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.

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.

America somehow thinks that leadership relates to governance, and it certainly does. But society is much bigger than governance, and some of the truly great leadership of our society is outside the governance arena.

The key to leadership is having a vision, and being strong enough to say no and not try to please everybody. Thats a recipe for failure. Leadership is practiced through attitude and actions, rather than words and memos.

I think that you can't choose leadership. You have to deal with the leadership that the people respond to.

Leadership is helping yourself and other people achieve goals. The ability to direct your life to get the results you want is leadership.

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.

Leadership rests not only on outstanding ability. It also rests on commitment, loyalty and pride. It rests on followers who are ready to accept guidance. Leadership is the ability to direct people and - more important - to have those people accept that direction.

Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.

Certainly polling is a tool for leadership. It's not a program for leadership. And you can abuse a tool. You can overuse it. A leader who looks to the latest poll finding and says, "Well that's what I should do", that's not a very good leader. I mean that's someone who is not taking this poll and saying, "Well what am I gonna have to do to get public acceptance of my policies?" It's someone who is interested in their own election or re-election, and their own popularity rather than genuinely serving the public interest.

The aim of leadership should be to improve the performance of man and machine, to improve quality, to increase output, and simultaneously to bring pride of workmanship to people. Put in a negative way, the aim of leadership is not merely to find and record failures of men, but to remove the causes of failure: to help people to do a better job with less effort.

My final advice for young people is to not wait for leadership from adult politicians. Step forward today, because our current leaders are denying the dire reality we are facing. Leadership can come form anywhere.

For a lot of women, one of the hardest things about leadership is the desire to be liked by everyone. That's often inconsistent with leadership. It's certainly inconsistent with taking positions on very controversial issues.

The best form of leadership is to be conscious of the leadership potential with the followers and to let them unleash this potential in a spontaneous way. When a great leader accomplishes this task with effortless ease, the followers say, "We did it ourselves."

Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence." (Harvard Business School definition of leadership)

Leadership has become a heavy industry. Concern and interest about leadership development is no longer an American phenomenon. It is truly global. Though I will probably be in less demand, I wanted to move on.

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision. Many people who approach the area of vision in leadership have it backwards. They believe that if the cause is good enough, people will automatically buy in and follow. But that's not how leadership works. People don't follow worthy causes; they follow worthy leaders with a cause they can believe in. They buy into the leader first.

Times of upheaval require not just more leadership but more leaders. People at all organizational levels, whether anointed or self-appointed, must be empowered to share leadership responsibilities.

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.

One of the things I learned was that Putin has no respect for the United States leadership. Not for the United States, but the leadership.

We need people to be taught that they possess a hidden leader on the inside, and to reconnect to that leader, they must reconnect to the Creator who placed that leadership potential in them. They must be reconnected to God, and this is why we should come back to God not really to go to heaven, but to rediscover our true leadership dominion mandate, and then serve that to the world.

Bosses push, Leaders pull. Real leadership is servant leadership.

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.

Pope Benedict XVI assumes leadership at a critical time in which the world's collective wisdom and leadership including that of the religious community is most important to face up to challenges of deepening poverty and under-development afflicting many people of the world.

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.

I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns.

We're up against the conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as president comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House. But we know that real leadership is about candor and judgment and the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose, a higher purpose.

Character is more important than any other leadership trait.

Always was Morocco. And recently the country's leadership seems to have embraced it in all its ill-reputed glory. The days of predatory poets in search of literary inspiration and young flesh are probably over for good. Hippies can just as easily get their bong riffs in Portland or Peoria. But the good stuff, the real good stuff, the sounds and smells and the look of Tangier -- what you see and hear when you lean out the window and take it all in -- that's here to stay.

Leadership requires using power to influence the thoughts and actions of other 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.

Headship is not rulership; it is leadership.

Jamal Crawford reminds me the most of myself, the way he goes to the basket. But they need leadership.

My height doesn't define my skill set. To be a great quarterback, you have to have great leadership, great attention to detail and a relentless competitive nature - and I try to bring that on a daily basis.

This women's moment to embrace the power-to for good in life and leadership.

When we win on an issue we call it leadership. When we lose, we call it politics. Practicing politics simply means increasing your options for effective results.

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.

The first key to leadership was self-control, particularly the mastery of pride, which was something more difficult, he explained, to subdue than a wild lion and anger, which was more difficult to defeat than the greatest wrestler. He warned them that "if you can't swallow your pride, you can't lead.

The exercise of true leadership is inversely proportional to the exercise of power.

Roosevelt was the one who had the vision to change our policy from isolationism to world leadership. That was a terrific revolution. Our country's never been the same since.

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.

I made a commitment... both to myself and to some supporters to carefully consider a run for the Liberal leadership for the Liberal Party of Canada.

We have moved from an age in which government leaders sought to do what was best for the people to one in which the political leadership is convinced it knows what is best for the people, whether they like it or not.

The only point of having power it seems to me is to empower others. The only point of leadership is to inspire.

The task of leadership is to be intentional about the way we group people and the questions that we engage them in.

Real leadership comes from the quiet nudging of an inner voice. It comes from realizing that the time has come to move beyond waiting to doing.

President George Bush had the courage and the vision and we will always be grateful to President George Bush for that tremendous leadership and statesmanship.

I think the country's in trouble. And I think I have a pretty clear sense of the values and principles that have made this country great. I've had a chance to govern and lead with those in mind, with some significant success in Minnesota. And I think the country needs that kind of leadership and insight and perspective.