Leadership Quotes

I love to read different blogs. It is a hobby of mine. I have found some awesome leadership quotes while surfing blogs that I would like to share with you today. Please read these quotes and think them through. I like some more than others, but they all speak something to me. Whether you are a pastor, business man/woman, student, or parent, I believe the following will enrich your life:

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, 'We did this ourselves.'" — Lao-Tse

"Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall in the ditch."— Jesus Christ

"Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry."— Winston Churchill

"The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been."
— Henry Kissinger

"The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already."— John Buchan

"Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand."— General Colin Powell

"Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better."— Harry Truman

"A leader is one who influences a specific group of people to move in a God-given direction."— J. Robert Clinton

A leader is a dealer in hope. -Napoleon Bonaparte

"All Leadership is influence."— John C. MaxwellInjoy, Inc.

"You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too."— Sam Rayburn

"Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others may receive your orders without being humiliated."— Dag Hammarskjöld

"The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men, the conviction and the will to carry on."— Walter Lippmann

"People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives."— Theodore Roosevelt

"The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant."— Max DePree

"Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall."— Stephen R. Covey

"He who has great power should use it lightly."— Seneca

"As a leader, you're probably not doing a good job unless your employees can do a good impression of you when you're not around."— Patrick Lencioni

"The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do."— Andrew Carnegie

"I think leadership comes from integrity - that you do whatever you ask others to do. I think there are non-obvious ways to lead. Just by providing a good example as a parent, a friend, a neighbor makes it possible for other people to see better ways to do things. Leadership does not need to be a dramatic, fist in the air and trumpets blaring, activity."— Scott Berkun

"Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others." --- Jack Welch

Managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing. - Warren Bennis, Ph.D. "On Becoming a Leader"

The best example of leadership, is leadership by example. - Jerry McClain of Seattle, WA

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Leadership in today's world requires far more than a large stock of gunboats and a hard fist at the conference table. - Hubert H. Humphrey

Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character; it requires moral rather than athletic or intellectual effort, and it imposes on both leader and follower alike the burdens of self-restraint. - Lewis H. Lapham

In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions. - Margaret Wheatly Leadership and the New Science

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters. - Albert Einstein

Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely. - Karen Kaiser Clark

The quality of leadership, more than any other single factor, determines the success or failure of an organization. - Fred Fiedler & Martin Chemers Improving Leadership Effectiveness

Don't be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small steps. - David Loyd George

Excellence is not an accomplishment. It is a spirit, a never-ending process. - Lawrence M. Miller

When what you are doing isn't working, you tend to do more of the same and with greater intensity. - Dr. Bill Maynard & Tom Champoux Heart, Soul and Spirit

A new leader has to be able to change an organization that is dreamless, soulless and visionless ... someone's got to make a wake up call. - Warren Bennis

I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation. - Warren Bennis

Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their jobs done - Peter Drucker

I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers - Ralph Nader

Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes... but no plans. - Peter Drucker

Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them. - Adlai Stevenson

Lead and inspire people. Don't try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be lead. - Ross Perot

We must become the change we want to see. - Mahatma Gandhi

The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. - Vincent T. Lombardi

Where there is no vision, the people perish. - Proverbs 29:18

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. - Mother Theresa
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. - Abraham Lincoln

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. - Helen Keller

We know not where our dreams will take us, but we can probably see quite clearly where we'll go without them. - Marilyn Grey

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. - Albert Einstein

You may have afresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down. - Mary Pickford

The trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more. - Erica Jong

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it. - Andrew Carnegie

The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves. - Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald's

In matters of style, swim with the current; In matters of principle, stand like a rock. - T. Jefferson

When nothing is sure, everything is possible. - Margaret Drabble

Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. - James Baldwin

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end, may also be only the beginning. - Ivy Baker Priest

My prayer is that God will help us "burn the ships" and commit ourselves to be the best leader that we can be! Blessings.

Pastor Rusty