Leadership Positions Quotes & Sayings

It's such a rarity to have women in senior powerful positions. We can name them all. Fact is, women can handle power and handle it well. That's something I'd like a lot more women to understand. — Christine Nixon

Our problems are both acute and chronic, yet all we hear from those in positions of leadership are the same tired proposals for more government tinkering, more meddling and more control
all of which led us to this state in the first place ... We must have the clarity of vision to see the difference between what is essential and what is merely desirable, and then the courage to bring our government back under control and make it acceptable to the people. — Ronald Reagan

Rotary provides training at all levels so that those who have been selected for leadership positions have the opportunity to learn and apply leadership principles to their jobs. — Ron D. Burton

Comparing the three domains, I found that for jobs of all kinds, emotional competencies were twice as prevalent among distinguishing competencies as were technical skills and purely cognitive abilities combined. In general the higher a position in an organization, the more EI mattered: for individuals in leadership positions, 85 percent of their competencies were in the EI domain. — Daniel Goleman

One simple way to keep organizations from becoming cancerous might be to rotate all jobs on a regular, frequent and mandatory basis, including the leadership positions. — Robert Shea

All the leadership positions that I have had have one common denominator: none has required that I give up my science work. — Mildred S. Dresselhaus

The term 'black' was given a rebirth by the black youth revolt. As reborn, it does not refer to the particular color of any particular person, but to the attitude of pride and devotion to the race whose homeland from times immemorial was called 'The Land of the Blacks.' Almost overnight our youngsters made 'black' coequal with 'white' in respectability, and challenged the anti-black Negroes to decide on which side they stood. This was no problem for many who are light or even near-white in complexion, for they themselves were among the first to proclaim with pride, 'call me black!' Those who hate the term but hold the majority of leadership positions feel compelled to use it to protect their leadership roles. — Chancellor Williams

Women account for about 70% of Africa's food production and manage a large proportion of small enterprises. They are also increasingly represented in legislative and executive leadership positions. — Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Every generation has been given the same blueprint to follow for the good of society. When that blueprint is disregarded by parents and those in leadership positions, the chain is broken and the human race suffers. — Ellen J. Barrier

I have led the way for moving women from traditional roles to strategic positions and inspired girls and women throughout Africa to seek leadership positions. — Dalia Grybauskaite

Without initiative, leaders are simply workers in leadership positions. — Bo Bennett

Because these firms listened to their customers, invested aggressively in new technologies that would provide their customers more and better products of the sort they wanted, and because they carefully studied market trends and systematically allocated investment capital to innovations that promised the best returns, they lost their positions of leadership. — Clayton Christensen

It is unfortunate, that many in positions of leadership, both great and small, have been found guilty of such practices — Anonymous

I must face the fact, as all others in positions of leadership must do, that America today is an extremely sick nation, and that something could well happen to me at any time. I feel, though, that my cause is so right, so moral, that if I should lose my life, in some way it would aid the cause. — Martin Luther King Jr.

What business needs now is exactly what women are able to provide, and at the very time when women are surging into the work force. But perhaps even more important than work force numbers is the fact that women
who began this sweeping entry in the mid-seventies
are just now beginning to assume positions of leadership, which give them the scope to create and reinforce the trends toward change. The confluence is fortunate, an alignment that gives women unique opportunities to assist in the continuing transformation of the workplace ... — Sally Helgesen

The fastest surging woman leadership position is heading non-profit organizations. Women are not rejecting leadership positions
they're rejecting politics. — Celinda Lake

I think for leadership positions, emotional intelligence is more important than cognitive intelligence. People with emotional intelligence usually have a lot of cognitive intelligence, but that's not always true the other way around. — John Mackey

The school made it very clear that women were entitled to positions of authority. That sense of entitlement allowed us to feel that we have a natural place in leadership in the world. That gave me a mental and emotional confidence. — Linda Vester

The underlying issue in getting women to top positions is what kind of leadership we value and how we teach, assess, and promote "good" leaders in all organizations. — Maureen Chiquet

Executives run organizations. In business, we need executives who have clarity, people who are in touch with themselves. Then, in leadership and management positions, they can be good role models and leaders. The people I know who have really moved their organizations are scrupulous role models. They are so clear about honesty, integrity, openness, mutual self-respect, dignity for the individual, and creativity, that they don't deviate from these principles at all in their behavior. — Michael Ray

