Quotations about Leadership

Remember the difference between a boss and a leader; a boss says "Go!" - a leader says "Let's go!"  ~E.M. Kelly


A chief is a man who assumes responsibility.  He says "I was beaten," he does not say "My men were beaten."  ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery


A leader leads by example, whether he intends to or not.  ~Author Unknown


Leadership is action, not position.  ~Donald H. McGannon


You can't lead anyone else further than you have gone yourself.  ~Gene Mauch


The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone.  You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.  ~Elaine Agather


You don't have to hold a position in order to be a leader.  ~Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book


Example is not the main thing in influencing others.  It is the only thing.  ~Albert Schweitzer


Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them.  ~Robert Jarvik


You do not lead by hitting people over the head.  That's assault, not leadership.  ~Dwight D. Eisenhower


Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.  ~Thomas J. Watson


If two or three persons should come with a high spiritual aim and with great powers, the world would fall into their hands like a ripe peach.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


A leader is a dealer in hope.  ~Napoleon Bonaparte, attributed


Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders.  ~Tom Peters


One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you.  ~Dennis A. Peer


A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.  ~John C. Maxwell


A leader is best
When people barely know that he exists.
~Witter Bynner, The Way of Life According to Laotzu


The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way.  ~Henry Miller, The Wisdom of the Heart


If you wish a general to be beaten, send him a ream full of instructions; if you wish him to succeed, give him a destination, and bid him conquer.  ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827


I am more afraid of an army of one hundred sheep led by a lion than an army of one hundred lions led by a sheep.  ~Charles Maurice, Prince de Talleyrand-Périgord


A man is only a leader when a follower stands beside him.  ~Mark Brouwer


I suppose that leadership at one time meant muscle; but today it means getting along with people.  ~Indira Gandhi


Leaders need to be optimists.  Their vision is beyond the present.  ~Rudy Giuliani


A leader leads by example not by Force.  ~Sun Tzu


A leader who doesn't hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.  ~Golda Meir


The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.  ~Theodore Roosevelt


He led his regiment from behind -
He found it less exciting.
But when away his regiment ran,
His place was at the fore, O.
~W.S. Gilbert


Leadership is based on a spiritual quality; the power to inspire, the power to inspire others to follow.  ~Vince Lombardi


We have great managers who haven't spent a day in management school.  Do we have great surgeons that haven't spent a day in surgical school?  ~Henry Mintzberg


Every leader needs to look back once in a while to make sure he has followers.  ~Author Unknown


The art of leadership is saying no, not yes.  It is very easy to say yes.  ~Tony Blair


Leadership:  the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.  ~Dwight D. Eisenhower


When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command.  Very often, that person is crazy.  ~Dave Barry, "Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn"


Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.  ~Anne Bradstreet


A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved.  He inspires the power and energy to get it done.  ~Ralph Nader


Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships.  ~Charles Simic


Management is nothing more than motivating other people.  ~Lee Iacocca


There go my people.  I must find out where they are going so I can lead them.  ~Alexandre Ledru-Rollin


I am not a labor leader.  I don't want you to follow me or anyone else.  If you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of the capitalist wilderness you will stay right where you are.  I would not lead you into this promised land if I could, because if I could lead you in, someone else could lead you out.  ~Eugene V. Debs


To lead the people, walk behind them.  ~Lao-Tzu


Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.  ~Eric Hoffer