Quotes & Sayings About Moral Leadership

In the worst of times the best among us never lose their moral compass, and that is how they emerge relatively unscathed. — Henry Rollins

In the mainstream of evangelicalism, where female senior pastors were often unwelcome, most leaders and laypeople had adopted the conservative Reformed view of gender and had forgotten (or never knew of) women's leadership in the moral crusades of the nineteenth century, or even their prominence as Bible teachers, relief workers, and missionaries prior to the 1930s. — Molly Worthen

Spontaneous order is self-contradictory. Spontaneity connotes the ebullition of surprises. It is highly entropic and disorderly. It is entrepreneurial and complex. Order connotes predictability and equilibrium. It is what is not spontaneous. It includes moral codes, constitutional restraints, personal disciplines, educational integrity, predictable laws, reliable courts, stable money, trustworthy finance, strong families, dependable defense, and police powers. Order requires political guidance, sovereignty, and leadership. It normally entails religious beliefs. The entire saga of the history of the West conveys the courage and sacrifice necessary to enforce and defend these values against their enemies. — George Gilder

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

By comparison, the Integrated Human model of human nature, in addition to the two elements of our previous model, includes: A conscious analytic system, known as the slow brain (where logic resides) A subconscious intuitive system, or fast brain The full range of motivational drives (of which the drive to acquire is only one) Basic ideas of moral behavior, or moral intuitions Distinguishing characteristics, or personality traits Together, these elements of our nature provide all of the fundamental functions necessary for living life as a complete, Integrated Human - and they are the springboard for the development of leadership character. As our research data has shown, the ability to leverage all of these areas influence leadership's ability to achieve positive organizational outcomes. — Fred Kiel

People will not follow a leader with moral incongruities for long. Every time you compromise character you compromise leadership. The foundation of firm leadership is character. — Bill Hybels

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

Yes, America must do the right thing, but to provide moral leadership, America must do it in the right way, too. — David Cameron

The self respect of individuals ought to make them demand of their leaders conformity with an agreed-upon code of ethics and moral conduct. — Mary Barnett Gilson

We all accuse Vladimir Putin of Cold War nostalgia, but Washington's elites - politicians and intellectuals - miss the old days as well. They wish for the world in which the United States was utterly dominant over its friends, its foes were to be shunned entirely, and the challenges were stark, moral, and vital. Today's world is messy and complicated. China is one of our biggest trading partners and our looming geopolitical rival. Russia is a surly spoiler, but it has a globalized middle class and has created ties in Europe. — Fareed Zakaria

Joel Bakan, author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power argues that if corporations have 'person hood' under the law, then it makes sense to question what kind of people they are. He posits that corporations behave with all the classical signs of sociopathy: they are inherently amoral, they elevate their own interests above all others', and they disregard moral and sometimes legal limits on their behavior in pursuit of their own advancement. Organizations of this type would thrive under the leadership of people who have the same traits: sociopaths. — M.E. Thomas

There must appear a spiritual and moral leadership rising above economic and political situations. Governments in both their domestic and foreign policies appeal for popular support by promises of material gain. We cannot make peace by mere appeal to greed. We must give the peoples of the world something to live for as well as something to live on. — John Haynes Holmes

The most valuable "currency" of any organization is the initiative and creativity of its members. Every leader has the solemn moral responsibility to develop these to the maximum in all his people. This is the leader's highest priority. — W. Edwards Deming

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 are most people hungry for? I believe it is spiritual and moral leadership. Increases in technology, scientific inventions, and medical miracles have been marvelous and incredible. But we must use them properly to bring us joy, and that requires spiritual and moral leadership. — James E. Faust

The moral was, in time of anarchy, tough leadership is the only solution - even though the collateral damage may be heartbreaking. Mrs. Thatcher's strident, take-no prisoners approach was in some ways repugnant, but it was surely necessary. — Nigel Hamilton