Whatever success I have achieved, whatever positions of leadership I have held have depended less on Ivy League degrees or SAT scores or GPAs, and have instead been due to that sense of connection and empathy - the special obligation I felt, as a black man like you, to help those who need it most, people who didn't have the opportunities that I had - because there but for the grace of God, go I - I might have been in their shoes. I might have been in prison. I might have been unemployed. I might not have been able to support a family. And that motivates me. — Barack Obama

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

Bill Clinton gives the appearance of taking stands-for some sort of tax cut, some sort of welfare reform, some sort of balanced budget-but these are ploys, mirages: they exist only to undermine positions taken by the Republicans. He doesn't fight for anything substantive-except of course, re-election ... He has fallen into the dangerous habit of lip synching the presidency: he gives the appearance of leadership, but not the substance. — Joe Klein

In the heat of leadership, with the adrenaline pumping, it is easy to convince yourself that you are not subject to the normal human frailties that can defeat ordinary mortals. You begin to act as if you are indestructible. But the intellectual, physical, and emotional challenges of leadership are fierce. So, in addition to getting on the being and assess the tolls those changes are taking. If you don't, your seemingly indestructible self can self-destruct. This, by the way, is an ideal outcome for your foes-and even friends who oppose your initiative- because no one has to feel responsible for your downfall.
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When you take "personal" attacks personally, you unwittingly conspire in one of the common ways you can be taken out of action-you make yourself the issue.
Attacks may be personal, understand that they are basically attacks on positions you represent and the role you are seeking to play — Ronald A. Heifetz

The pipeline that supplies the educated workforce is clock-full of women at the entry level, but by the time that same pipeline is filling leadership positions, it is overwhelmingly stocked with men. — Sheryl Sandberg

Museum Work and Museum Problems" course, the first academic program specifically designed to cultivate and train men and women to become museum directors and curators. In addition to the connoisseurship of art, the "Museum Course" taught the financial and administrative aspects of running a museum, with a focus on eliciting donations. The students met regularly with major art collectors, bankers, and America's social elite, often at elegant dinners where they were required to wear formal dress and observe the social protocol of high culture. By 1941, Sachs's students had begun to fill the leadership positions of American museums, a field they would come to dominate in the postwar years. — Robert M. Edsel

When we step into positions of leadership, we make a whole set of promises we may not know we are making. — Bob Anderson

The failure of women to have reached positions of leadership has been due in large part to social and professional discrimination. — Rosalyn S. Yalow

A leader is only able to lead others because he disciplines himself. The person who does not know how to bow to discipline imposed from without, who does not know how to obey, will not make a good leader-nor will the one who has not learned to impose discipline within his own life. Those who scorn scripturally or legally constituted authority, or rebel against it, rarely qualify for high leadership positions. — J. Oswald Sanders

One highly successful venture capitalist who is regularly pitched by young entrepreneurs told me how frustrated he is by his colleagues' failure to distinguish between good presentation skills and true leadership ability. "I worry that there are people who are put in positions of authority because they're good talkers, but they don't have good ideas," he said. "It's so easy to confuse schmoozing ability with talent. — Susan Cain

Success may be measured by things (prosperity, property, positions, possessions) but GREATNESS (Leadership) can only be measured by PEOPLE. — Fela Durotoye

The function of combat is not merely to perpetrate violence, but to perpetrate violence on command, instantaneously and reflexively. The function of the service academies is to prepare men for leadership positions where they may someday exercise that command. — Jim Webb

So you know what we have to do is stop looking for leadership from the top, because the least among us make their way into those positions of power ... So what we have to do is knock off this fantasy of being citizens inside a democratic state, I mean, what we are, are the propagandized masses inside a fascist dictatorship. — Terence McKenna

In short, women who do not opt out of demanding professional positions are more likely to opt out of demanding family obligations. — Barbara Kellerman

France, after the month of May, will share trust with the current leadership of the United States which, on many subjects, has tended to take useful positions in our view. — Francois Hollande

Sometimes our positions are unpopular in the short term, even among the masses, only to be vindicated as events unfold to reveal a truth that was obscured by the faulty analysis of the prevailing common perception. On such occasions we must move in opposition to the direction the masses are attempting to go. Otherwise, what is the meaning of leadership? — Omali Yeshitela

Leaders lead when they take positions, when they connect with their tribes, and when they help the tribe connect to itself. — Seth Godin

For a lot of women, one of the hardest things about leadership is the desire to be liked by everyone. That's often inconsistent with leadership. It's certainly inconsistent with taking positions on very controversial issues. — Sarah Weddington

