Leaders Leadership Quotes & Sayings

Leaders don't fall in love with mediocrity. The status quo isn't their desire to maintain but to improve. — Israelmore Ayivor

I wish you much more grace for all your works. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Because sometimes the best leaders are the ones who have no interest in leading. Those are often the ones who are most interested in doing what is right, not what is popular. — Joelle Charbonneau

I'm not the boss of my house. I don't know how I lost it, I don't know when I lost it, I don't really think I ever had it. But I've seen the boss's job ... and I don't want it! — Bill Cosby

Great leaders make leadership look so easy. — Pat Heim

One of the best ways to influence people is to make them feel important. — Roy T. Bennett

The bottom line is that you can't lead the person you can't serve! — Israelmore Ayivor

Missional leaders not only feel the burden of God's mission but they also act on the burden and act upon it sacrificially. Leading a missional church is not for the faint of heart. It takes courage to push yourself beyond your comfort zone and to lead the church beyond it personal limits. Brokenness, inner turmoil and sacrifice will always be part of the missional leader's life. — Gary Rohrmayer

It is tempting to call for better leadership, but we probably expect too much from the leaders of the nations. Those nations are too big, the connections not strong enough, the commitment to the future not long enough. It is better to look smaller, to our now-smaller organisations, to local communities and cities, to families and clusters of friends, to small networks of portfolio people with time to give to something bigger than themselves. We have to fashion our own directions in our own places. — Charles Handy

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

Our evolution depends on our memory. If we keep forgetting the mistakes of the past, only to keep repeating them, then we will never change. And if we keep recycling through the exact same kind of leaders - the kind who do not propel us forward, but only hold us back - then perhaps what we really need now is a completely different style of leadership altogether. We need heart-driven leaders, not strictly mind-driven ones. We need compassionate humanitarians, not greedy businessmen. Peacemakers, not war instigators. We need unity, not division. Angels, not devils. — Suzy Kassem

Leaders don't assume. Assumptions are the termites of leadership. Communicate, communicate, and communicate, until you connect. — Farshad Asl

When leaders learn and live good values, they make themselves more valuable and lift the value of other people. That is the foundation of positive leadership. — John C. Maxwell

Professionalism is always the enemy of authentic gospel leadership. Leaders — Tim Chester

High performance leaders know they have to breathe out when they are coming up for air. — Andy Hargreaves

You have great talent for great contribution to humanity. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Good leaders must know how to reward those who succeed and know when to retrain, move, or fire ineffective staff. — Colin Powell

People need to feel safe to be who they are - to speak up when they have an idea, or to speak out when they feel something isn't right. — Eunice Parisi-Carew

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

Great leaders live and leave noble and indelible footprints. Any leader can start something. Any leader can do anything but, the real hallmark and a great measure of a great leader is not necessarily what happens now but, what happens later. The noble works of a true and a great leader stand the test of time and never vanish with time. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Good leaders are intelligent;
great leaders are wise.
Good leaders are bold;
great leaders are fearless.
Good leaders are artful;
great leaders are kind.
Good leaders are warriors;
great leaders are servants.
Good leaders are managers;
great leaders are innovators. — Matshona Dhliwayo

For Aboriginal leaders, the social and moral obligation that comes with community leadership is life-long. Those who lead, who have authority, must care for and look after those who come behind. — Patrick Dodson

All leaders model and message; unfortunately, most would-be leaders model doesn't align with their message. — Orrin Woodward

Voters - here's the real challenge: we don't need empty promises made by politicians whose only goal in life is to get elected or re-elected. We need leaders with attributes that qualify them to lead us through the difficult challenges we're facing. — Lee Ellis

The great leaders in history were great not because of what they owned or earned but because of what they gave their lives to accomplish. They made a difference! — John C. Maxwell

Character in leadership is the most important balance for leadership. Without character, leaders have no safety. Leadership has no protection without character. — Myles Munroe

A compassionate government does not need to pay too much attention to those who don't have needs. True leadership is to fulfill a need of the needy. People who have needs need attention indeed! Be a true leader! — Israelmore Ayivor

Think of strength, dream of strength, live of strength. — Abhijit Naskar

Leaders face battles. They don't run away from troubles. — Israelmore Ayivor

Enter the candidates on horseback: While military leaders can sometimes be dangerous in politics, our best generals and admirals embody the democratic values and leadership skills for which the country is yearning. — David Ignatius

Missional leaders know that their church will only grow as large as its capacity to provide ongoing care through a network of small groups and ministry teams. — Gary Rohrmayer

When I look at Africa many questions come to mind, many times I have asked myself what would happen if Dr Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba were to rise up and see what is happening, many times I have asked myself what would happen if Nelson Madiba Mandela were to rise up and see what is happening, because what they will be confronted with is an Africa where the Democratic Republic of Congo is unsettled, there is a war going on there, but it's not on the front pages of our newspapers because we don't even control our newspapers and the media. — Patrick L.O. Lumumba

We need leaders who can meet and adapt to new challenges, build strategic partnerships, build and sustain human capital organizations, and have the courage to act and react to the challenges — Thomas Narofsky

