Inspiring Leadership: A Collection of Powerful Quotes

"He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious."

- Sun Tzu

"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The true mark of a leader is the willingness to stick with a bold course of action — an unconventional business strategy, a unique product-development roadmap, a controversial marketing campaign — even as the rest of the world wonders why you're not marching in step with the status quo. In other words, real leaders are happy to zig while others zag. They understand that in an era of hyper-competition and non-stop disruption, the only way to stand out from the crowd is to stand for something special."

- Bill Taylor

"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet."

- Theodore M. Hesburgh

"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

"Good leaders build products. Great leaders build cultures. Good leaders deliver results. Great leaders develop people. Good leaders have vision. Great leaders have values. Good leaders are role models at work. Great leaders are role models in life."

- Adam Grant

"Champions keep playing until they get it right."

- Billie Jean King

"You don’t get any medal for trying something, you get medals for results."

- Bill Parcells

"He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly."

- James Allen

"If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done."

- Bruce Lee

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence."

- Helen Keller

"Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes."

- Peter Drucker

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that count."

- Winston Churchill

"Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan."

- John F. Kennedy

"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing people around a shared vision."

- Ken Blanchard

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Don't tell people how to do things; tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results."

- George S. Patton

"Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing."

- Albert Schweitzer

"A leader ... is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind."

- Nelson Mandela

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

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Positive leadership literally morphs the workplace from a place where people work at a job to one where they thrive."

- Steve Gladis

"Work gives people the opportunity to do good by making a positive impact."

- Beth Cabrera

"Great leadership usually starts with a willing heart, a positive attitude, and a desire to make a difference."

- Mac Anderson

"I start each day by telling myself what a positive influence I am on this world."

- Peter Daisyme

"You get the best efforts from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within."

- Bob Nelson

"Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push. A smile. A word of optimism and hope. A ‘you can do it’ when things are tough."

- Richard M. Devos

"Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish."

- Sam Walton

"I was blessed with certain gifts and talents and God gave them to me to be the best person I can be and to have a positive impact on other people."

- Bryan Clay

"Leadership is no longer about your position. It’s now more about your passion for excellence and making a difference. You can lead without a title."

- Robin Sharma

"Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity."

- Warren Bennis

"Good leaders make people feel that they’re at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens, people feel centered and that gives their work meaning."

- Warren Bennis

"A leader is someone who creates infectious enthusiasm."

- Ted Turner

"Think of each member of your work group as a high jumper. Celebrate the reaching of new heights … then raise the bar together. But don’t forget, as you’re raising the bar, so is your competition."

- Eric Harvey

"Leadership is about magnetic communication. Leaders have a way of communicating that draws people toward the vision and the horizon."

- Doug Firebaugh

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

- Vince Lombardi

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

- Colin Powell

"The hallmark of a well-managed organization is not the absence of problems, but whether or not problems are effectively resolved."

- Steve Ventura

"If you want to make a positive impact, no matter how far-reaching, start at home. Treat your family members like treasures."

- John C. Maxwell

"The past doesn’t equal the future. All great leaders, all people who have achieved in any area of life, know the power of continuously pursuing their vision, even if all the details of how to achieve it aren’t yet available."

- Tony Robbins

"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

"The most important part of being a leader is maintaining the desire to keep on learning. That means learning about yourself, about your peers, and about the people you serve."

- Brian Koval

"Leaders tap into the emotions of their people by getting excited themselves."

- Brian Tracy

"If you are going to help people reach their potential, they need to be recognized and rewarded. Everyone needs that."

- Jacqueline Norcel

"It is the very essence of good leadership to give away all credit for positive achievement, to identify only team goals and always to refer to them as such."

- Joe Klock

"Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune."

- Sam Walton

"I was always really proud of the fact that I had a very positive influence as a role model."

- David Cassidy

"Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations."

- Peter Drucker

"Become happy and successful not only because that is your personal desire but because you are here to make a positive impact in the world."

- Roxana Jones

"How can I continually make a positive impact in people’s lives, help others achieve their dreams, create their own Olympic mindset, creating champions within themselves?"

