Leadership Role Quotes & Sayings

A few mistakes don't worry me; what worries me is when you make the mistakes and then forget your role on the team and start to worry about your ego. — Digger Phelps

Abby Johnson has agreed to become Chief Executive Officer of Fidelity, reflecting a further step forward in our leadership succession plan. Abby will retain her role of President, and I will continue to serve as Chairman of the Board. — Edward Johnson, III

Once leaders embrace the role of coach, they realize the weight of leadership is now balanced between themselves and their direct reports. — Kenneth H. Blanchard

The prime role of a leader is to offer an example of courage and sacrifice. — Regis Debray

[A] re-elected McConnell, with a Republican majority, would, he says, emulate his model of majority leadership - the 16 years under a Democrat, Montana'€s Mike Mansfield. He, like McConnell, had a low emotional metabolism but a subtle sense of the Senate's singular role in the nation's constitutional equilibrium. — George Will

The next step is for the great teachers to arise, and for them to clearly understand the challenges ahead and mentor accordingly. Where most generations focus the education of their children on preparing to make a living or succeed financially, leadership generations are taught by parents who see a higher role for their children. — Oliver DeMille

Leadership is a series of behaviors rather than a role for heroes. — Margaret J. Wheatley

Barry Jones once said that Australia is the only country where the word 'academic' is a pejorative. The academic sector has a vibrant and practical role to play in this complex world of ours. Higher education and research are worthy of your much closer attention. Yes, we can be and should be the clever country. Our progress can be within the highest ethical and moral framework. But this will only happen if we place appropriate emphasis on education, research and innovation within a truly international framework. — Gustav Nossal

Governments should be role models of leadership and improve the utilization of ICT in all the governmental departments in order to improve the efficiency of governmental services and motivate ICT industries. — Talal Abu-Ghazaleh

Walking the walk is one thing, but it is so much more powerful if you can talk it as well. — Robin Hoyle

Be an example to teach, be a role model to follow, and be a leader to emulate. — Debasish Mridha

The Republican Party is the Grand Old Party. It's made enormous contributions to the success of our country. And it is a party that has embraced its leadership role when it has had the majority or the White House. — Nancy Pelosi

In advanced societies it is not the race politicians or the "rights" leaders who create the new ideas and the new images of life and man. That role belongs to the artists and intellectuals of each generation. Let the race politicians, if they will, create political, economic or organizational forms of leadership; but it is the artists and the creative minds who will, and must, furnish the all important content. And in this role, they must not be subordinated to the whims and desires of politicians, race leaders and civil rights entrepreneurs whether they come from the Left, Right, or Center, or whether they are peaceful, reform, violent, non-violent or laissez-faire. Which means to say, in advanced societies the cultural front is a special one that requires special techniques not perceived, understood, or appreciated by political philistines. — Harold Cruse

The reality for teachers is we don't know if we've been successful or not. It takes years to see how a kid turns out, and it's impossible to know what role we've played, for better or worse. It's why so many teachers burn out - our successes are limited and rarely celebrated, but our failures are always out there for everyone to see and judge. — Tucker Elliot

As is often the case with children, the rule of 'monkey see, monkey do' plays out in the workplace. It's hard to be good role model, and it's one of the greatest challenges of leadership. — Lee Ellis

To master the virtual equation and make all the elements work together, you have to become the connector. In fact, your greatest role as a virtual manager is to link the various parts of his/her team to accomplish the goals that lead to its formation in the first place. You may need to shift gears, perform ream tune-ups, realign, and refuel your team's energy along the way. — Yael Zofi

The role of political leadership in any society will remain critical to the socio-economic progression of the world. It is however worrying to see the growing number of people, including the youth, getting into politics for economic gain and not for a cause. This, inter alia, is the contaminated seed and eventual root of chronic corruption because such leadership will always be selfishly seeking gain and enrichment from their roles and offices. — Archibald Marwizi

One of the best essays I've seen in recent years was by a young woman who wrote about how being chosen to choreograph a high school musical forced her to assume a leadership role she wasn't sure she was ready for - but of course she was. — Kate Klise

People need to learn how to take the role of leader out of God's hands. — Lionel Suggs

Who was Vardan Mamikonian, and how did he come to play this most crucial role in Armenian history? It may justifiably be said that without his committed leadership, the term "Armenian" today might have referred to no more than an obscure, one-time, Christian people of long past. — Arra Avakian

Up until the time I was cast in 'Star Trek,' the roles were pretty shallow - thin, stereotyped, one-dimensional roles. I knew this character was a breakthrough role, certainly for me as an individual actor but also for the image of an Asian character: no accent, a member of the elite leadership team. — George Takei

