Quotes About Leadership

Most people think leadership is about being in charge. Most people think leadership is about having all the answers and being the most intelligent person or the most qualified person in the room. The irony is that it is the complete opposite. Leadership is about empowering others to achieve things they did not think possible. Leadership is about pointing in the direction, articulating a vision of the world that does not yet exist. Then asking help from others to insure that vision happens.

Leadership is not about personality, possessions, or charisma, but all about who you are as a person. I used to believe that leadership was about style but now I know that leadership is about substance, namely character.

Barna is correct when he writes, "After fifteen years of diligent digging into the world around me, I have reached several conclusions about the future of the Christian church in America. The central conclusion is that the American church is dying due to lack of strong spiritual leadership. In this time of unprecedented opportunity and plentiful resources, the church is actually losing influence. The primary reason is the lack of leadership. Nothing is more important than leadership."7

I don't think leadership demands yes or no answers; I think leadership is providing the forum for making the right decision, which doesn't demand unanimity.

Think of managing change as an adventure. It tests your skills and abilities. It brings forth talent that may have been dormant. Change is also a training ground for leadership. When we think of leaders, we remember times of change, innovation, and conflict. Leadership is often about shaping a new way of life. To do that, you must advance change, take risks, and accept responsibility for making change happen.

The steady progress made by North Korea on its nuclear and missile programs is deeply concerning. The US cannot solve this problem alone. However, in order to take steps that could fundamentally affect the North Korean leadership and its decision-making, we need to work even more closely with our allies in the region who feel this threat acutely. I would urge China, in particular, to intensify its leadership role in helping to solve this crisis.

We know that leadership is very much related to change. As the pace of change accelerates, there is naturally a greater need for effective leadership.

More and more, leadership, whether it's profit or nonprofit, is about recruiting and keeping talented people. That's the biggest challenge. Yes, you've got to create systems that will enable people easily to innovate continuously; you've got to be a system-builder. But finding and keeping geeks and shrinks is the biggest challenge. That means leaders have got to be salespeople, they've got to be recruiters, and they've got to be actively able to understand and keep the talent they have. Leadership is courtship. That's what it's becoming.

I think leadership of any kind requires trust and transparency and voters should demand no less from their political leadership in government.

If the experience of leadership is like being at the edge of an unfamiliar chasm, the act of leadership is building a bridge across that chasm.

Leadership is not achieved by an individual. Leadership is bestowed by the group.

The term power comes from the Latin posse- to do, to be able, to change, to influence or effect. To have power is to possess the capacity to control or direct change. All forms of leadership must make use of power. The central issue of power in leadership is not Will it be used? But rather Will it be used wisely and well?

The real role of leadership in education ... is not and should not be command and control. The real role of leadership is climate control, creating a climate of possibility.

Leadership is not taken, it is given. People give leadership to those that they trust. They allow people that they trust to have influence over their lives.

Physical well-being is not only a priceless asset to oneself-it is a heritage to be passed on. With good health, all other activities of life are greatly enhanced. A clean mind in a healthy body enables one to render far more effective service to others. It helps one provide more vigorous leadership. It gives our every experience in life more zest and more meaning. Robust health is a noble and worthwhile attainment.

It is time for a new generation of leadership, to cope with new problems and new opportunities. For there is a new world to be won.

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

So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? I think our judgment has to be clearly not.

The limitations of federal laws are able to create real progress at the local level. Ultimately, to effect not just incremental progress but progress that is transformational for students, we need committed leadership - people who believe deeply that their students can achieve at the highest levels and who know how to create the conditions at the classroom, school and system level to give them the opportunities they deserve.

The roots of effective leadership lie in simple things, one of which is listening. Listening to someone demonstrates respect; it shows that you value their ideas and are willing to hear them.

In the great mass of our people there are plenty individuals of intelligence from among whom leadership can be recruited.

When we look at women, we have to look at the significance of their work in a different way from the way we look at it with men. Women have more often worked within the home, working equally as hard, I would argue, but not always out there where they're counted, not always up there in the labor unions, certainly not in leadership positions.

The First Lady and I both spotted the President standing under the mistletoe and she moved in to grab a kiss from him following a dinner for Combatant Commanders and military leadership at Blair House in Washington, D.C.

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.

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.

Leadership is much more an art, a belief, a condition of the heart, than a set of things to do.

The essence of leadership is building bonds of trust in your organization.

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.

We're living through the greatest jobs theft in the history of the world. Our jobs have been stolen from us and we have people that don't know what they are doing, in particular our leadership.

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.

Our country also hungers for leadership to ensure the long-term survival of our Social Security system. With 70 million baby boomers in this country on the verge of retirement, we need to take action to shore up the system.

The symbol of the lion, throughout history, throughout cultures, is one pure, radiant symbol and that is leadership, kingship

As long as the opposition believes the world will stand with Ukraine's democrat reformers, they will have the leverage and the courage to establish a legitimate republic under the leadership of Viktor Yushchenko.

The dictatorship of the proletariat and the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist party are indispensable conditions for the triumph of the Socialist revolution and the building of Socialism.

The union is much more than me, and when you think the union is you and it's not about who you represent, I think you've sort of lost your morals and focus and the purpose of your leadership.

I think we need leadership that helps us remember that part of what we are about is caring about more than the person right next to us, but the folks across the way.

I would rather keep all the levels lower and stick to the sequester, but there are people in leadership who live outside of reality and want to increase things that Republicans like and pretend Democrats don't exist.

When was the last time you heard an insightful, inspiring piece of oratory from an Australian political leader, an appeal to what is pure and true within humanity: a statement of belief backed by ideas for change betterment, a call to those immutable values wherein lie the potential greatness of people individually and collectively? Such exhortation, such leadership is lamentably scarce.

This - the leadership of the mayor is crucial, because it is to the mayor that people will look to provide the vision, the energy, and the sense of confidence in the rebuilding and the recovery.

Leadership is defined not by the position you hold but by the people who follow you.

The things journalists should pay attention to are the issues the political leadership agrees on, rather than to their supposed antagonisms.

Leadership is influence. To the extent we influence others, we lead them.

One of our great strength, world capitalism, is the most successful economic system possible, but has also become one of shorter and shorter cycles of evaluation. CEOs, companies, stocks, profits and debits change at an ever more accelerated pace in response to the demands of stockholders and the market. We have already experienced some consequences of the shortening cycle of decision making in business, but those are minor in relation to the grand systemic collapse that always eventually results from such accelerating and shortening periods for leadership goals.

When a highly successful leader retires after a long career, it is very unlikely that his successor will be of comparable caliber. Anyone of similar ability and drive would have gone somewhere else, instead of waiting in the wings for years for a chance to show his own leadership.

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.

Leaders goal: Understand the power of serving a leader further down the road than you because leadership is contagious.

I believe that leadership acts should be manifested by engaging in external work that can be observed and shared with everyone else.

I don't believe our country will last the way we know it much longer unless there's a change. And we just continue this moral decline going down, and the only hope, I believe, is God. We just hope and pray that maybe he'll hear our prayers and give us some godly leadership.