In ten years they would be dead, deported or in leadership positions. — Peter Hoeg

But part of that incipient racism had always led whites to assume the leadership positions and perpetuated the view that whites rather than blacks were the heroes of the movement. — John Howard Griffin

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

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

There are times when people that you put in those positions make mistakes, they disappoint you, you lose their - you lose your confidence in them, or they lie to you. And when you find that out, the test of leadership is what do you do. — Chris Christie

I think it's pretty obvious that women's stories are not necessarily being told in Hollywood and women are not necessarily being put in the leadership positions they deserve in mainstream film. — Diablo Cody

As the demands of the positions differed, and as I grew in age and experience, I found that I had changed as a leader. I learned to ask myself two questions: First, what must the organization I command do and be? And second, how can I best command to achieve that? — Stanley McChrystal

Leaders of the future will have to be visionary and be able to bring people in - real communicators. These are things that women bring to leadership and executive positions, and it's going to be incredibly valuable and incredibly in demand. — Anita Borg

The gender stereotypes introduced in childhood are reinforced throughout our lives and become self-fulfilling prophesies. Most leadership positions are held by men, so women don't expect to achieve them, and that becomes one of the reasons they don't. — Sheryl Sandberg

Democracy today, especially in the English-speaking world, is a political system that specialises in positioning inadequate, unqualified and dubious types in leadership positions. — Gilad Atzmon

Only people of proven character should be placed in positions of spiritual leadership. — Max Anders

Everybody who aspires to high positions of leadership in their state and in their country should be willing to take unscreened, unrehearsed questions from the people who pay their salary. — Jeb Bush

The conversation people need to have is no longer about women assuming positions of leadership within the existing power structure, it's about the power structures themselves, it's about how to go about assuming power, how to change the structures. — Elizabeth Lesser

Men who find themselves late are never sure. They are all the things the civics books tell us the good citizen should be: partisans but never zealots, respectors of the facts which attend each situation but never benders of those facts, uncomfortable in positions of leadership but rarely unable to turn down a responsibility once it has been offered ... or thrust upon them. They make the best leaders in a democracy because they are unlikely to fall in love with power. — Stephen King

women are obtaining undergraduate degrees at a far higher rate than men, and women are earning professional and doctorate degrees at a rate greater or nearly equal to that of men, but they are still vastly underrepresented in top leadership positions. — Peter G. Northouse

I have said it loud and clear: Beware, men, lest women deprive you of all the leadership positions in the country. — Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum

By instinct we-leaders-want to run hard all the time; by intellect we know this is not possible. Reconciling those two positions in the context of leadership is an ongoing challenge. — Bill Walsh

Are decent people in positions of leadership eternally condemned to Calvary? — Janusz Korczak

For more than 20 years, Camfed has supported a generation of African girls and women with access to secondary and higher education, employment opportunities, and, ultimately, into positions of leadership. — Ann Cotton

The Arab countries in the Middle East have for decades demonized Israel, to Western leadership, which for reasons not entirely clear, listen to them politely. The Bush Administration, for example, was infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood years before Obama began mainstreaming them and allowing them to have positions of influence within the White House. — Manfred Gerstenfeld

The intelligence and ability of a colored person are in pretty direct proportion to the amount of white blood he has, and ... most of the positions of leadership, influence, and prominence in the Negro race are held not by real Negroes but by Mulattoes, many of whom have very little Negro blood. — Madison Grant

It was only with the crisis that debt soared.
Yet many Europeans in key positions - especially politicians and officials in Germany, but also the leadership of the European Central Bank and opinion leaders throughout the world of finance and banking - are deeply committed to the Big Delusion, and no amount of contrary evidence will shake them. As a result, the problem of dealing with the crisis is often couched in moral terms: nations are in trouble because they have sinned, and they must redeem themselves through suffering.
And that's a very bad way to approach the actual problems Europe faces. — Paul Krugman

The writers in the newspapers could sounds smart because they did not have the responsibilities of decision, and they could sound bold by enunciating positions which they were not required to implement. — Elton Trueblood

And all of you, all your lives, should be telling those of us in the media leadership positions to tell the whole truth and calling us to complain when we don't. Break this know-nothing pact now and you will have taken as mighty a step as you can as an individual to help see to it that we as a nation move together toward a lively, hopeful, confident, and all-embracing future. — Geneva Overholser

Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another. — John C. Maxwell