Quotes & Sayings About Effective Leadership

We are most effective when we are able to lean in fully to the resource of the other people in our lives. — Henry Kimsey-House

The art of effective leadership is about navigating the dynamics of growth and success ... holding a vision and leading a team, but arriving at the same time. — Steve Maraboli

Effective leadership is the only competitive advantage that will endure. That's because leadership has two sides- what a person is character and what a person does- competence. — Stephen Covey

Effective leaders are made, not born. They learn from trial and error, and from experience. — Colin Powell

There are very few good examples of effective, nurturing leadership that unlocks people's potential or even enthusiasm. — Deepak Chopra

When we win on an issue we call it leadership. When we lose, we call it politics. Practicing politics simply means increasing your options for effective results. — John Eldred

The most effective teams are composed of a healthy mix of introverts and extroverts, studies show, and so are many leadership structures. — Susan Cain

Authenticity requires us to slow down. Fast times require us to slow down. To be effective, we need to slow down our pace of thought and action and focus on managing our attention. To be authentic leaders we need to act from intention and choice rather than from habit and impulse. — Henna Inam

Two key leadership excellence values worth focusing on separately are being principle-centred and being consistent. The complimentary construction of these leadership fibres can easily be misconstrued for unreasonable stubbornness, yet they form the backbone of strong, effective transformational leadership. In building the legacy advocated for, in leadership excellence brands, you must sharpen the practice of these leadership values in every area of your life. — Archibald Marwizi

if a leader combines leadership principles with an understanding of context, there will be effective execution. — Russell E. Palmer

Questions are far more effective than defensive statements. They do not imply agreement, but they do convey interest and a desire to understand and facilitate an environment for peak performance, a central thread of effective leadership ... The next time someone accuses you of virtually anything, ask some questions. Resolving the situation may take more time, but the outcome will likely be more productive for both of you. — Stephen Young

The reality is that the way in which a leader conducts his personal life does, in fact, have a profound impact on his ability to exercise effective public leadership. — Samuel D. Rima

Father, help me focus on my strengths and trust others to fill the gaps of my weaknesses"

Every leader knows the skills in which they excel. They also are aware of those tasks that they maintain a certain level of competence along with those duties they struggle in accomplishing. In my experience there are "want to's" and the "have to's" of leadership. The "want to's" energize a leader and the "have to's" zap the leader's creativity and time. The quicker a leader can find those around them that will fill the gaps of their weaknesses, the more effective they will be in achieving God's mission. — Gary Rohrmayer

Renowned management guru Peter F.Drucker looked back at his 65-year consulting career shortly before he died. He concluded that great leaders could either be 'charismatic or dull' or 'visionary or numbers-orientated,' but the most inspiring and effective managers he knew all had said we rather than I. — Robert I. Sutton

The roots of effective leadership lie in simple things, one of which is listening. Listening to someone demonstrates respect; it shows that you value their ideas and are willing to hear them. — John Baldoni

Every effective person must be able to sell and teach, whether in private or to a group in public. This applies equally to skills and talents as it does to products and services. — Archibald Marwizi

Progress and motion are not synonymous. — Tim Fargo

I think in any situation, so much of effective leadership is when it comes from your own personality. And I feel very fortunate to be comfortable in the Colts locker room, where people can be who they are, and they don't have to change it when they show up to work that day. — Andrew Luck

Having the right attitude is fundamental to being an effective leader. — Jim George

Those who are not true leaders or elders will just affirm people at their own immature level, and of course immature people will love them and elect them for being equally immature. You can fill in the names here with your own political disaster story. But just remember, there is a symbiosis between immature groups and immature leaders, I am afraid, which is why both Plato and Jefferson said democracy was not really the best form of government. It is the safest. A truly wise monarch would probably be the most effective at getting things done. — Richard Rohr

You must love those you lead before you can be an effective leader, you can certainly command without that sense of commitment, but you cannot lead without it. And without leadership, command is a hollow experience, a vacuum often filled with mistrust and arrogance. — Eric Shinseki

Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential. — Warren G. Bennis

Effective leadership is doing important things first. Effective management is knowing what is important. — Debasish Mridha