Revolutionary leaders have to care more about what they think of themselves than what the world thinks of them. — Guy Kawasaki

I fell in love with the topic of leadership. For three decades, that has been a major focus of my hands-on work: listening to and working with leaders, their teams and their organizations. — Henry Cloud

When you practice leadership,The evidence of quality of your leadership, Is known from the type of leaders that emerge out of your leadership — Sujit Lalwani

The leader's commandment is made up of pledges to solve local and global problems, and not to create more problems to add to the existing ones. — Israelmore Ayivor

You put your own joy in prison if you work hard to make other people's happiness suffocate. — Israelmore Ayivor

Leaders need 5 core competences: soul, head, hand, heart, body. Where do you need to grow? — Aubrey Malphurs

Leaders live by choice, not by accident. — Mark Gorman

Leaders are creatures of their environment, but unlike most creatures, they are also movers of it. As movers of and within the organization, they push it forward, at the same time shaping it as much as it shapes them. — John Baldoni

Managers and leaders cause most of the organizational confusion and frustration by not doing their jobs - their real jobs. — Liz Weber

If more of our so-called leaders would walk the same streets as the people who voted them in, live in the same buildings, eat the same food instead of hiding behind glass and steel and bodyguards, maybe we'd get better leadership and a little more concern for the future. — Bruce Boxleitner

Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems. — Brian Tracy

To instill the values for the culture was and is the responsibility of the leadership, and staff alignment was critical to its success. It started with both board and staff. They realized that they needed to share the same value system that says, "I am the equipper, not the doer." If not, there were going to be immense roadblocks to effectively mobilizing people for ministry. — Sue Mallory

Wise leaders know that if an individual doesn't count, the institution doesn't count for much either. Put mathematically, if the individual is a zero, together a lot of zeros add up to a whole lot of nothing. — Diane Dreher

My final advice for young people is to not wait for leadership from adult politicians. Step forward today, because our current leaders are denying the dire reality we are facing. Leadership can come form anywhere. — Kumi Naidoo

Current research is showing that true leaders enjoy using their power and are comfortable with it - so comfortable, in fact, that they don't mind sharing that control when it is appropriate to do so. — Marlene Caroselli

Managers are people who know what they want.
Leaders are people who get what they want. — Bogdan Vaida

There are two kinds of leaders: those who are interested in the flock, and those who are interested in the fleece. — Evan Esar

The actions of a leader are always criticised by scholars as well as common men. A scholar has no obligation to produce result, so he is free to rebuke leaders for not sticking to noble means. Common men envy leaders their position and power, thus feeling happy in vilifying them to pull them down to their own levels. — Awdhesh Singh

There are two kinds of leaders, cowboys and Shepherds. Cowboys drive and Shepherds lead. — John Paul Warren

All good leaders are optimists. They always see opportunity where others see hardship — Jocelyn Murray

The term "leadership" connotes critical experience rather than routine practice. This is suggested in the following comment by Barnard: The overvaluation of the apparatus of communication and administration is opposed to leadership and the development of leaders. It opposes leadership whose function is to promote appropriate adjustment of ends and means to new environmental conditions, because it opposes change either of status in general or of established procedures and habitual routine. This overvaluation also discourages the development of leaders by retarding the progress of the abler men and by putting an excessive premium on routine qualities.[6] {37} — Philip Selznick

In most important ways, leaders of the future will need the traits and capabilities of leaders throughout history: an eye for change and a steadying hand to provide both vision and reassurance that change can be mastered, a voice that articulates the will of the group and shapes it to constructive ends, and an ability to inspire by force of personality while making others feel empowered to increase and use their own abilities. — Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The actual legacy of Desert Storm was to plunge the United States more deeply into a sea of difficulties for which military power provided no antidote. Yet in post-Cold War Washington, where global leadership and global power projection had become all but interchangeable terms, senior military officers...were less interested in assessing what those difficulties might portend than in claiming a suitably large part of the action. In the buoyant atmosphere of that moment, confidence in the efficiency of American arms left little room for skepticism and doubt. As a result, senior military leaders left unasked questions of fundamental importance. What if the effect of projecting U.S. military power was not to solve problems, but to exacerbate them? What if expectations of doing more with less proved hollow? What consequences would then ensue? Who wear bear them? — Bacevich

The world of the 90s and beyond will belong to managers or those who make the numbers dance, as we used to say, or those who are conversant with all the business jargon we used to sound smart. The world will belong to passionate, driven leaders
people who not only have an enormous amount of energy but who can energize those whom they lead. — John Welch

Successful leaders are like icebergs. When you look at an iceberg, you see only about 10 percent of it, and the rest of it is hidden under the water. When you look at successful leaders, you see only a fraction of their lives. You see the part that looks really good, but there's usually a lot that remains hidden that's neither exciting nor glamorous. Tennis star Arthur Ashe said, "True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever the cost." True leadership is the same. — John C. Maxwell