I understand the NBA and the role I play on my team. I know that I have to play a leadership role and do whatever I have to do to win. — Carmelo Anthony

Only 20 percent of employees working in large organizations surveyed feel their strengths are in play every day. Thus, eight our of ten employees surveyed feel somewhat miscast in their role. — Stephen Covey

I am a firm believer that you need a well-defined leadership role to deal with unexpected and non-linear side effects of people working together. You need someone to keep the threads untangled and forming a high-functioning web rather than a big snarl of a Gordian knot. — Rands

Learning has replaced control as the fundamental role of management. — Shoshana Zuboff

At leadership levels, consider choosing your managers as much as the role. Your success is closely linked to how you manage this relationship strategically! — Anuranjita Kumar

Sinn Fein has demonstrated the ability to play a leadership role as part of a popular movement towards peace, equality and justice. — Gerry Adams

The immortality of Thomas Jefferson does not lie in any one of his achievements, or in the series of his achievements, but in his attitude towards mankind and the conception which he sought to realize in action of the service owed by America to the rest of the world ... Thomas Jefferson was a great leader of men because he understood and interpreted the spirits of men. — Woodrow Wilson

A missionary church cannot rely on the professional ministry for the primary work of mission. The role of the laity is critical because it is the lay members of the church who have the greatest contact with those who are outside of the normal structures of church life. In such a situation the task of clergy is not so much to engage in mission themselves, as to support the laity in their mission. — Martin Robinson

I've been the co-chair of the Non-Partisan Women's Caucus and vice-chair for several years, taking a leadership role in this women's organization. — Gwen Moore

Now, do I think there has to be shared sacrifice among other nations in the world who want a stable and secure world? Absolutely, there has to be. But I don't think that America can ever abdicate its leadership role in the world because of who we are and where we've come from. We are the symbol for the world for freedom and liberty. — Chris Christie

Now my mom designs to resign so she runs for US senate, and now at 67 my mom just launched a new company called Women's Leadership Live, she is the cofounder and CEO, and it's all about empowering women to be successful in business however they define success. When you have a role model like that you really don't ever look at gender as an issue and it's about owning your place and taking charge of your role, regardless of what you look like. — Stephanie McMahon

The idea that computers can ever replace teachers and schools reveals a deep lack of understanding about the role leadership plays in student success. — Wendy Kopp

Too many leaders assume that the role of leadership is to control. — Jim Ferrell

Every leadership role has a character driving force that will fulfill or decimate the ultimate purpose of the role. — Ikechukwu Joseph

No matter how egalitarian a group might start out, someone always wound up taking a leadership role. — James S.A. Corey

We never used to blink at taking a leadership role in the world. And we understood leadership often required something other than drones and bombs. We accepted global leadership not just for humanitarian reasons, but also because it was in our own best interest. We knew we couldn't isolate ourselves from trouble. There was no place to hide. — Robert Reich

The primary value in value-based leadership is other-centredness - to be more concerned about other people and the organization than oneself. So in other words, the leader's job is to fulfil the agenda, the role, and the vision of the organization, not his personal agenda. All the great leaders in the world are other-centred. The self-centred leader will derail in due course But still, to be other centred is not enough. — John Ng

I like to take chances on people, and whenever possible, promote from within - it sends a great message to everyone in the company when someone demonstrates a passion for the job and leadership skills at every step along the way and is rewarded with a leadership role. — Richard Branson

People who are role models for the principles and values of the organization, who buy in and understand the vision of what the organization is trying to accomplish, and have the personality to inspire other people to the vision. You know, that's what team chemistry and leadership is all about. — Nick Saban

You're going to act like a happy man. I know, I know. It's the hardest role in the world. — Pat Conroy

Educationists should build the capacities of the spirit of inquiry, creativity, entrepreneurial and moral leadership among students and become their role model. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Greenhouse gas emissions and global warming are among humanity's most pressing concerns. Societal expectations on climate change are real, and our industry is expected to take a leadership role. — Ali Al-Naimi

I try to work hard. I try to set a good example. I don't look at it as though I've got to be a leader. I just try to behave the way I think I should behave. If that results in a leadership role, great. — Matt Holliday

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

Women feel a need for a certain level of prior training and experience that men do not necessarily demand in order to jump into a new role. There's a need for women to trust themselves more... — Selena Rezvani

Leaders are for calling people to their better angels, for helping guide them to a kind of sterner, more mature sense of what we need to do. To me, Reagan's brand of leadership was what I call 'a liturgy of absolution.' He absolved Americans almost in a priestly role to contend with sin. Who wouldn't want that? — Rick Perlstein

