Well Known Leadership Quotes & Sayings

Do not do that which you would not have known. — Benjamin Franklin

Those who are successfully to lead their fellow-men, should have once possessed the nobler feelings. We have all known individuals whose magnanimity was not likely to be troublesome on any occasion; but then they betrayed their own interests by unwisely omitting the consideration, that such feelings might exist in the breasts of those whom they had to guide and govern: for they themselves cannot even remember the time when in their eyes justice appeared preferable to expediency, the happiness of others to self-interest, or the welfare of a State to the advancement of a party. — Arthur Helps

Several years ago, Debashish Chatterjee, a good friend and well-known author on leadership1 opened a seminar on leadership at MIT by saying, 'I've been guided in my work by the notion that older is often better. If an idea has been around for a few thousand years, it's been submitted to many tests - which is a good indicator that it might have some real merit. We're fixated on newness, which often misleads us into elevating novelty over substance. — Peter M. Senge

Words alone can effect great good as well as evil. A few apt words have swept candidates into office, ended as well as started wars, paved the way for peace and carried with them both hope as well as despair. Words alone have ruined lives, but have also brought forth healing. It is well known the harm words can cause, but the good they can bring is equally impressive. — Steve Goodier

A man is known by the company he owns. — Vince Lombardi

The biggest novelty of 2013 will be new leadership in China. Very little is known about the views of the new leaders - who will rule the country for ten years. But we do know they're the first generation of Chinese leaders who have spent the majority of their lives in a China 'opening up' to the rest of the world. — David Miliband

A good leader is known by 'his qualities' not 'his authorities'. — Abdulazeez Henry Musa

We completed meetings with leaders from over a dozen ministries over a ten-day period. Toward the end of our journey, we asked our Sri Lankan host for his feedback. After about the fourth day, he had become convinced that we were actually there to listen, so his feedback was honest. He said (and I'm paraphrasing):
Paul and Christie, you and your leadership training are welcome here in Sri Lanka. If you host your training in a nice Colombo (Sri Lanka's capital) hotel with a nice venue and a buffet lunch, we can get fifty to one hundred pastors and ministry leaders to come. They will come, and you can get some great pictures for
your newsletter. Then, after the seminar, they will take your manual home with them and put it on the shelf with [U.S. megachurch pastor's] training manual and [another U.S. megachurch pastor's] training manual and [a well-known U.S. leadership trainer's] training manual, and they will go about their own ministry in their own way. — Paul Borthwick

In what is known as the 70/20/10 learning concept, Robert Eichinger and Michael Lombardo, in collaboration with Morgan McCall of the Center for Creative Leadership, explain that 70 percent of learning and development takes place from real-life and on-the-job experiences, tasks, and problem solving; 20 percent of the time development comes from other people through informal or formal feedback, mentoring, or coaching; and 10 percent of learning and development comes from formal training. — Marcia Conner

All great leaders are known to have faith. They first develop faith in themselves, which means they connect their body, mind and intellect with their soul. They also connect their soul with the Universal Soul where all souls of the world are connected with each other. Leadership is thus a spiritual quality that comes from faith and trust. — Awdhesh Singh

The ability of the Malay political leadership through UMNO to mobilize Malay public opinion caught the British by surprise. A people who only a decade earlier had seemed docile and apathetic were suddenly making their views known through mass demonstrations. The strength and emotion of the Malay reaction convinced the British that they had miscalculated. The British sat down with the Malay political leadership to come up with an alternative to the Malayan Union. — Anonymous

Some people are known, they have the platform and presence, but still remain irrelevant. They know you and what you do, but they don't need you or your offering. I see too many people with a platform but without substance, again this is not sustainable. Lack of substance can only relegate your talent or skill towards the league of the mediocre, if at all you become much by superficial branding then you will become the best of the worst. You don't have what it takes but you depend on your ability to sell substandard offerings to the market. It will not last for long, but quickly become irrelevant. — Archibald Marwizi

Nobody could have possibly known that the FBI had sent a phony letter to Eldridge Cleaver in Algiers, 'signed' by the Panther 21, criticizing Huey Newton's leadership... no one could have known that the FBI's cointelpro was attempting to destroy the Black Panther Party in particular, and the Black Liberation movement in general, using divide-and-conquer tactics. — Assata Shakur

It's instructive to consider the more spectacular and well-known falls from grace of leaders in the public eye ... In the main, the issues behind these falls could be grouped under a lack of competence, a lack of support or loyalty from those they sought to lead, and a lack of failure of integrity. Of all these the last is the most egregious, the most fatal. We so much want our leaders to be unfailingly decent that an obvious or perceived flaw in integrity can be the toxin which kills them off. — Peter Cosgrove

I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people. — Rosa Parks

PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom - and of whom only - it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President. — Ambrose Bierce

We as Aboriginal people still have to fight to prove that we are straight out plain human beings, the same as everyone else. You know, I grew up, born on a government blanket under a palm tree. I lived under lantana bushes, I've seen more dinner times than I've seen dinners, I've known discrimination, I've known prejudice, I've known all of those things ... but some of that is still with us ... and it's got to be changed ... — Neville Bonner