Ill equipped leaders produces ill equipped people — Ikechukwu Joseph

Leaders must see the dream in their mind before they will accomplish the dream with their team. — Orrin Woodward

Progress on problems is the measure of leadership; leaders mobilize people to face problems, and communities make progress on problems because leaders challenge them and help them to do so. — Ronald A. Heifetz

I regularly invite educators and leaders to send me their questions, and hundreds of them do so every month. The most common question, however, is one to which my response is probably most disappointing. The question is "How do I get better buy-in from my staff before I implement some critically needed changes?" The answer is "You don't. — Douglas B. Reeves

When the leader grows, the organization grows. — Israelmore Ayivor

You break the legs of your leadership chair when you chase after other people's assignments instead of pursing yours! — Israelmore Ayivor

It is often said that the best leaders are those who serve. — Michael Kirby

Authentic leaders inspire us to engage with each other in powerful dreams that make the impossible possible. We are called on to persevere despite failure and pursue a purpose beyond the paycheck. This is at the core of innovation. It requires aligning the dreams of each individual to the broader dream of the organization. — Henna Inam

Typically, our love for our leaders is one-sided: their successes become our own, while their failures are theirs alone. — Marcia Whicker

A leader does not lose focus because he wants to please his followers. — Israelmore Ayivor

Managers maintain an efficient status quo while leaders attack the status quo to create something new. — Orrin Woodward

Think of managing change as an adventure. It tests your skills and abilities. It brings forth talent that may have been dormant. Change is also a training ground for leadership. When we think of leaders, we remember times of change, innovation, and conflict. Leadership is often about shaping a new way of life. To do that, you must advance change, take risks, and accept responsibility for making change happen. — Charles E. Rice

All leadership begins from inside a person and must be developed and grown as they grow into emerging and enduring leaders — Thomas Narofsky

A confident leader is like a duck. Above the water, he is calm and poised while below the water, he is driven by a flurry of focused activity. — Todd Stocker

You did what your heart told you to do,' Brain complimented. 'It is what leaders, not followers, do. — Tonya Hurley

The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing people around a shared vision. — Ken Blanchard

Leaders make decisions that create the future they desire. — Mike Murdock

Leaders' careers will usually be determined by their handling of one or two critical events that no one could possibly anticipate or plan for. — Tom Peters

Under a bad leadership Serbs are capable of committing the most terrible atrocities; under good leaders we can do great deeds. It's like a field - if it's not cared for, the weeds will take over. But if you tend it, water and feed the seeds, you will read a bountiful harvest. Serbs are lazy, we lack discipline and have no capacity for self-criticism." With Their Backs to the World — Asne Seierstad

Serve one another with great humility. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Demonstrating integrity is indispensable for leaders. — Scott K. Edinger

The speed at which progress rolls is not determined by the number of people who started pushing it, but by the number of people who are passionate to hold on doing so. — Israelmore Ayivor

Leaders don't need a path. They make one. — Tim Fargo

Leaders set high standards. Refuse to tolerate mediocrity or poor performance. — Brian Tracy

Education leaders must have the will at times to release leadership to the teachers the parents and the students. — Andy Hargreaves

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

Our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment. People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser or secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to. — William Blum

Leaders have to act more quickly today. The pressure comes much faster. — Andy Grove

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them. — John C. Maxwell

People will know you for who you are, but will remember you for what you have done. True leaders make long lasting impacts! — Israelmore Ayivor

Leadership is about focus and concentrations. To be in focus, choose a clear direction. To concentrate, remain in that direction! — Israelmore Ayivor

Leaders know that the fruit of life is out on a limb. — Orrin Woodward

The best leaders are clear. They continually light the way, and in the process, let each person know that what they do makes a difference. The best test as a leader is: Do those served grow as persons; do they become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become leaders? — Robert K. Greenleaf

Leaders grow; they are not made. — Peter Drucker

Anyone who wants to prevent you from making other people happy is an enemy. If you are stopping yourself from making others happy, you are your own enemy. — Israelmore Ayivor

It is amazing, the number of business executives and senior leaders who get to be appointed and elevated to positions of authority on the basis of technical competences whilst lacking essential grooming on basic good manners and customs of conduct that must come from the home training process. — Archibald Marwizi

Leaders inspire accountability through their ability to accept responsibility before they place blame. — Courtney Lynch

All leaders are influenced by those they admire. Reading about them and studying their traits inevitably allows an inspiring leader to develop his own leadership traits. — Rudy Giuliani

Leaderships about transforming lives and making a difference through innovation and purpose, grounded in values and integrity — Michael Harris

Your character and attitude is what takes the lead in your leadership role and you follow them as a true leader. Poor character and attitude is eventually poor leadership. — Israelmore Ayivor

Sometimes, people don't need our homes to live in or our bodies to lean on. All they need are our hands to lift them up. — Israelmore Ayivor

After World War II, American leaders were, in Dean Acheson's words, 'present at the creation' of a global order. Now at the end of the cold war, we desperately need that same vision, that leadership, that creativity to be applied to the governance of the global marketplace. — John J. Sweeney