Quotes About Leadership

Leadership can't be claimed like luggage at the airport. Leadership can't be inherited, even though you may inherit a leadership position. And leadership can't be given as a gift - even if you've been blessed with an abundance of leadership skills to share with someone else. Leadership must be earned by mastering a defined set of skills and by working with others to achieve common goals.

Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart. Leadership is about inspiration-of oneself and of others. Great leadership is about human experiences, not processes. Leadership is not a formula or a program, it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. It is an attitude, not a routine.

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.

Management is clearly different from leadership. Leadership is primarily a high-powered, right-brain activity. It's more of an art it's based on a philosophy. You have to ask the ultimate questions of life when you're dealing with personal leadership issues.

People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.

Leadership that exploits and sacrifices young people on the altar of its goals is nothing more than raw, demonic power. Genuine leadership is found in ceaseless efforts to foster young people, to pave the way forward for them.

Leadership starts with understanding responsibility, not ability. Leadership is a Stewardship, not a show.

The Leadership Training Institute of America is a cultural think tank providing training and opportunity in leadership development and cultural dynamics.

Character in many ways is everything in leadership. It is made up of many things, but I would say character is really integrity. When you delegate something to a subordinate, for example, it is absolutely your responsibility, and he must understand this. You as a leader must take complete responsibility for what the subordinate does. I once said, as a sort of wisecrack, that leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.

I have a different vision of leadership. A leadership is someone who brings people together.

The single biggest barrier to effective leadership is, in my view, the leadership industry itself. Instead of telling people the skills and behaviors they need to be effective in getting things done, we tell them almost the opposite - blandishments about how we wish people would be, and how we wish workplaces were. That information is worse than useless as, to the extent people believe it, they often wind up losing their jobs.

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.

Theodore Roosevelt regarded leadership as his one gift, the area in which he might be considered to possess genius. He presented his views on leadership throughout his voluminous writings. He intended for future writers to study them with an eye toward action, as he himself had done of historic figures.

The leader builds dispersed and diverse leadership - distributing leadership to the outermost edges of the circle to unleash the power of shared responsibility.

Too often when people think of their journey into leadership, they envision a career path. What they should be thinking about is their own leadership development!

Listening is not a displacement for leadership. You have to have leadership.

Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less...titles don't have much value when it comes to leading. True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned, it comes only from influence, and that cannot be mandated. It must be earned.

The purpose of leadership is not to make the present bearable. The purpose of leadership is to make the future possible.

People are selfish. But they can also be compassionate and generous, and they care about the country. But not when they feel threatened. That’s why this is such a crucial time. We can go in either direction. But if we don’t make a choice soon, it will be too late to turn things around. I think people are willing to make the right choice. But they need leadership. They’re hungry for leadership.

The CEO's job is always about leadership. It's about leadership in a vision, in terms of where you're going, it's about making sure that you have the right organization and staff, and that you have kind of clearly communicated what some of the plays are and what some of the goals are in terms of the business and how do you organize together in order to make that happen.

People don't just show up and lie down in the middle of the street some place out of nothing. Somebody said meet me there, let's get together, and let's do this thing. The interesting thing is that we don't know who all of the leaders of these groups are, but we know that they're out there, and we know a new group of leadership is being created. It shows you that leadership can come from anywhere.

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.

With leadership the question at the beginning of the day is, 'how far can we take this...how big can we grow it...and how fast can we get there?'

On the security front, the United States must continue to play a leadership role. There simply is not another country in the world that commands the respect or has the capabilities that we do, and we must not shrink from our responsibilities.

Spiritual leadership is the power to change the atmosphere by one's presence, the unconscious influence that makes Christ and spiritual things real to others.

If leadership requires a fired-up sense of purpose and imagination, it also demands a profound connection to the society to be led.

The height of ability in the least able consists in knowing how to submit to the good leadership of others.

American leadership is essential.

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.

The courage of leadership is giving others the chance to succeed even though you bear the responsibility for getting things done.

Coaching will become the model for leaders in the future... I am certain that leadership can be learned and that terrific coaches... facilitate learning.

I haven't always recruited for the best talent. I've taken a few guys who would fit for different reasons. Leadership. Toughness

I think, for one, the LGBTQ community is just a paragon of leadership, of standing up and saying "these are our rights, and we deserve them." As a model of activism, it's so wonderful what the community has been able to achieve towards goals like marriage equality.

What Donald Trump is doing is serving the polluters and serving a narrow group of ideological interests. That's not leadership. That's abdication of responsibility, and this step does not make America first. It makes America last.

We have two nations, and it's not black or white. It's red and blue. Under Republican leadership, cities tend to do better. Cities are destroyed under Democrats, because they don't know how to deal with the constituency; they're terrified.

It's our own throat that we are cutting in the end along with everyone else's. We need to be exercising precisely the kind of leadership that might allow us to nudge China and India, say, onto different energy trajectories, in order to improve our own chances of surviving this century.

My four years in the Marine Corps left me with an indelible understanding of the value of leadership skills.

The most essential quality for leadership is not perfection but credibility. People must be able to trust you.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said no matter how much they attacked him and the Nation of Islam under his leadership, they only helped the Nation to grow. So, the more they attacked me and the more I withstood that onslaught, the more thousands of people came out to, at least, hear a man that was being so vilified in the media. When they recognized that they were not hurting but helping me, they decided they wouldn't say anything except to continue to discredit. So, there is a conscious effort not to publicize anything that the Nation is doing of value.

We continually make decisions in private which affect the commonweal, as the ecologists (to take but one example) have shown us. When I keep my house warmer than it needs to be, I consume fuel which might help someone else keep warm, or keep a job. When the food I eat is high on the protein chain I contribute to a maldistribution of protein around the world. When I teach my children to be primarily concerned with private gain, I diminish the ranks of public leadership in the rising generation.

We've got to have a legacy of leadership. We've got to bring along with us a generation of black women who are going to confront twenty-first-century realities.

Many citizens see all the leadership of these large institutions together in a conspiracy against them rather than in any adversary relationship with each other.

Boone Pickens should be commended for his leadership on American energy security, and for bringing Ted Turner along on some sensible approaches to enhancing it.

If we took away barriers to women's leadership, we would solve the climate change problem a lot faster

I believe one of the requirements of good leadership is the ability to listen - really listen - to those in your organization. An effective leader is very good at listening, and it's difficult to listen when you are talking.

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.

Leadership from the Oval Office - and sustained, effective use of the bully pulpit - is essential to getting the American people off their too-pampered butts and into meeting successfully the long-haul challenges of fixing major problems in the very fabric of our republic's life, both domestically and in our international relations.

I needed to do my current job well, keep preparing, and wait on God's timing. I needed to trust His leadership rather than try to force an outcome I wanted.