100 Inspirational Quotes Every Manager Should Know

"Leadership is not about being in charge. It’s about taking care of those in your charge."

- Simon Sinek

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

- Peter Drucker

"Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another."

- John C. Maxwell

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

- Stephen Covey

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

- President John Quincy Adams

"A manager sets objectives, organizes, motivates, and communicates, sets yardsticks, and measures develops people."

- Peter Drucker

"Corporate culture matters. How management chooses to treat its people impacts everything - for better or for worse."

- Simon Sinek

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

- John C. Maxwell

"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

"Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could."

- Steve Jobs

"Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality."

- Warren Bennis

"And I'd say one of the great lessons I've learned over the past couple of decades, from a management perspective, is that really when you come down to it, it really is all about people and all about leadership."

- Steve Case

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

- Stephen Covey

"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

"If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time."

- Patrick Lencioni

"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

"Tend to the people, and they will tend to the business."

- John Maxwell

"Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible."

- Colin Powell

"You get the best out of others when you give the best of yourself."

- Harvey S. Firestone

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

- Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice."

- Wayne Dyer

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."

- Walt Disney

"Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end you are sure to succeed."

- Abraham Lincoln

"You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do."

- Henry Ford

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

- William A. Ward

"Do or do not. There is no try."

- Yoda

"Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs."

- Farrah Gray

"Believe you can and you’re halfway there."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"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

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

- Thomas Edison

"Hard work spotlights the character of people. Some turn up their sleeves. Some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all."

- Sam Ewing

"You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them."

- Michael Jordan

"The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach."

- Benjamin Mays

"Action is the foundational key to all success."

- Pablo Picasso

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

- Steve Jobs

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."

- Mark Twain

"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

"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

"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

"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

"Don’t follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you."

- Margaret Thatcher

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."

- John F. Kennedy

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

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"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

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

- Ralph Nader

"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 Jr.

"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 challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly."

- Jim Rohn

"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

"Accountability separates the wishers from the action-takers that care enough about their future to account for their daily actions."

- John Di Lemme

"Done is better than perfect."

- Sheryl Sandberg

"Accountability breeds responsibility."

- Stephen R. Covey

"When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute."

- Simon Sinek

"Responsibility equals accountability equals ownership. And a sense of ownership is the most powerful weapon a team or organization can have."

- Pat Summitt

"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

"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 master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried."

- Stephen McCranie

"I wish I could tell you it gets better. But it doesn’t get better. You get better."

- Joan Rivers

"You can fail at what you don’t want – so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love."

- Jim Carrey

"We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes, understanding that failure is not the opposite of success – it’s part of success."

- Arianna Huffington

"I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions."

- Stephen R. Covey

"Leadership is the key to 99 percent of all successful efforts."

- Erskine Bowles

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

- Helen Keller

"Teamwork makes the dream work."

- John C. Maxwell

"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success."

- Henry Ford

"Unity is strength… when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved."

- Mattie Stepanek

"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

"Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people."

- Steve Jobs

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

- John Maxwell

"Great managers fight for their people."

- Liz Brenner

"One of the jobs of a manager is to instill confidence, pump confidence into your people. And when you've got somebody who's raring to go, and you can smell it and feel it, give 'em that shot."

- Jack Welch

"Achieving the highest possible return on human capital must be every manager's goal."

- Brian Tracy

"If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I'd say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act."

- Lee Iacocca

"A manager is not a person who can do the work better than his men; he is a person who can get his men to do the work better than he can."

- Frederick W. Smith

"Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing."

- Tom Peters

"The art of communication is the language of leadership."

- James Humes

"Great leaders are willing to sacrifice their own personal interests for the good of the team."

- John Wooden

"Leadership is the ability to guide others without force into a direction or decision that leaves them still feeling empowered and accomplished."

- Lisa Cash Hanson

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

- Arnold Glasow

"The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly."

- Jim Rohn

"Leadership is not a position or a title, it is action and example."

- Cory Booker

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

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The speed of the boss is the speed of the team."

- Lee Iacocca

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

- Tony Blair

"Leadership is the capacity to see a problem before it becomes an emergency."

- Arnold H. Glasow

"A manager is a guide. He takes a group of people and says, 'With you, I can make us a success; I can show you the way.'"

