Quotes & Sayings About Not Following The Leader

If you think you're a leader and you turn around and no one is following you, then you're simply out for a walk. — James M. Kouzes

You cannot attain # mastery by patterning yourself after another or by following custom or tradition. Sheep do that. Masters and leaders never do — Roger McDonald

I have been living in the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan and following its leaders' rules. The current leader does not allow me to exercise such operations, — Osama Bin Laden

The true cost of following your dreams isn't what you sacrifice when you chase them, it's what you lose when you don't — Simon S. Tam

Following their line of vision, he found the distraction. The damn tennis team, running the perimeter of the football field in some half-assed formation, following their fearless leader. They weren't looking at the field, weren't yelling or causing a scene. Just concentrating on keeping up with Chris.
Having been a teenage boy himself, the draw was obvious. Teenage girls. Short shorts. No brainer. At thirty-four, he was past that.
Except his eyes didn't seem to get the "I'm Too Old For This" memo. They were tracking Chris like a hawk tracks a field mouse. — Jeanette Murray

The 'Dance of Love' is much more of a dialogue, one takes the lead and the other follows. One dictates a step and the other carries it out. One determines the direction, the other determines the distance travelled in a given figure. One sets the pace, the other reveals the grace. One understands the language of the other and knows what is coming next. The one leading leads with love and respect; never seeing the follower as being weak or inferior. And in the same manner, the one following follows with Trust and Submission; never feeling too big to be led or scared to jump. There is a blind assurance that someone is there to catch. — Olaotan Fawehinmi

Adolin nodded curtly. He was still angry, Dalinar could see, but he chose to follow Dalinar - and part of following a leader was supporting him even when the battle turned against him. — Brandon Sanderson

Disillusionment takes us to the question: what does it profit a man if he gains this world and loses himself? And disillusionment exposes that while we were supposedly serving the kingdom, we somehow became the king, and when we thought we were following Jesus, we inexplicably made him a servant of our dreams. The only real tragedy is the leader who never allows disillusionment to wear him to a nub and expose the godlessness of his busyness. — Dan B. Allender

Without boxing, because of my neighborhoods, who knows what would have happened to me. It was always about following the leader. And I definitely was not a leader. Boxing gave me discipline; a sense of self. It made me more outspoken. It gave me more confidence. — Sugar Ray Leonard

Faithfully, Calvi was following the rules to the letter. He knew one thing: Whatever was in that document had caused the death of the leader of the Catholic Church. Who'd be next? — Peter J. Tanous

Bismarck had cunningly taught the parties not to aim at national appeal but to represent interests. They remained class or sectional pressure-groups under the Republic. This was fatal, for it made the party system, and with it democratic parliamentarianism, seem a divisive rather than a unifying factor. Worse: it meant the parties never produced a leader who appealed beyond the narrow limits of his own following. — Paul Johnson

The effective leader should keep the following guidelines in mind when it is necessary to change attitudes or behavior: 1 Be sincere. Do not promise anything that you cannot deliver. Forget about the benefits to yourself and concentrate on the benefits to the other person. 2 Know exactly what it is you want the other person to do. 3 Be empathetic. Ask yourself what is it the other person really wants. 4 Consider the benefits that person will receive from doing what you suggest. 5 Match those benefits to the other person's wants. 6 When you make your request, put it in a form that will convey to the other person the idea that he personally will benefit. — Dale Carnegie

If you want to be a leader whom people follow with absolute conviction, you have to be a likable leader. Tyrants and curmudgeons with brilliant vision can command a reluctant following for a time, but it never lasts. They burn people out before they ever get to see what anyone is truly capable of. — Travis Bradberry

The older I grow the less Christ's teaching says to me. I am sometimes very conscious that I am following the path of a leader who died when He was less than half as old as I am now. I see and feel things He never saw or felt. I know things He seems never to have known. Everybody wants a Christ for himself and those who think like him. Very well, am I at fault for wanting a Christ who will show me how to be an old man? All Christ's teaching is put forward with the dogmatism, the certainty, and the strength of youth: I need something that takes account of the accretion of experience, the sense of paradox and ambiguity that comes with years! — Robertson Davies

Leadership requires followership and following is an act of trust, faith in the course of the leader, and that faith can be generated only if leaders act with integrity. — Lawrence M. Miller

I'm not a follower of this or that religious leader. More wars are started because of religious leaders, and people are following and they don't know why ... That is religiosity. That is what turns people into robots. — Ashton Kutcher

Be not a Follower, because of others want that, be always the Leader from Ourselves.
Jan Jansen — Jan Jansen