Leadership's primary job is to enhance creative capacity by developing collectively effective leadership. — William A. Adams

As you know, I have over the years written critically about the U.N. I have consistently stressed in my writings that American leadership is critical to the success of the U.N., an effective U.N., one that is true to the original intent of its charter's framers. — John Bolton

As you strive for personal effectiveness and leadership excellence, there are local and global questions that you will inevitably have to face. These range from poverty, corruption, terrorism, food security, scarcity of resources and overpopulation among others. Your power and influence for significance in leadership excellence will increase in direct proportion to your ability to find effective and sustainable practical solutions to some of these real-life challenges. — Archibald Marwizi

Develop your leaders into a competitive advantage. Reconnect your leader-power to success. — Gene Morton

A critical element in nearly all effective social movements is leadership. For it is through smart, persistent, and authoritative leaders that a movement generates the appropriate concepts and language that captures the frustration, anger, or fear of the group's members and places responsibility where it is warranted. — David E. Wilkins

Personal growth by tackling the 'big-picture" through focusing on the things you have power to influence is more effective and less stressful. — Archibald Marwizi

Presidents, leaders, to be effective have to represent the whole to the parts and to the world outside. They may live in the centre but they must not be the centre. To reinforce the common sense they must be a constant teacher, ever travelling, ever talking, ever listening, the chief missionary of the common cause. — Charles Handy

Chapter 4 Tyranny Is Tyranny Around 1776, certain important people in the English colonies made a discovery that would prove enormously useful for the next two hundred years. They found that by creating a nation, a symbol, a legal unity called the United States, they could take over land, profits, and political power from favorites of the British Empire. In the process, they could hold back a number of potential rebellions and create a consensus of popular support for the rule of a new, privileged leadership. When we look at the American Revolution this way, it was a work of genius, and the Founding Fathers deserve the awed tribute they have received over the centuries. They created the most effective system of national control devised in modern times, and showed future generations of leaders the advantages of combining paternalism with command. — Howard Zinn

Effective leaders allow God to shape them into the kind of people they need to be for each situation they encounter. — Jim George

A true leader must have enough backbone to stand alone, even when the crowd wants to take the easy road home. A true leader cannot be dependent on companionship for his or her security, but must learn to trust in God alone. Singleness can give us the kind of backbone - courage, confidence, and leadership skills that an effective Christian must learn. — Leslie Ludy

All progress begins with a decision. Effective leadership requires decisive action. Embrace the process of deciding, yet recognize when you have reached a choice point. — Angie Morgan

The effective executive knows that it is easier to raise the performance of one leader than it is to raise the performance of a whole mass. She therefore makes sure she puts into the leadership position, into the standard-setting, the performance-making position the person who has the strength to do the outstanding pacesetting job. This always requires focus on the one strength of a person and dismissal of weaknesses as irrelevant unless they hamper the full deployment of the available strength. — Peter Drucker

The leader has to command the respect of all those under his supervision - and he must be open to those under his supervision. Effective leadership means having a lot of people working toward a common goal. And when you have that with no one caring who gets the credit, you're going to accomplish a lot. If you have those just wanting the credit for themselves, you're not going to get as much accomplished. — John Wooden

Your life as an effective person must always have productivity surrounding all your efforts, there must be a sustained forward and upward trajectory in every area of your life. This is where the Shona Shereketa meets the Japanese Kaizen - you are moving and shaking past mediocrity on the basis of small but continuous improvements that will ultimately result in positive quality changes to your life. — Archibald Marwizi

Positioning yourself and effective branding should not be left to sports and movie stars. Your need a personal coach, manager or mentor otherwise your expertise, skills or talent will not go far. You might have what it takes but sometimes you lack strategy and some finer elements. — Archibald Marwizi

It helps certain church leaders identify the fact that they have the spiritual gift of leadership that the Bible talks about in Romans 12:8. Once you understand that God has given a gift, then training becomes more seriously. When you receive better training, you become more effective in the leadership position that God has assigned to you. — Bill Hybels

Idealism without pragmatism is impotent. Pragmatism without idealism is meaningless. The key to effective leadership is pragmatic idealism. — Richard M. Nixon