- Arsene Wenger

"Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people."

- John Rockefeller

"Treat employees like they make a difference, and they will."

- Jim Goodnight

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

- George S. Patton

"One of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people’s excuse for failure."

- Robert Townsend

"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-Exupéry

"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

"Find the smartest people you can and surround yourself with them."

- Marissa Mayer

"As a manager, your job is not to teach people talent. Your job is to help them earn the accolade "talented" by matching their talent to the role. To do this well, like all great managers, you have to pay close attention to the subtle but significant differences between roles."

- Marcus Buckingham

"A manager can't act like a role model. They need to be a role model."

- Ben Horowitz

"I think that the best training a top manager can be engaged in is management by example."

- Carlos Ghosn

"The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor but without folly."

- Jim Rohn

"A leader is the one who can outline the broad vision and the direction and say, here's where we are going to go, here's why we need to go there, and here's how we are going to get there. A manager is the one who actually gets up under the hood and tunes the carburetor."

- Mike Huckabee

"An employee's motivation is a direct result of the sum of interactions with his or her manager."

- Bob Nelson

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

- African Proverb

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

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Whether you think you can or you think you can't—you're right."

- Henry Ford

"The first rule of management is delegation. Don’t try and do everything yourself because you can’t."

- Anthea Turner

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

- President Theodore Roosevelt

"Leadership is about taking responsibility, not making excuses."

- Mitt Romney

"Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better."

- Bill Bradley

"In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way."

- Tina Fey

"Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them."

- John C Maxwell

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

- Ralph Nader

"I describe management as arts, crafts and science. It is a practice that draws on arts, craft and science and there is a lot of craft - meaning experience - there is a certain amount of craft meaning insight, creativity and vision, and there is the use of science, technique or analysis."

- Henry Mintzberg

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

- Warren Bennis

"Leadership is working with goals and vision; management is working with objectives."

- Russel Honore

"Leadership is inspiring people. Management is keeping the trains running on time."

- Andy Dunn

"The art of effective listening is essential to clear communication, and clear communication is necessary to management success."

- James Cash Penney

"Management is the opportunity to help people become better people. Practiced that way, it's a magnificent profession."

- Clayton M. Christensen

"The best thing you can do is learn from those mistakes so that you continue to get better. That's the management style or leadership style I believe in, which is push people to their limit such that they can become better than they thought they could be. That certainly has helped me."

- Lisa Su

"The way management treats associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers."

- Sam Walton

"Leadership is all about emotional intelligence. Management is taught, while leadership is experienced."

- Rajeev Suri

"What should be the aim of management? What is their job? Quality is the responsibility of the top people. Its origin is in the boardroom. They are the ones who decide."

- W. Edwards Deming

"The more senior your management position is, the more important it is to connect the organization or the project to the outside world. You know, how does this fit in with what we're doing? What is the real goal, the real mission?"

- Allan Mullaly

"To lead people, walk behind them."

- Lao Tsu

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

- Bill Gates

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

- Seth Godin

"The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority."

- Ken Blanchard

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

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"You take people as far as they will go, not as far as you would like them to go."

- Jeanette Rankin

"To be a good manager of people requires both fairness and bluntness."

- James Cook

"Hire people who are smarter than you, and don't be afraid to work with them as partners. Make it clear that you plan to learn from them, not just the other way around. The right, smart, motivated people respond very well to that approach, particularly coming from a younger manager like I am."

- Lynn Jurich

"Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you'll be able to see further."

- Thomas Carlyle

"If you light a lamp for someone else, it will also brighten your path."

- Buddha

"Don't persuade, defend or interrupt. Be curious, be conversational, be real. And listen."

- Elizabeth Lesser

"For real change, we need feminine energy in the management of the world. We need a critical number of women in positions of power, and we need to nurture the feminine energy in men."

- Isabel Allende

"Winners never quit and quitters never win."

- Vince Lombardi

"To be able to lead others, a man must be willing to go forward alone."

- Harry Truman

"One bad day from one member of my staff doesn’t mean they are not really good at their jobs the rest of the time. I play a long game in terms of management."

- Helen McCabe

"Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them."