What's wrong with leading the way? We've played that role before, after all. We gave the world the secret ballot ... that did so much to raise living standards and improve conditions for workers worldwide. We were a leader in extending to women the right to vote. We were barely a nation when we set the bar for bravery and sacrifice by common soldiers in foreign wars. We grew up out of racism and misogyny and homophobia to become a mostly tolerant, successful multicultural society. We did these great things because we know we are in it together. It is our core value as Australians. — Geraldine Brooks

Leadership in its best sense has never been about the pre-determined role cast on some to lead others. — James Gobbo

The company's leadership plays a major role in framing the right questions for decision-making. — 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

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

My sports were team sports: ice hockey and baseball. The whole team dynamic is similar in business. Leadership is earned - the captain earns that role; it's not because he's the coach's son. These are all things we know, but in today's world, it's not a bad idea to remind ourselves. — James McNerney

We're trying to take a leadership role in solving the nation's health-care crisis. We want everybody in this country to have health insurance. — Steven Burd

Of the various qualities of leadership, women were rated far, far ahead of men on being "honest," "intelligent," "compassionate," "outgoing," and "creative," and were considered just as "hardworking" and "ambitious" as men. Men were perceived as excelling only in being "decisive."1 The preference for men as leaders, then, suggests that the frame for respondents emphasized the role of decisiveness in leadership. — Linda Tarr-Whelan

My role is to make sure we're moving in the right direction, getting points, rebounds, steals, assists and providing leadership. — Kobe Bryant

Helping teacher leaders come to understand their gifts is the first step in developing a specialty. Some leaders are great coaches and should focus on instructional leadership in a district or network where that is valued and supported. Great conceptual thinkers are good in startup mode but the daily grind of leading a school doesn't suit them. Other leaders thrive on the turnaround challenge. The dynamic blended future of education will allow more role specialization. — Tom Vander Ark

I didn't have to step up into a leadership role, ... I just had to be there and help out where I could. But this year I had to be more of the man. — Landon Donovan

The real role of leadership in education ... is not and should not be command and control. The real role of leadership is climate control, creating a climate of possibility. — Ken Robinson

When you accept a leadership role, you take on extra responsibility for your actions toward others. — Kelley Armstrong

I didn't set out to become a leader, so I always come back to my first lesson - just do it. If you're the first one out there actively doing something to solve a problem then you'll naturally fall into a leadership role. — Ellen Sandell

On the security front, the United States must continue to play a leadership role. There simply is not another country in the world that commands the respect or has the capabilities that we do, and we must not shrink from our responsibilities. — Dan Quayle

You know, I've never believed, in anything, that you had to have role models who looked like you to do something. If I'd been waiting for a black, female, soviet specialist role model, I'd be still waiting. — Condoleezza Rice

For me, a male role model would be a man who, despite holding a leadership position, has the courage to say that he wants to reschedule a 7 p.m. meeting for 4 p.m. because he'd really like to be able to put his son to bed. — Kristina Schroder

I am convinced that your Mayor must take the leadership role in education too. — Alan Autry

I want to be a positive role model, especially for kids and Aboriginal people ... When people see me, often all they see is another Australian athlete having a go. It isn't until they see the full Cathy Freeman picture that they realise how proud I am of my ancestry and heritage. I'd like a little more tolerance and acceptance of my culture and all the differing cultures that make up Australia. — Cathy Freeman

As noble as our intentions might be as we assume a leadership role, we are always one errant, unthinking action or careless word away from getting outside the boundaries of good judgment or even the moral absolutes that must frame all decisions. — Tim Irwin

[M]y administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change. — George W. Bush

The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them. — Carlos Ghosn

I do think the most important thing we need in leadership in our country, not just in the presidency but in the United States Senate, are people that have a clear vision of what the role of government should be in our lives and what the role of America should be in the world. — Marco Rubio

I am honored and quite proud that a class is being taught on my sensationalist lyrics, unique style and fashion and leadership role within the hip-hop community. — Lil' Kim

In a leadership role in Iraq and in running my own business, what I've learned is if you don't listen, you're going to strike out. You're going to fail miserably. The people you work with have got to know you're engaged and you're listening. — Brad Wenstrup

Increasingly, management's role is not to organize work, but to direct passion and purpose. — Greg Satell

We blacks look for leadership in men and women of such youth and inexperience, as well as poverty of education and character, that it is no wonder that we sometimes seem rudderless ... We see basketball players and pop singers as possible role models, when nothing could be further, in most cases, from their capacities. — Arthur Ashe