Let us build a 21st-century rural economy of cutting-edge companies and technologies that lead us to energy and food security. Such an investment will revitalize rural America, re-establish our moral leadership on climate security and eliminate our addiction to foreign oil. — Tom Vilsack

Management is formal authority given from above. Leadership is moral authority given from below and all around. — Stephen Covey

Truly, the world is in need of moral leadership ... that teaches the difference between right and wrong and teaches us to forgive one another even as we are forgiven by our Father in heaven. — Billy Graham

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

Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism. — Carl Sagan

How does one undermine the framework of racial reasoning? By dismantling each pillar slowly and systematically. The fundamental aim of this undermining and dismantling is to replace racial reasoning with moral reasoning, to understand the black freedom struggle not as an affair of skin pigmentation and racial phenotype but rather as a matter of ethical principles and wise politics, and to combat the black nationalist attempt to subordinate the issues and interests of black women by linking mature black self-love and self-respect to egalitarian relations within and outside black communities. The failure of nerve of black leadership is its refusal to undermine and dismantle the framework of racial reasoning. — Cornel West

Leadership is an unlimited resource and as such, is a lifelong pursuit of learning. That learning must be to transform 'leader of position' to 'leadership with moral purpose'. — Hilarie Owen

Leadership is never an avenue to be self-serving but,a platform to render great service to people. — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

There is the authority of position and the authority of knowledge - 'Authority flows from the one who knows.' But sharing in hardship confers upon a leader something quite rare - moral authority. — John Adair

Unless they're utterly heartless, people put a certain value on human life. It keeps us from killing each other off for no reason. But for leaders like you and me, a moral high ground is too absolute. There are choices to be made. — Amanda Bouchet

The difficulty was not that of following a moral principle at personal cost; the difficulty was that of knowing what to do when there is more than one principal, and when the principles clash. — Elton Trueblood

The rulers of the earth are all worth knowing; they suggest moral reflections: and the respect that one naturally has for God's vice-regents here on earth is greatly increased by acquaintance with them. — Lord Chesterfield

The presidency is not merely an administrative office ... It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Leaders are usually a reflection of the people they lead. How can a leader be moral if his people are immoral? — Awdhesh Singh

I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership in the world, to explore, to seek knowledge. — Eugene Cernan

His peaceful resistance shook the foundations of an empire, exposed the emptiness of a repressive ideology, and proved that moral leadership is more powerful than any weapon. — Barack Obama

Prime ministers require the hide of a rhinoceros, the morals of St. Francis, the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the leadership of Napoleon, the magnetism of a Beatle and the subtlety of Machiavelli. — Lester B. Pearson

I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create reasonably decent societies. I think that young people who want to understand the world can profit from the works of Plato and Socrates, the behaviour of the three Thomases, Aquinas, More and Jefferson - the austere analyses of Immanuel Kant and the political leadership of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. [The World Is My Home (1991)] — James A. Michener

The American color bar unless speedily removed will be the rock on which our international Good Neighbor policy and our pious claims to moral leadership will founder. — Charles Hamilton Houston

If an artist is driven primarily by social responsibility, I think the art probably suffers because, again, just as leadership has a rather defined end point or purpose, social responsibility would seem to have a very clear moral context. — Billy Collins

If America ever passes out as a great nation, we ought to put on our tombstone: America died from a delusion she had Moral Leadership. — Will Rogers

The process of gaining power employs means which degrade or brutalize the seeker, who awakes to find that power has been possessed at the cost of virtue or moral purpose lost. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Having a succession and legacy plan in place will make you ready for forced changes due to circumstances beyond your control, like death, any form of incapacity, sudden changes in laws and regulations and even corporate scandals and moral failure. — Archibald Marwizi

Since then, I've observed that a charismatic personality who's willing to take risks only for personal gain does not make a good leader. Principle-centered leadership is based on selfless courage, practical wisdom and moral objectives. It's based on honesty and focused on achieving what is best for others, whether they understand it or not. Consequently, great leaders are not always popular, but they are consistent. — Kenneth E. Behring

