Quotes About Leadership

Leadership is much less about what you do, and much more about who you are. If you view leadership as a bag of manipulative tricks or charismatic behaviors to advance your own personal interest, then people have every right to be cynical. But if your leadership flows first and foremost from inner character and integrity of ambition, then you can justly ask people to lend themselves to your organization and its mission.

Leadership is a concept we often resist. It seems immodest, even self-aggrandizing, to think of ourselves as leaders. But if it is true that we are part of a community, then leadership is everyone's vocation, and it can be an evasion to insist that it is not. When we live in the close-knit ecosystem called community, everyone follows and everyone leads.

An old African leader says about leadership, he says that leadership should never be shared; it should always remain in the hands of the dispossessed people. We will lead the revolution.

The key thing for a CEO to keep their head in the game is recognize that there's turbulent times, plan for, you know, bad luck as well as good luck, keep people focused on what the key, you know, business wins are, and you know, provide the energy that people always need in order to, you know, to go into battle because, you know, work is hard and go into work and do that well. And provide a good leadership beacon for that. In other words, it's the same thing that makes good leadership in any other time.

We become overly reliant on the strengths that got us where we are today. We also become isolated as we move up in the organization. Unless we have the benefit of assessment, and unless we invite feedback on our leadership, we continue to lean on strengths that can actually work against us, and fail to expand our leadership style in a way that makes us more effective.

A person's own definition of leadership defines the glittering crown of his leadership.

Polls are no substitute for leadership because, at its very essence, leadership is about giving people what they don't already have - a sense of vision, inspiration, or even an adequate grasp of a particular subject.

Almost no one as I think most leadership books are a joke. They are, as I note in Leadership BS, frequently based on wishes and hopes rather than reality, on inspiring stories rather than systematic social science, and on "oughts" rather than "is."

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.

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

Leadership doesn't mean giving marching orders that others must follow blindly. Rather, it means causing others to want to follow. Successful leadership is personal.

You learn far more from negative leadership than from positive leadership. Because you learn how not to do it. And, therefore, you learn how to do it.

I realize that as the quarterback, you have to assume some sort of leadership role because you have to talk in the huddle on every play, and you're essentially giving out orders to the team. But in my mind, I have to prove myself on the field before I can start asserting a leadership role.

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."

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?

What are most people hungry for? I believe it is spiritual and moral leadership. Increases in technology, scientific inventions, and medical miracles have been marvelous and incredible. But we must use them properly to bring us joy, and that requires spiritual and moral leadership.

Doing nothing while the middle class is hurting. That's not leadership. Loose regulations and lax enforcement. That's not leadership. That's abandoning our middle class.

Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.

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.

Not all civil servants admire strong political leadership. But if you want to change things for the better you need strong political leadership.

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

It takes leadership to improve safety.

It is not our place to decide who should lead the Iraqi people. If Saddam [Hussein] leaves or has to be forced out of power and a new regime brought in, a new leadership brought in, I am confident it will be some combination of people inside the country and outside the country.

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.

Germany must be a country which generates political ideas and leadership, which is capable of compromise, which is sovereign and yet knows that it needs its partners on both sides of the Atlantic.

In my view it is better for the Labour Party, the leadership and the new prime minister that he be given the maximum flexibility.

Donald Trump is a man who just absorbs information and people and experiences. And I've witnessed him firsthand with his five children, his 10 year old son, his wife Melania, who's just an incredible first lady for all of us, amazing. God bless her, we're all very luck to have her leadership, as well. And I've witnessed him with his four adult children and his eight grandchildren. He's a family man.

So that the one road for which we now need God's leadership most of all is a road God, in His own nature, has never walked. But suppose God became a man... He could surrender His will, suffer and die, because He was a man.

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.

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

Leadership is about persuasion, presentation and people skills.

I refuse to make a decision that somebody else can make. The first rule of leadership is to save yourself for the big decision. Don't allow your mind to become cluttered.

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

I believe that the mindset that allows you to spend your working life thanking and congratulating people rather than being unpleasant to them is the mainstay of good leadership.

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.

We do not need international help to stop corruption, we need strong Louisiana Leadership.

Leadership is the other side of the coin of loneliness, and he who is a leader must always act alone. And acting alone, accept everything alone.

The immigration bill - the new immigration bill - [Bill Clinton] has stripped the courts, which Congress can do under the leadership of the president, so that people who had a right to asylum or to petition - for asylum who were legal residents are now unable to go through because that part of the bill has been taken out.

Inspirational leadership connects to a highly motivated workforce which, in turn, means inspirational results

Aviation seems almost a gift from heaven to those Western nations who were already the leaders of their era, strengthening their leadership, their confidence, their dominance over other peoples.

The only person over whom you have direct and immediate control is yourself. The most important assets to develop, preserve and enhance, therefore, are your own capabilities. And no one can do it for you. You must cultivate the habit of leadership effectiveness for yourself - and doing so will be the single best investment you will ever make.

President Bush has shown great leadership. He has said that the 21st century will not be ruled or dictated by terrorists, dictators, and murderers. He is absolutely right. God bless him for his resolve.

Leadership means bringing people together in pursuit of a common cause, developing a plan to achieve it, and staying with it until the goal is achieved.

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.

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.

Leadership is stewardship, it's temporary and you're accountable!

The difference between mere management and leadership is communication.

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.