131 Inspirational Leadership Quotes to Motivate and Empower Your Team

"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

"Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It's about impact, influence, and inspiration."

- Robin S. Sharma

"The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."

- Ralph Nader

"A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader; a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."

- John F. Kennedy

"Be the leader you wish you had."

- Simon Sinek

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

- Albert Schweitzer

"The most powerful leadership tool you have is your own personal example."

- John Wooden

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

- John Maxwell

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

- Ralph Nader

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

- President John Quincy Adams

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

- Jack Welch

"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

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

- Arnold Glasow

"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

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

- Peter Drucker

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

- Ken Blanchard

"It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership."

- Nelson Mandela

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

- Peter Drucker

"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."

- Arnold H. Glasgow

"To lead people, walk beside them. As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence … When the best leader's work is done, the people say, 'We did it ourselves!"

- Lao Tzu

"If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader."

- Dolly Parton

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

- John C. Maxwell

"The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have."

- Sheryl Sandberg

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

- Oliver Goldsmith

"The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion."

- Paulo Coelho

"The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership."

- Harvey S. Firestone

"As a leader, it's a major responsibility on your shoulders to practice the behavior you want others to follow."

- Himanshu Bhatia

"Leaders who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say."

- Andy Stanley

"We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details."

- Jeff Bezos

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

- Steve Jobs

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

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

- Theodore M. Hesburgh

"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

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

- Seth Godin

"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

"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity."

- Gen. George S. Patton

"As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others."

- Bill Gates

"True leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed… Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection."

- Sheryl Sandberg

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

- Henry Ford

"Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction."

- John F. Kennedy

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

- Stephen Covey

"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

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

- George S. Patton

"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

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

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"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."

- Walt Disney

"People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together."

- Michelle Obama

"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."

- Ben Roethlisberger

"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

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

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"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

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

- Helen Keller

"Instruction does much, but encouragement, everything."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."

- Helen Keller

"When you hand good people possibility, they do great things."

- Biz Stone

"I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things."

- Mother Teresa

"The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first."

- Iyanla Vanzant

"Success in management requires learning as fast as the world is changing."

- Warren Bennis

"The expert in anything was once a beginner."

- Helen Hayes

"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it."

- Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"You just can't beat the person who never gives up."

- Babe Ruth

"Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again."

- Nelson Mandela

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."

- Albert Einstein

"Champions keep playing until they get it right."

- Billie Jean King

"There is no limit to what can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit."

- John Wooden

"You don't lead by hitting people over the head —that's assault, not leadership."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people."

- Woodrow Wilson

"The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said."

- Peter Drucker

"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Publilius Syrus

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."

- Alexander Graham Bell

"The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything."

- Warren Buffett

"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

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

- Thomas Jefferson

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

- Winston Churchill

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

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander."

- Aristotle

"If you cannot allow people to do their jobs … nobody with substance and creativity will work for you."

- Condoleezza Rice

"A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

- Jack Welch

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

- Bill Gates

"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

"The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team."

- Phil Jackson

"None of us is as smart as all of us."

- Ken Blanchard

"Change is the end result of all true learning."

- Leo Buscaglia

"You can do anything, but not everything."

- David Allen

"The most effective way to do it is to do it."

- Amelia Earhart

"People respond well to those that are sure of what they want."

- Anna Wintour

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

- Bill Parcells

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

- Sun Tzu

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

- Bruce Lee

"Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there."

- Virginia Burden

"The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live."

- Mortimer Adler

"Resilience is knowing that you are the only one that has the power and the responsibility to pick yourself up."

- Mary Holloway

"I think the one lesson I have learned is that there is no substitute for paying attention."

- Diane Sawyer

"You can't change conditions. Just the way you deal with them."

- Jessica Watson

"Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before."

- Elizabeth Edwards

"Pride is concerned with who is right. Humility is concerned with what is right."

- Ezra T. Benson

"Only if we understand will we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help will we all be saved."

- Jane Goodall

"No man ever listened himself out of a job."

- Calvin Coolidge

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."

- Lao Tzu

"Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future."

- Deepak Chopra

"Big egos have little ears."

- Robert Schuller

"The art of life is a constant readjustment to our surroundings."

- Kakuzo Okakura

"No plan survives first contact with the enemy."

- Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

"Wisdom requires a flexible mind."

- Dan Carlin

"When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice."

- William James

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

- Gertrude Stein

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

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

"If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you."

"The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus."

"I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening."

"True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less."