[Wendy] Davis [pursued] higher education, as her campaign website says, with 'the help of academic scholarships, student loans, and state and federal grants.' Now that she is in a high-profile and hotly partisan race, it has come out that she also benefited from the moral and financial support of her second - now ex - husband. In the process, though, behavior we would expect and hardly notice in a man is being portrayed as freakish and problematic in a woman. — Liza Mundy

Leader of Character: someone who uses influence to achieve a moral or ethical goal. — Dave Anderson

Theology, Mr. Fortune found, is a more accommodating subject than mathematics; its technique of exposition allows greater latitude. For instance when you are gravelled for matter there is always the moral to fall back upon. Comparisons too may be drawn, leading cases cited, types and antetypes analysed and anecdotes introduced. Except for Archimedes mathematics is singularly naked of anecdotes. — Sylvia Townsend Warner

The author points out that the moral failure of Abigail Adams' brother focused her on disciplining her children, and herself, so that they did not come to the same end. — Paul C. Nagel

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

Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character; it requires moral rather than athletic or intellectual effort, and it imposes on both leader and follower alike the burdens of self-restraint. — Lewis H. Lapham

The Court's great power is its ability to educate, to provide moral leadership. — William O. Douglas

Theodore Sorensen wrote for [Robert Kennedy's 1968] announcement speech: "At stake is not simply the leadership of our party, and even our own country, it is our right to the moral leadership of this planet." The sentence absolutely appalled all the younger Robert Kennedy advisers, who felt it smacked of just the kind of attitude which had gotten us into Vietnam. Nonetheless, despite their protests, it stayed in the speech. — David Halberstam

We need moral leadership and courage in our world. — Jacqueline Novogratz

The man who goes to the top is the man who has something to say and says it when circumstances warrant. Men who keep silent underdressed are moral cowards. — Richard Llewellyn

With all of the talk about polling and demographics, I think too many people have lost touch with the human and moral crisis of deportations. Every day, roughly 1,000 people are deported because the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives is denying the majority of the US Congress a chance to vote on citizenship. I will be arrested today because the labor movement stands with the families tragically ripped apart by John Boehner and the House Republicans' embrace of a broken immigration system. — Arlene Holt Baker

Take a guy who can walk on water, who can raise people from the dead, who can look at you and tell you what you had for breakfast ... if a guy like that can't find twelve trustworthy mates, who can? Stop at eleven and call it done, that's the moral of that story. — Liam Perrin

What we should be looking for is fresh ideas of how we make moral decisions about our dealings with one another, economic, social, cultural. Economic determinism is an objectionable creed where men and women espouse it in its communist or capitalist form because it treats human beings as economic units and not as responsible persons. — Davis McCaughey

[The church's] job is to provide permanent solace and spiritual leadership to the people as a whole, whatever their government at the moment, so long as it stays within the bounds of moral decency. — James A. Michener

Leadership is the sum of those qualities of intellect, human understanding, and moral character that enables a person to inspire and control a group of people successfully. — John A. Lejeune

True leadership is moral authority, not formal authority. Leadership is a choice, not a position. The choice is to follow universal timeless principles, which will build trust and respect from the entire organization. Those with formal authority alone will lose this trust and respect. — Stephen Covey

Leadership on virtue can never come from the major political actors; it will have to come from a movement of people, such as the people of a town who come together and agree to create moral coherence across the many areas of children's lives. — Jonathan Haidt

Since when do grown men and women, who presume to hold high government office and exercise what they think of as "moral leadership," require ethics officers to tell them whether it is or isn't permissible to grab the secretary's behind or redirect public funds to their own personal advantage? — Meg Greenfield

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

The sword of the Spirit has been muffled up and decked out with flowers and ribbons, author writes, conveying the sentiments of a Congregationist minister on men's ceding of moral and religious instruction and correction as women's work. — Nancy Pearcey