Success in an enterprise can be brought about, through effective leadership, which educes open communication, which in turn would contribute towards bringing down conflict levels, thus leading to higher productivity and distinguished gains, which in turn testifies about the healthy corporate culture of an organization. — Henrietta Newton Martin

Great leadership can be a difficult thing to pin down and understand. You know a great leader when you're working for one, but even they can have a hard time articulating what it is that makes their leadership so effective. — Travis Bradberry

We know that leadership is very much related to change. As the pace of change accelerates, there is naturally a greater need for effective leadership. — John P. Kotter

With the right Mindset ... effective thinking is automatic. — Tony Dovale

Leadership from the Oval Office - and sustained, effective use of the bully pulpit - is essential to getting the American people off their too-pampered butts and into meeting successfully the long-haul challenges of fixing major problems in the very fabric of our republic's life, both domestically and in our international relations. — Lawrence Wilkerson

Nobody is rewarded for occupying a position, but for becoming effective in the position occupied. If you occupy a position, you must have the weight of influence in order to matter! — Israelmore Ayivor

I believe one of the requirements of good leadership is the ability to listen - really listen - to those in your organization. An effective leader is very good at listening, and it's difficult to listen when you are talking. — John Wooden

Quality effective leaders have the confidence to trust others to try, succeed, and sometimes to fail. We very often confuse personality with leadership. In other words, leadership is not about being a nice person or not a nice person. — Simon Sinek

The "artificial gap" between business and IT can be bridged via effective leadership, profound understanding, continuous learning, and improvement. — Pearl Zhu

The call to leadership excellence means you must now be awake to the reality that you are no longer your own, you are a blessing to society. In business, this will also mean value given to shareholders, customers, employees as well as society. This will take you, your family and your corporate base to appreciate that your leadership role and influence demands that they share you with other causes and stakeholders. As an effective person, you must be able to balance the demands on you and create the additional time that leadership at a higher level requires. — Archibald Marwizi

Aligning your values and beliefs to your behaviour, increases your chances of being effective at living a fulfilling life without the stress of guilt-consciousness, internal strife or internal conflict — Archibald Marwizi

Physical well-being is not only a priceless asset to oneself-it is a heritage to be passed on. With good health, all other activities of life are greatly enhanced. A clean mind in a healthy body enables one to render far more effective service to others. It helps one provide more vigorous leadership. It gives our every experience in life more zest and more meaning. Robust health is a noble and worthwhile attainment. — Ezra Taft Benson

Effective leadership is about earning respect, and it's also about personality and charisma — Alan Sugar

We are far more effective on the inside looking out than the outside looking in. — Helen Lynch

Leaders move among the various stages each day. But effective leaders move among the right stages at the right times. — Liz Weber

Fortunately, good policy, true principles, and effective leadership work whenever they are tried. When we reduce government, balance budgets, and keep taxes as low as possible, states respond in a positive way. — Brian Sandoval

Practice holding labels lightly as leaders so you have greater range in your behaviors and are more adaptable and effective in a greater range of situations. — Henna Inam

Coaching is one of the most effective leadership styles that can transform, empower and unlock people's potential. Ask more, advice less, elevate your impact forever. — Farshad Asl

Those who depend fully on another person's knowledge to decide what is possible are easily manipulated. The most effective leaders utilize experts from all fields , but rely on none when it comes to making a decision. — Joelle Charbonneau Independent Study

As a servant leader the way you serve the vision is by developing people so that they can work on that vision even when you're not around. The ultimate sin of an effective servant leader is what happens when you are not there. That was the power of Jesus' leadership-the leaders He trained went on to change the world when He was no longer with them in bodily form. — Ken Blanchard

In any organization of which I have played a leadership role, our trump card has never been great numbers but the way we worked with neighborhood people in conjunction with professionals in suits and ties. I want the Obama generation to try to understand this concept, and use it as a real yardstick for their ability to make change. My life personifies the straddling of two cultures: the world of Amherst and Yale and the world of Newark, New Jersey. As you will see, it is the power of the streets combined with the power of the suites that is the most effective mix for making things happen. Anybody who comes to you and says "we want change," without addressing the intersection of these two powerful forces in combination, is just whistling status quo. — Junius Williams