There is need for clarity on what your leadership role stands for and the kind of unwavering and unstoppable beliefs required. These beliefs must not be deterred by current circumstances and conditions. They must become your source of internal strength and inspiration, especially during trying times. How strong, positive and empowering is your belief system as a leader? — Archibald Marwizi

The competencies most relevant to an SSAO role include assessment, evaluation and research, human and organizational resources, law, policy and governance, and leadership. — C. Casey Ozaki

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

In terms of having views and being prepared to express them, yes, I think New Zealand's had a leadership role in a lot of things. — Helen Clark

When you're in a leadership role, you can never please all of the people all of the time. There's also a lot of responsibility that goes along with it that others may not realize. — Joyce Meyer

It's very important in a leadership role not to place your ego at the foreground and not to judge everything in relationship to how your ego is fed. — Ruth J. Simmons

The best way to support dreams and stretch is to set apart small ideas with big potential, then give people positive role models and the resources to turn small projects into big businesses. — Jack Welch

The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world. — Eric Hoffer

Never accept the role of a Gladiator if you do not have the spirit of a Warrior. — A.K. Hasan

A leader does not develop leadership by gaining more followers. Great leaders make more leaders. — J.R. Rim

You send a message by what you say and what you do. If words aren't supported with consistent actions, they will ring hollow. — Frank Sonnenberg

It was a part he felt himself feeling his way into, and the longer it went on, the more the men around him confirmed him in his role. It was as if they were willing him into being, as though there had to be a Big Fella, and, having desperate need of such, their growing respect, their whispered asides, their opinion of him - all this trapped him into behaving as everything he knew he was not. As if rather than him leading them by example they were leading him through adulation. — Richard Flanagan

IBM has taken a leadership role in this area and is prepared to be a technology partner with companies around the world to take advantage of these new developments. — John Patrick

Great men have great discipline. — Habeeb Akande

In the cold war, the CIA was condemned by the American left for what it did. In the war on terror, the CIA was attacked by the American right for what it could not do. The charge was incompetence, leveled by such men as Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld. Say what one may about their leadership, they knew from long experience what the reader now knows: the CIA was unable to fulfill its role as America's intelligence service. — Tim Weiner

I realize that as the quarterback, you have to assume some sort of leadership role because you have to talk in the huddle on every play, and you're essentially giving out orders to the team. But in my mind, I have to prove myself on the field before I can start asserting a leadership role. — Andrew Luck

LEGACY plays an important role in defining a good leader at any age. — Farshad Asl

It's the American leadership that has not played the role it should be playing and that leaders in other countries have been playing. — Jeffrey Sachs

I think it is important for people who are given leadership roles to assume that role immediately. — Bob Iger

Real Fathers are Role Models worthy of emulation. They choose to live exemplary lifestyles of leadership and excellence — Fela Durotoye

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

Often truly authoritative leadership falls on someone who years earlier dedicated themselves to practice the discipline of seeking first the kingdom of God. Then, as that person matures, God confers a leadership role, and the Spirit of God goes to work throuh him. — J. Oswald Sanders

What's been most helpful to me is realizing that those times when all the heads in the room turn and look at me as if I was crazy, reinforce my own leadership capability. Because I've been in a number of those settings where I've been right. And I've been right often enough that now when it happens I don't automatically think, "Oh, my, what's wrong with me?" or "Ohhh, I must not be ready for this role," or "They know so much more than I do." — Mitchell Baker

In the incongruous role of the insurgent party-builder, he made crystal clear the whole host of inferences we have drawn from the experiences of Monroe and Polk: that innovation, however orthodox, is inherently destabilizing; that the purely constructive leadership project is an illusion; that the affiliated leader cannot assume independent ground without ultimately embracing the role of the heretic; that the only way ever to be president in your own right is to become yourself a great repudiator and set yourself directly against the bulwark of received power; that political disruption parallels presidential significance. Roosevelt's insight was not simply that new achievements do not rest securely on old foundations, but that to save the handiwork of his presidency he would have to reconstruct its political base. — Stephen Skowronek

Most of all I discovered that my change of mind was closely connected with a change of heart. As a young man, I was comfortable with teachings that supported my leadership role. The role of women was a great topic for debate because it really didn't affect me and my identity. However, as I have been able to better receive God's calling to leadership as a call to humility rather than supremacy, I have been more able to receive women in leadership as well. It is here where I believe that my mind and heart and the Scriptures are most connected. — Robert Fryling

We live in more pragmatic times than when we originally recorded those songs. But many of the dreamers of the '60s have been elected to governmental office or taken on a leadership role in their communities. They are now in the position to make a difference. — Paul Stookey