Simple life Ethos
If you must judge. Let your moral beacon guide you to a decision you can live with,
If you feel generous, give with humility so others could live with dignity,
If you became aware of injustice, your inaction or silence are part of it,
Living life without courage, is like living without honour,
If your arrogance started to control your behavior, then it's time for you to stratify to heaven where there are no earthly human beings
Never live behind the rocks. Always move to find comfort in brighter places, and
Always deem yourself to be courageous when others call upon you....... — Husam Wafaei

We were hoping Obama would reclaim moral leadership for America. That failed. — Lech Walesa

The shelves are filled with books about improving the process of leadership; discussions of how to hone its art are few. Checklists and processes do not challenge our ability to think, they do not force us to defend our ideas or look new ones in the face. They demand no depth. Defining leadership as an art rather than as a process does not mean that leadership cannot be taught. It merely means that gaining a greater understanding of leadership requires intellectual courage. Just as we develop physical courage by experiencing and functioning under physical fear and moral courage by making the choice of right amidst the pressure to do otherwise, so we develop intellectual courage through the discomfort and ambiguity of experiencing ideas that challenge our depth and perspective. Leaders develop intellectual courage by continuously sharpening the saber through education, and in doing so they
hone within themselves the art of leadership. — Christopher D. Kolenda

Great literature is like moral leadership; everyone deplores the lack of it, but there is a tendency to prefer it from the safely dead. — Shirley Hazzard

Overall, the challenge of leadership is both moral and one of developing the characteristics that make us respected by one another. — Louis Farrakhan

I don't believe our country will last the way we know it much longer unless there's a change. And we just continue this moral decline going down, and the only hope, I believe, is God. We just hope and pray that maybe he'll hear our prayers and give us some godly leadership. — Franklin Graham

His (Lenin's)humanitarianism was a very abstract passion. It embraced humanity in general but he seems to have had little love for, or even interest in, humanity in particular. He saw the people with whom he dealt, his comrades, not as individuals but as receptacles for his ideas. On that basis, and no other, they were judged. He judged man not by their moral qualities but by their views, or rather the degree to which they accepted his. — Paul Johnson

Under the leadership of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, the United States has given up the moral high ground that we used to occupy as an international leader. — Marty Meehan

We have been led to believe that we have come a long way toward world nuclear disarmament. But that is not the case. Our government is not doing all that it could. We must urge our leaders to fulfill the obligations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States must assume world leadership to end once and for all the threat of nuclear war. It is our moral responsibility. — Harrison Ford

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

In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now. — Wangari Maathai

In my view, leadership is the courage to take risks in defense of a position that is both legal and moral. The politician who tries to become a wise guy by becoming friends to everybody - corrupt or not - is not a leader. — Miriam Defensor Santiago

Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is wrong. — Abraham Lincoln

For thousands of years art was seen as a source of responsible moral and ethical leadership. Today, taking that stance is almost seen as comic. — Jack Beal

In fact, the converse is true: At a time when the United States has been called on for a level of moral leadership, vision and inspiration not seen since World War II, we cannot afford to dissemble about crimes against humanity. — Adam Schiff

When people think the issue can be solved, it becomes a moral imperative to be part of the solution. We can do a lot more within our school districts to recruit aggressively, select people according to high standards, invest in their training and development, and foster and reward their leadership. Once we invest more in attracting, developing and retaining teachers, potential recruits will begin to see it as a profession worth considering. — Wendy Kopp

Leadership responsibility is multidimensional and cannot be described in one or two words. It is personal, interpersonal, environmental and societal. — Linda Fisher Thornton

Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day. — Jesse Jackson

Moral authority is another way to define servant leadership because it represents a reciprocal choice between leader and follower. If the leader is principle centered, he or she will develop moral authority. If the follower is principle centered, he or she will follow the leader. In this sense, both leaders and followers are followers. Why? They follow truth. They follow natural law. They follow principles. They follow a common, agreed-upon vision. They share values. They grow to trust one another. — Robert K. Greenleaf