Here is Max De Pree at his best, and that is very good indeed. In Leading Without Power, De Pree shows us why we cannot master the how-to-dos of effective leadership without also being clear about what leaders?and followers?must be. In doing so, he not only provides us with much practical wisdom about creative leading and organizational health, he also nurtures our souls. This is a book to be savored by all who care about such things as vision, faithfulness, trust, and hope. — Richard J. Mouw

I think leadership is most effective when it's your own personality. But I feel like it's a natural progression as a quarterback, as well. — Andrew Luck

The main characteristics of effective leadership are intelligence, integrity or loyalty, mystique, humor, discipline, courage, self sufficieny and confidence. — James Fisher

You don't become an effective leader by default. — John C. Maxwell

Superior execution is vital to sustaining the success initiated by an innovative service concept. An innovator's service quality is usually more difficult to imitate than its service concept. This is because quality service comes from inspired leadership throughout an organization, a customer-minded corporate culture, excellent service-system design, the effective use of information and technology, and other factors that develop slowly in a company, if at all. — Leonard L. Berry

You cannot be effective if those who work for you are not. So building their effectiveness ought to be a priority. — Richard N. Haass

Arthur Scargill's leadership of the miners' strike has been a disgrace. The price to be paid for his folly will be immense. He will have destroyed the N.U.M. as an effective fighting force within British trade unionism for the next 20 years. If kamikaze pilots were to form their own union, Arthur would be an ideal choice for leader. — Jimmy Reid

When we miss the meaning of a language, we miss the real essence and impact of communication. If we lose the real meaning of a language, we lose the real understanding of a language. Friendship is developed and nurtured through effective communication and that is the great tool that shapes friendship. A good communication, regardless of how short it might be is a great litmus paper that proves who a true friend or false friend is. A good communication does not only trigger the best bond but it also uncovers things in the heart that are hidden from the eyes. Without an effective communication, real friendship and real love between two great people is just like two great mountains with a valley between them. Without communication, we lose what we could have heard from real people. When we miss the meaning of a language, we miss the real essence and impact of communication!!! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Effective spiritual leadership does not come as a result of theological training or seminary degree, as important as education is. Jesus told His disciples, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you" (John 15:16). The sovereign selection of God gives great confidence to Christian workers. We can truly say, "I am here neither by selection of an individual nor election of a group but by the almighty appointment of God. — J. Oswald Sanders

Effective leadership begins with effective communication. — Asa Don Brown

To be effective, we have to slow down the speed of our thoughts and focus on managing our attention. — Henna Inam

Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes. — Peter F. Drucker

The cornerstone of effective leadership is self-mastery. — Patricia Aburdene

Presidential leadership needn't always cost money. Look for low- and no-cost options. They can be surprisingly effective. — Donald Rumsfeld

Developing excellent COMMUNICATION skills is absolutely essential to effective leadership. The leader must be able to share knowledge and ideas to transmit a sense of urgency and enthusiasm to others. If a leader can't get a message across clearly and motivate others to act on it, then having a message doesn't even matter. — Gil Amelio

The deeper your relationship with others, the more effective will be your leadership. People will not follow you if they do not trust you, and before someone will lend you a hand, you must first touch their heart. — Robin Sharma

Since the war I have stressed altogether five main objectives. The true union of Europe; the union of government with science; the power of government to act rapidly and decisively, subject to parliamentary control; the effective leadership of government to solve the economic problem by use of the wage-price mechanism at the two key-points of the modern industrial world; and a clearly defined purpose for a movement of humanity to ever higher forms. — Oswald Mosley

I don't want to over generalize, but I believe that women are typically drawn to leadership styles that focus on consensus building, effective listening and working in teams. That's certainly been my leadership style, and I think it's been very successful. — Margaret Hamburg

Leadership is about setting a direction. It's about creating a vision, empowering and inspiring people to want to achieve the vision, and enabling them to do so with energy and speed through an effective strategy. In its most basic sense, leadership is about mobilizing a group of people to jump into a better future. — John P. Kotter