If Captain Jean-Luc Picard asked you to serve him aboard the starship Enterprise, you'd likely be happy to. You would recognise him as a great leader and a good man, and so you wouldn't have any problem following his orders. This is basically the relationship God wants with us - not slaves, not pets, not possessions, we would be co-workers and friends. — Lewis N. Roe

Those prisoners who were eventually liberated and returned to the Soviet Union - well over one and a half million - had to face extensive discrimination following an order issued by Stalin in August 1941 equating surrender with treason. Many of them were despatched to the labour camps of the Gulag after being screened by Soviet military counter-intelligence. Despite attempts after Stalin's death by top military leader Marshal Georgi Zhukov to end discrimination against former prisoners of war, they were not formally rehabilitated until 1994.217 — Richard J. Evans

Christianity is an extreme call to a radical life following a revolutionary leader. — Steve Saint

I love him. Have loved him through each of his growing stages. But I do not want him to stay the same. I want him to grow. To mature. To become everything God has in mind for him. To be a man. Accept responsibility. Be a leader ... And he will. I have every confidence he will. He's on the right track-your brother. Following the leading of his Lord. I want him to change, but I never want him to leave behind the solid base he has already established for who he is deep inside. But I also want him to build and develop and carefully nurture that inner self. And as that happens, there will be changes. — Janette Oke

What job is worth the enormous psychic cost of following a leader who values loyalty in the narrowest sense. — Warren G. Bennis

Tact is that quality of grace that wins the confidence of people who are sure you won't do or say something stupid. You can't inspire a following if people have to hang their heads in embarrassment at the inappropriate and insensitive things you say or do. Tact is especially needed in a leader to help cope with embarrassing or tragic situations. — John Piper

Leader and followers are both following the invisible leader - the common purpose. The best executives put this common purpose clearly before their group. While leadership depends on depth of conviction and the power coming therefrom there must also be the ability to share that conviction with others, the ability to make purpose articulate. And then that common purpose becomes the leader. — Mary Parker Follett

Oftentimes, churches are started by an entrepreneurial church plant visionary whom everybody follows, but he's not following anybody. Even though he's "accountable to a board," he's really not. Authority's a good thing, and if it's not forced upon you as a leader, then I suggest, strongly, that you go buy some. — Henry Cloud

If there is no certain reality, the idea of following a leader must be scrutinized. — Marguerite Young

How much more relevant could God be than to be a provider of food for life? What good is religion if it cannot feed the hungry? Satan was perilously and painfully close to a truth. But it was a half-truth, and a half-truth gets so interwoven with a lie that it becomes deadlier by the mix. Ask yourself this question: What kind of a following would result if the sole reason for the affection toward the leader is that he provides his followers with bread? Both motives would be wrong - for the provider and the receiver. These are the terms of reward and punishment that are mercenarily tainted and have diminishing returns, at best engendering compliance, but not love. Their appeal, too, is soon lost when offered as enticements or when withheld to engender fears. Dependence without commitment will ever look for ways to break the stranglehold. The — Ravi Zacharias

For the most part our leaders are merely following out in front; they do but marshal us the way that we are going. — Bergen Evans

When the third soldier, the leader and one she'd struck with the limb, joined the others, Lia gasped. The three men stood talking in low voices for several minutes, and then they drew closer, heads down, slowly following her muddy footprint trail. Lia breathed — Lindsay McKenna

A traditional project manager focuses on following the plan with minimal changes, whereas an agile leader focuses on adapting successfully to inevitable changes. — Jim Highsmith

The drum to which we march reveals the conductor to whom we're listening. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Some people will just go with the flow of things and sway in life, while others will fight against the currents and go upstream to reach their destiny. — Anthony Liccione

The problems we have now in communities and societies are going to be resolved only when we are brought together by a common sense that each of us is a visionary. Each of us must come to the realization that we can function and live at the level of vision rather than following some great leader's vision. Instead of looking for a great leader, we are in an era where each of us needs to find the great leader in ourselves. — Werner Erhard

The world is full of men who want to be right, when actually the secret of a man's strength and his pathway to true honor is his ability to admit fault when he has failed. God wants to fill the church with men who can say they are wrong when THEY ARE WRONG. A man who is willing to humble himself before God and his family and say:"I was wrong." will find that his family has all the confidence in the world in him and will much more readily follow him. If he stubbornly refuses to repent or admit he was wrong, their confidence in him and in his leadership erodes. — Jim Anderson

