50 Inspirational Quotes from Legendary Leaders to Ignite Your Passion

"It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do."

- Steve Jobs

"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."

- Winston Churchill

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

- Peter Drucker

"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.

"Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion."

- Jack Welch

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

- John C. Maxwell

"Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve."

- Mary Kay Ash

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

- Ken Blanchard

"You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

- Steve Jobs

"A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination, and hard work."

- Colin Powell

"Leaders aren’t born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal."

- Vince Lombardi

"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 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

"My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better."

- Steve Jobs

"Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

- Steve Jobs

"Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position."

- Brian Tracy

"Be the leader you wish you had."

- Simon Sinek

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."

- Winston Churchill

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

- Ronald Reagan

"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

"Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right."

- Henry Ford

"It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong."

- Abraham Lincoln

"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

"All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them."

- Walt Disney

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

- President John Quincy Adams

"If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve."

- Jeff Bezos

"The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks."

- Mark Zuckerberg

"There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed."

- Ray Goforth

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

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

- Tom Peters

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

- John Maxwell

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

- William A. Ward

"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

"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

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

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"I never dreamed about success. I worked for it."

- Estée Lauder

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

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"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

"Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems."

- Brian Tracy

"The secret of a leader lies in the tests he has faced over the whole course of his life and the habit of action he develops in meeting those tests."

- Gail Sheehy

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

- Margaret Mead

"You have to look at leadership through the eyes of the followers and you have to live the message. What I have learned is that people become motivated when you guide them to the source of their own power and when you make heroes out of employees who personify what you want to see in the organization."

- Anita Roddick

"A leader is a dealer in hope."

- Napoleon Bonaparte

"Contrary to popular opinion, leadership is not a reserved position for a particular group of people who were elected or appointed, ordained or enthroned. Leadership is self-made, self-retained, self-inculcated and then exposed through a faithful, sincere and exemplary life."

- Israelmore Avivor

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

- Steve Jobs

"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

"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

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

- Seth Godin

"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

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

- Jack Welch

"Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence."

- Sheryl Sandberg

"Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position."

- Brian Tracy

"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

"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

"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

"One of the keys to good leadership is good followership."

- James Cameron

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

- Paulo Coelho

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

- Dieter F. Uchtdorf

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

- Malala Yousafzai

"Don't follow the crowd. Let the crowd follow you."

- Margaret Thatcher

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"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

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

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

- Warren Bennis

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

- Warren Bennis

"Leadership is about the team—the culture they keep and embrace, it’s about empathy for your customers, clients, employees, and the communities where you do business, it’s about doing the right thing for the right reasons, being confident enough to take risks and responsible enough to think of those who your decisions and risks may affect."

- Kat Cole

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

- Helen Keller

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

- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."

- John F. Kennedy

"To be successful, you must accept all challenges that come your way. You can’t just accept the ones you like."

- Mike Gafka

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

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"One of the criticisms I’ve faced over the years is that I’m not aggressive enough or assertive enough or maybe somehow, because I’m empathetic, it means I’m weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong."

- Jacinda Ardern

"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.

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

- Bruce Lee

"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

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

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Opportunities don’t happen. You create them."

- Chris Grosser

"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

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

- Margaret Thatcher

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

- Sun Tzu

"Instruction does much, but encouragement, everything."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist."

- Queen Victoria

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

- Bill Parcells

"Champions keep playing until they get it right."

- Billie Jean King

"Leadership is a series of behaviors rather than a role for heroes."

- Margaret Wheatley

"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

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

- Arnold Glasow

"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

"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

"Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself."

- Gloria Steinem

"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

"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

"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

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

- Charles Darwin

"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

"I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail."

- Muriel Strode

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

- Jessica Watson

"Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different."

- Indra Nooyi

"The main thing about being ‘heroic’ is helping others."

- Sarinya Srisakul

"I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier."

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Thomas Jefferson

"You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand."

- Woodrow Wilson

"It’s okay to admit what you don’t know. It’s okay to ask for help. And it’s more than okay to listen to the people you lead–in fact, it’s essential."

- Mary Barra

"No man will make a great business who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit of doing it."

- Andrew Carnegie

"Leadership should be more participative than directive, more enabling than performing."

- Mary D. Poole

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

- John F. Kennedy

"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

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

- Diogenes of Sinope

"One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency."

- Arnold Glasow

"Innovation does not entail having new ideas, but rather getting rid of old beliefs."

- Bertrand Piccard

"Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership."

- James Humes

"If a person is drowning, they must be rescued regardless of their religion or nationality."

- Irena Sendlerowa

"Today’s headlines and history’s judgment are rarely the same."

- Condoleezza Rice

"Do not be afraid to make decisions. Do not be afraid to make mistakes."

- Carly Fiorina

"I have this ability to find this hidden talent in people that sometimes even they didn't know they had."

- Berry Gordy

"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."

- Ariana Huffington

"Safe is the new risky."

- Kathy Klotz

"I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through—then follow through."

- Edward Rickenbacker

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

- Gertrude Stein

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

- Publilius Syrus

"Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it."

- David Starr Jordan

"There are two kinds of stones, as everyone knows, one of which rolls."

- Amelia Earhart

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

- Amelia Earhart

"Leaders grasp nettles."

- David Ogilvy

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out."

"Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time."

"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."

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

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