership is pervasive, persuasive, and persistent. Bad leadership is poisoned with pedanticism, posturing, self-importance.

I often ask myself: "What would Theodore Roosevelt do?" One can never know, of course. The ultimate contribution of consequential leaders is often their capacity to reframe issues in novel ways. That said, his leadership engaged, at a foundational level, whether the American "national character" would accept decline and mediocrity, or would go all-in for leadership and excellence. Amid the myriad of otherwise disconnected issues before us, that choice is emerging yet again.

Leadership is a group project, and all of us are necessary to fill it. Wise leaders will realize this and encourage their groups to develop their own evolving leadership potential.

Leadership is about going somewhere. If you and your people don’t know where you are going, your leadership doesn’t matter.

For decades, people right, left, and center complained that the presidency is too powerful. Trump's administration is shrinking the presidency. The president has less and less influence over Congress. This president is not fulfilling the usual role of the president in being the moral leader and the spokesman for the country. He's just not being looked to for leadership.

The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. Thats the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.

Character is more important than any other leadership trait.

Management is the process of assuring that the program and objectives of the organization are implemented. Leadership on the other hand has to do with casting vision and motivating people.

The truth is you cannot command the respect of the world when you spend years apologizing to our enemies and abandoning our friends. Lecturing the American people about the Crusades while refusing to call Islamic extremism by name is an abdication of leadership.

If you don't understand that you work for your mislabeled 'subordinates,' then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny.

California will not wait for our federal government to take strong action on global warming. We won't wait for the federal government. We will move forward because we know it's the right thing to do. We will lead on this issue and we will get other western states involved. I think there's not great leadership from the federal government when it comes to protecting the environment.

It's not leadership by position that allows people to succeed; it's the capacity to influence the thoughts, the feelings, the emotions, and the actions of other human beings.

I'm the CEO of a small growing company, and at each stage of our growth, it's become apparent to me that I need to adapt my leadership style and learn new approaches. When I completed the assessment, asking my own team to provide feedback on the 15 qualities of presence, I learned a lot about the leader I have yet to become.

We need to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation. We have lost our way. And it begins with inspiration. It begins with leadership.

American leadership looks to the world and just as Lincoln did sees the family of man. Humanity is not a zero-sum game.

We will certainly be focused on making sure that the prosperity we have been able to accomplish in the past 8 years under the leadership of Mr. [Barack] Obama, continues.

I think you have a deeply anxious leadership in China that knows its legitimacy is drifting away, that’s sending its [personal] money and its children abroad because they have no faith in the future of their own regime.

Bill Clinton gives the appearance of taking stands-for some sort of tax cut, some sort of welfare reform, some sort of balanced budget-but these are ploys, mirages: they exist only to undermine positions taken by the Republicans. He doesn't fight for anything substantive-except of course, re-election. ...He has fallen into the dangerous habit of lip synching the presidency: he gives the appearance of leadership, but not the substance.

Great literature is like moral leadership; everyone deplores the lack of it, but there is a tendency to prefer it from the safely dead.

It is not easy to build a great brand. It takes leadership to persuade the rest of the company to follow your vision. It takes an artistic sense of proportion and timing. It takes a ruthless willingness to distinguish yourself from competing brands and, hopefully, bury them in the process.

[T]here's a difference between confident leadership and empty-headed delusion or cheerleading. And this is a difference that many CEOs miss.

I'm the first secretary of defense that's had to deal with sequestration. I've prepared two budgets that deal with sequestration. And you bring the chiefs together, the leadership of this enterprise together, to work through, how do we then take these cuts? Where do we apply those cuts? Readiness is the first thing that suffers.

His peaceful resistance shook the foundations of an empire, exposed the emptiness of a repressive ideology, and proved that moral leadership is more powerful than any weapon.

I see some parallels [with Barack Obama] but I don't see the leadership that this guy [John F.Kennedy] had of other men and women. It's more than being the smartest guy in room.

But after about a year praying, there was just this clear direction. The leadership team believed that God was leading us to focus on fatherhood. If God is leading, then God will provide. So we begin to get storyline ideas that lined up with the subject of fatherhood that we're working on and fitting, and we were thinking, okay this is good. At the same time, as we are studying scriptures and we're on our journey as fathers, we are learning about fatherhood every day.

I founded the King Hussein Foundation after my husband's death in 1999, to build on his humanitarian vision and legacy in the country and abroad, through programs promoting education and leadership, economic empowerment, tolerance, cross-cultural dialogue, and media that enhances mutual understanding and respect among different cultures across conflict lines.

The man of leadership caliber will work while others waste time, study while others sleep, pray while others play. There will be no place for loose or lazy habits in word or thought, deed or dress. He will observe a soldierly discipline, diet and deportment, so that he may wage a good warfare.

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.

In short, we needed to shift our thinking and teaching about values-driven leadership from asking the question "What is the right thing to do?" to asking and answering the question "Once I know what I believe is right, how do I get it done?"

Leadership is about moving people from where they are to where you hope they'll go.

The ghost caliphate will be a virtual organization; it'll be decentralised, with no leadership, and it will just encourage people to keep acting now that the caliphate's gone, that individuals should go do self-starting jihad. Get a gun, get an improvised weapon, take your car, and carry out the jihad.

Vivacity, leadership, must be had, and we are not allowed to be nice in choosing. We must fetch the pump with dirty water, if clean cannot be had.

I recognize we will pay more attention when we have different leadership.

While it's good that we maintain high standards for companies seeking to claim environmental leadership, I can't help but ponder the hypocrisy of it all: how much more we expect of companies than of ourselves.