When you criticize someone with followers, the followers recognize that, if you are correct, they have been sucked in. If they had been sucked in, then they must not be too bright, or at least they were not well enough informed to form a critical judgment which would have led them to identify their leader as someone not worth following. So, a criticism of the leader produces a particular response in the followers. They feel that there has been an attack on them personally. The critic is saying, loud and clear, that anyone who has followed this particular leader is not a good judge of character, intellect, or facts. They are quite correct. This is exactly what the critic is saying. — Gary North

The unexamined leader is not worth following. — John C. Maxwell

Impartial, compassionate, brave, and understanding ... these are the traits that come with putting the Noble Eightfold Path into practice. By following this path, anyone can become the kind of leader the Buddha hoped to see - a leader of peace. — Victoria Stoklasa

The future of each of us is inter-connected and all of us should work together by following the path laid down by former leaders of the party for the development of the country and its brighter future. — Sonia Gandhi

Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed. — Amy Hempel

Behind the mask of diplomatic and political cooperation and partnership with the United States and Europe, the current Russian leaders are following the strategy of their predecessors and working towards a 'New World Order'. When the right moment comes the mask will be dropped and the Russians with Chinese help will seek to impose their system on the West on their own terms ... — Anatoliy Golitsyn

believe that desire is God-given, and that following that impulse is using your intuition. It will lead you to the correct place. Be a leader. Be an inspiration and declare yourself! — Mandy Ingber

Being a leader is not about finding ways to get others to serve you, but knowing how to serve your followers. — A.J. Darkholme

Anybody who thinks that they are a leader and doesn't have anyone following them is just out for a walk. — John C. Maxwell

People without financial knowledge, who take advice from financial experts are like lemmings simply following their leader. They race for the cliff and leap into the ocean of financial uncertainty, hoping to swim to the other side. — Robert Kiyosaki

If you can lead yourself when nobody is following, people will follow when you are not leading — Saji Ijiyemi

Well, Dwight was born to be No. 2 and I don't think he would know what to do as a leader. But he loves following. He would have made a great fascist. — Rainn Wilson

Did we get anything like the sort of reform that would make the EU work better? No. Not even close. And worse, even with the certainty of a UK referendum following the negotiation, it is clear that there was no appetite amongst European leaders for anything more than a few minor concessions. — Andrea Leadsom

Early theorists of group psychology had tried to explain why men were so sheeplike when they functioned in groups. They developed ideal like "mental contagion" and "herd instinct," which became very popular. But as Freud was quick to see, these ideas never really did explain what men did with their judgment and common sense when they got caught up in groups. Freud saw right away what they did with it: they simply became dependent children again, blindly following the inner voice of their parents, which now came to them under the hypnotic spell of the leader. They abandoned their egos to his, identified with his power, tried to function with him as an ideal. — Ernest Becker

Leading, not following We've been trained to follow. In fact, the very nature of training has following built right into it. We follow instructions. We follow the rules. We follow the leader. The challenge in a six-billion person world is that we don't have a shortage of followers. Followers are easy to find, and the tools for compliance are more powerful (but less useful) than ever. Now the economy is demanding leaders. Human beings who can engage in what it really means to be a person - to forge connections, to see a path and to make a difference. — Seth Godin

If you think you're a leader, and you look over your shoulder and there ain't nobody following you, man, you're just takin' a walk. — Sam Nunn

I would rather be an artist than a leader. Ironically, a leader has to follow the rules. — Criss Jami

Everything now will prepare you for the next step. Don't run from adversity; lean into it with all your heart and God will make you a leader worth following. — Andy Stanley

Legislators who are of even average intelligence stand out among their colleagues ... A cultured college president has become as much a rarity as a literate newspaper publisher. A financier interested in economics is as exceptional as a labor leader interested in the labor movement. For the most part our leaders are merely following out in front; they [only] marshal us in the way that we are going. — Bergen Evans

Progressivism is a spectrum; it's not an ideology following one leader saying one thing. It's many people who have very wildly diverging opinions about many things. But, as progressives, if we could commit to a general frame of reference that we are about improving the quality of life for a lot more people, we're about helping working and middle-class people, and we're about taking care of poor people, we could really make some inroads in political power in this country. But, if we choose to be purists, if we choose to be arguing for a consensus we will never reach, for agreement on every point, it's never going to happen. — Urvashi Vaid

They were following me because I was ahead of them, which is no way to choose a leader. Following someone simply because they're out in front is never a good idea, but it happens all the time. — Alan Huffman

Good leaders are scarce; so I'm following myself. — Dale Carnegie

It's true that if you're a leader but no-one is following you then you're actually not leading; you're just out for a walk. But it's also true that you're not really a leader unless you go for a walk because you know it's right and you're willing to have no-one come with you. Henry — Craig Hamilton

The best leaders are following Christ. That's the best leader you can follow. — Tony Dungy