Inspiring Leadership: A Collection of Powerful Quotes

"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

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

- Gertrude Stein

"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

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

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Be the leader you wish you had."

- Simon Sinek

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

- James Cameron

"Instruction does much, but encouragement, everything."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

- Bertrand Piccard

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

- Paulo Coelho

"Safe is the new risky."

- Kathy Klotz

"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

"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

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

- Gloria Steinem

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

- Dieter F. Uchtdorf

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

- Jessica Watson

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

- Malala Yousafzai

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

- Irena Sendlerowa

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

- Sarinya Srisakul

"You must figure out your own destination and the best route to get there because no one else knows the way."

- Nadia Comaneci

"If it’s a good idea, go ahead and do it."

- Grace Hopper

"If you have to choose between an easy thing and a hard thing, the hard one’s usually a lot more fun."

- Samantha Cristoforetti

"If you’re lucky enough to be different, don’t ever change."

- Khoudia Diop

"Never be afraid to be a poppy in a field of daffodils."

- Michaela Deprince

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

- Stephen Covey

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

- Henry Kissinger

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

- Max Lucado

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

- Warren Bennis

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

- Michelle Obama

"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

"A leader is a dealer in hope."

- Napoleon Bonaparte

"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

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

- Warren G. Bennis

"You manage things; you lead people."

- Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper

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

- John C. Maxwell

"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 true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others."

- Douglas MacArthur

"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

"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It's got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion."

- Reverend Theodore Hesburgh

"Leadership is influence."

- John C. Maxwell

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

- Harvey S. Firestone

"You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case."

- Ken Kesey

"Earn your leadership every day."

- Michael Jordan

"A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops."

- Gen. John J. Pershing

"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week."

- George Patton

"The supreme quality of leadership is integrity."

- Dwight Eisenhower

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

- Dwight Eisenhower

"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

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

- Erskine Bowles

"The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time."

- George Orwell

"A great leader's courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position."

- John Maxwell

"A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see and who sees before others see."

- Leroy Eimes

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

- Ken Blanchard

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

- John Buchan

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

- Warren Bennis

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

- Ralph Nader

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

- Peter Drucker

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

- Simon Sinek

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

- Tom Peters

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

- John C. Maxwell

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

- Jack Welch

"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.

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

- Peter Drucker

"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

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

- Thomas Jefferson

"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

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

- President John Quincy Adams

"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

"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

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."

- John F. Kennedy

"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

"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 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

"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 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

"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

"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

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

- Amelia Earhart

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

- Walt Disney

"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

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

- Abraham Lincoln

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

- Colin Powell

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

- Winston Churchill

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

- Estée Lauder

"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

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

- Winston Churchill

"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

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

- Mike Gafka

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

- Lao Tzu

"Restore connection is not just for devices, it is for people too. If we cannot disconnect, we cannot lead. Creating the culture of burnout is opposite to creating a culture of sustainable creativity. This is something that needs to be taught in business schools. This mentality needs to be introduced as a leadership and performance-enhancing tool."

- Arianna Huffington

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

- Margaret Thatcher

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

- Brian Tracy

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

- Brian Tracy

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

- Queen Victoria

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

- Mary D. Poole

"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

"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

"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

"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

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

- Chris Grosser

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

- Margaret Wheatley

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

- Steve Jobs

"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 Buffet

"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

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

- Joe DiMaggio

"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

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

- Dale Carnegie

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

- Michael Jordan

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

- Mother Teresa

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"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

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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?"

"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."

"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 team-mates and customers."

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

"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 being a woman CEO of this company. I think of myself as a steward of a great institution."

"Knowing what must be done does away with fear."

"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."

"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 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."

"The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it."

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