- Apolo Ohno

"A sour corporate culture can actually make an entire society unhappy. This means that a strong corporate culture can have a positive impact on a society."

- Simon Sinek

"When you love people and have the desire to make a profound, positive impact upon the world, then will you have accomplished the meaning to live."

- Sasha Azevedo

"Each person has the potential of making a positive impact on the world. It all depends on what you do with what you have. Success is not to be measured by the amount of money you possess or the position you attain but rather in how you use both. Position and money can be squandered or abused, but they can also be used to help others."

- Gary Chapman

"I believe I have a personal responsibility to make a positive impact on society."

- Dr. Anthony Fauci

"The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things."

- President Ronald Reagan

"When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful."

- Malala Yousafzai

"A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd."

- Max Lucado

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has."

- Margaret Mead

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

- Charles Darwin

"Leaders grasp nettles."

- David Ogilvy

"I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."

- Ralph Nader

"The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them."

- John Maxwell

"A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better."

- Jim Rohn

"A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work."

- Seth Godin

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves."

- Lao Tzu

"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be."

- Rosalynn Carter

"The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails."

- John Maxwell

"Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them."

- Diogenes of Sinope

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."

- William A. Ward

"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

"Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm."

- Publilius Syrus

"The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born—that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born."

- Warren Bennis

"Mastery is great, but even that is not enough. You have to be able to change course without a bead of sweat, or remorse."

- Tom Peters

"Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult."

- Warren Bennis

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."

- President John Quincy Adams

"I think one of the keys to leadership is recognizing that everybody has gifts and talents. A good leader will learn how to harness those gifts toward the same goal."

- Ben Carson

"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be."

- Rosalynn Carter

"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 S. Truman

"I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of leadership are universal and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts, their talents, their insights, their enthusiasm and their inspiration to work together."

- Queen Elizabeth II

"A leader is a dealer in hope."

- Napoleon Bonaparte

"Success isn’t about how much money you make; it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives."

- Michelle Obama

"Your purpose in life is to use your gifts and talents to help other people. Your journey in life teaches you how to do that."

- Tom Krause

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

- Steve Jobs

"To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."

- Thomas Jefferson

"I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion."

- Alexander the Great

"A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit."

- Arnold Glasow

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

- Jack Welch

"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies."

- Mother Teresa

"A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way."

- John C. Maxwell

"Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen."

- Michael Jordan

"What you do has far greater impact than what you say."

- Stephen Covey

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently."

- Warren Buffett

"Silent gratitude isn't very much to anyone."

- Gertrude Stein

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."

- Peter Drucker

"It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent."

- Madeleine Albright

"Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success."

- Dale Carnegie

"A person always doing his or her best becomes a natural leader, just by example."

- Joe DiMaggio

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

- Henry Kissinger

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

- Gen. Colin Powell

"I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

- Maya Angelou

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."

- John F. Kennedy

"A leader’s job is not to do the work for others, it’s to help others figure out how to do it themselves, to get things done, and to succeed beyond what they thought possible."

"Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you’re in control, they’re in control."

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

"Leaders instill in their people a hope for success and a belief in themselves. Positive leaders empower people to accomplish their goals."

"All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."

"The true mark of a leader is the willingness to stick with a bold course of action – an unconventional business strategy, a unique product-development roadmap, a controversial marketing campaign – even as the rest of the world wonders why you’re not marching in step with the status quo."

"A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus."

"Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well."

"The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves."

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

"A leader. . .is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind."

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power."

"You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life."

"One of the most important things for any leader is to never let anyone else define who you are. And you define who you are. I never think of myself as"

"Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want."

"An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage."

"It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure."

"You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader."

"Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal."

"Leadership is something you earn, something you’re chosen for. You can’t come in yelling, ‘I’m your leader!’ If it happens, it’s because the other guys respect you."

"Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It’s about impact, influence and inspiration. Impact involves getting results, influence is about spreading the passion you have for your work, and you have to inspire teammates and customers."

"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet."

"There is no investment you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to scatter sunshine and good cheer through your establishment."

"To be a leader, you have to make people want to follow you, and nobody wants to follow someone who doesn’t know where he is going."

"If you don’t believe in yourself, why is anyone else going to believe in you?"