Successful leaders develop effective strategies for maintaining their boundaries ... Most time bandits don't know any better. And being a time bandit is a matter of context. One person's time bandit is another person's pleasant diversion ... Instead of gritting our teeth to be polite and resenting the time bandit for holding us up, the best choice is to be honest. We cannot expect another person to honor our needs unless we affirm them ourselves. — Diane Dreher

Because our attachment to control is either unexamined or addictive, we do not understand that by relinquishing control and providing choice, we increase our influence and impact many times over. — Roger Harrison

The American Civil War lays out the stark contrast: the greatest generals in war are often abundant failures during peacetime, and vice versa. McClellan and Sherman are the sharpest contrasts; but there is also Grant the peacetime drunkard, and Stonewall Jackson the barely tolerable military professor. Only Lee stands out as effective in both peace and war (and even he had a mentally unstable father, and himself may have been dysthymic in his general personality). This conflict reflects, I think, the different psychological qualities of leadership needed in different phases of human activity, peace and war being the two extremes. — S. Nassir Ghaemi

Give serious thought to why your company should care about your strategy. Specifically, find problems that the board wants to be solved. What are senior managers scared of? Part of becoming a credible strategic thinker is learning effective approaches to selling ideas for your situation. You'll know that you're getting better at selling (or pitching) strategy when managers start coming to you when there is strategic thinking to be done. — Max McKeown

effective leadership isn't an art. It's a science. — Friederike Fabritius

Effective leaders are good spotters. They are on the lookout for
potential leaders. They have the ability to look beyond other's deficiencies to
see their possibilities. — Gary Rohrmayer

Leaders are made not born. They are the results of persistent effort. Thus, leadership involves much more than just shouting. Effective leadership requires a human focus and reflects a servant and transformation mentality. It is about the nuts and bolts of execution. Leadership is an everyday activity. It is a process that begins but never ends. — Vishwas Chavan

We now realize as we have never before our interdependence on each other; that we cannot merely take, but we must be willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline, no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

If we don't communicate, we certainly can't get much done and if we don't communicate authentically, what we get done is less effective. — Michele Jennae

Focusing on effective leadership without focusing on a willingness to follow is like studying clapping by studying only the left hand. — Jonathan Haidt

Competition and rivalry between the members of a group are the antithesis of the cooperation and team play needed in an effective management group. This is why team building is an empty abstraction for a group whose leader controls with power. — Thomas Gordon

We must practice consistent, reliable, predictable, effective, thoughtful, compassionate and even courteous communication every single day to successfully sustain, develop and grow our business. — Kip Tindell

We praise our leaders when they act against our adversaries. But when our own interest is threatened, we begin to dislike the same leaders, irrespective of the sincerity of their intentions. An effective leader is bound to create enemies. — Awdhesh Singh

Sometimes servant leaders focus on the servitude part and forget the leader part. Great leadership isn't about abdication of power, it about the benevolent application of that power. — Scott Hammerle

I often say that leadership is deeply personal and inherently collective. That's a paradox that effective leaders have to embrace. — Peter Senge

I've written about the giving of trust as though it were a simple formula for building loyalty. But it isn't simple at all. The talent that is an essential ingredient of leadership tells the leader whom to trust and how much to trust and when to trust. The rule is (as with children) that trust be given slightly in advance of demonstrated trustworthiness. But not too much in advance. You have to have an unerring sense of how much the person is ready for. Setting people up for failure doesn't make them loyal to you; you have to set them up for success. Each time you give trust in advance of demonstrated performance, you flirt with danger. If you're risk-averse, you won't do it. And that's a shame, because the most effective way to gain the trust and loyalty of those beneath you is to give the same in equal measure. — Tom DeMarco

Effective leaders help others to understand the necessity of change and to accept a common vision of the desired outcome. — John P. Kotter

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out. — Stephen Covey

Effective communication is the best way to solve problems. — Bradford Winters

Too many companies believe people are interchangeable. Truly gifted people never are. They have unique talents. Such people cannot be forced into roles they are not suited for, nor should they be. Effective leaders allow great people to do the work they were born to do. — Warren G. Bennis