- Paul Hawken

"Sometimes it’s good to step back and let others take the wheel. It’s smart to admit your mistakes and let other people win in the idea game. You won’t always be leading the team or have the best idea, and that’s a good thing. Making a mistake isn’t the end of the world!"

- Alari Aho

"You need to have a lot of human judgment involved in the financial industry in terms of risk management, in terms of investment decisions, and things that really allow us to blend the best of technology and the human brain."

- Adena Friedman

"Effective management always means asking the right question."

- Robbert Heller

"One cannot measure a manager’s knowledge and performance in a vacuum. It involves their participation in business activities while bringing all of themselves to the process of development, including their spiritual, personal, and skill & ability development."

- Raymond Wheeler

"If I have one skill as a manager, I can make things extremely clear."

- Ben Horowitz

"Don't be a time manager, be a priority manager. Cut your major goals into bite-sized pieces. Each small priority or requirement on the way to ultimate goal becomes a mini goal in itself."

- Denis Waitley

"A leader is a dealer in hope."

- Napoleon Bonaparte

"A key to achieving success is to assemble a strong and stable management team."

- Vivek Wadhwa

"Sometimes the manager actually is the glue that holds everything together, and when you take that manager out, sometimes that's when things start to go really wrong."

- Mark Hughes

"I think, for every player, it is important he knows the manager believes in him, and it is important he has the confidence of the manager. That helps you to find the best form."

- Edin Dz

"You can learn a lot about good management by working under someone who is a bad manager."

- Charles Murray

"Fit no stereotypes. Don't chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team's mission."

- Collin Powell

"Those who let things happen usually lose to those who make things happen."

- Dave Weinbaum

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

- Max Lucado

"Profitability is coming from productivity, efficiency, management, austerity, and the way to manage the business."

- Carlos Slim

"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

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

- Diogenes of Sinope

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

- Publilius Syrus

"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

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

- Sun Tzu

"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

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

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"When you take ownership of your own actions, you hold the key to your future."

- Allan Lokos

"Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude."

- Zig Ziglar

"Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it."

- Lou Holtz

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."

- Winston Churchill

"Excellence is not a skill, it’s an attitude."

- Ralph Marston

"Feedback is the breakfast of champions."

- Ken Blanchard

"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own."

- Benjamin Disraeli

"It’s not about the number of hours you put in, but rather what you put into those hours."

- Simon Sinek

"I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination."

- Jimmy Dean

"Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there"

- Will Rogers

"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone."

- Neale Donald Walsch

"There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing."

- Aristotle

"The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism."

- Norman Vincent Pearl

"Do you know what happens when you give a procrastinator a good idea? Nothing."

- Donald Gardner

"If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to meet it."

- Jonathan Winters

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go."

- Dr. Seuss

"Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow."

- Anthony J. D’Angelo

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

- Gertrude Stein

"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence."

- Abigail Adams

"The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you."

- B.B. King

"The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice."

- Brian Herbert

"Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory."

- Dr Seuss

"Empowerment is the key to a fulfilling life. The greatest empowerment is the realization of one’s own power."

- Lailah Gifty Akita

"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary."

- Vidal Sassoon

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Normality is a paved road: it’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow."

- Vincent van Gogh

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."

- Albert Pujols

"It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters."

- Epictetus

"It's easy to solve a problem that everyone sees, but it's hard to solve a problem that almost no one sees."

- Tony Fadell

"The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of management is that success equals skill."

- Robert Heller

"There is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity."

- Fred Brooks

"The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided."

- Casey Stengel

"To be a good manager, a manager tries to constantly fight to reduce waste."

- Eliyahu Goldratt

"A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear."

- Herb Kelleher

"That is what a good manager does - you study and think and discuss, and you come up with a model of playing."

- Carlo Ancelotti

"Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"A manager's job is simple. For one hundred sixty-two games, you try not to screw up all that smart stuff your organization did last December."

- Earl Weaver

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."

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

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

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

"A positive attitude gives you power over your circumstances instead of your circumstances having power over you."

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

"Leadership is the ability to influence others to achieve a common goal."

"Leadership is not about being the best. It is about making others better."

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

"Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent."

- Unknown

"Strong people don't put others down. They lift them up."