quotations about leadership
The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing people around a shared vision.
KEN BLANCHARD
Leading at a Higher Level
Leadership is love made visible.
DARYA FUNCHES
attributed, Speak the Truth and Point to Hope
No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.
ANDREW CARNEGIE
attributed, Managing Software Development Projects: Formula for Success
Leadership is a matter of performance not position. The person who sets a good example in your office is a leader. So is the father who proudly watches his daughter sell Girl Scout cookies in their neighborhood, and the teenager who holds the door open for you in the grocery store, even though his friends are snickering in the background. The best leaders help you move from where you are to where you need to be. Most important, they realize and cultivate the potential in others to be a positive influence regardless of their position.
RANDY PENNINGTON
"Leadership Choices for a Positive Future", Huffington Post, April 26, 2016
Leadership is most effective when those acting in that capacity realize that their effect on others must be indirect. This indirectness means influencing others by changing yourself.
GREG ROBINSON & MARK ROSE
A Leadership Paradox
Leadership is caring for the most vulnerable.
ELIZABETH CARDNO
"Leadership is caring for the most vulnerable", The Hamilton Spectator, April 26, 2016
Leadership is not the private reserve of a few charismatic men and women. It is a process ordinary people use when they are bringing forth the best from themselves and others. When the leader in everyone is liberated extraordinary things happen.
JAMES M. KOUZES & BARRY Z. POSNER
The Leadership Challenge
Leadership is taken, not given.
LOUISE STERLING & SUE DAVIDOFF
The Courage to Lead
The best leaders turn their followers into leaders, realizing that the journey ahead requires many guides.
JAMES M. KOUZES & BARRY Z. POSNER
A Leader's Legacy
The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such.
ANDRE MAUROIS
"The Art of Leadership", The Art of Living
The man fit to command may be compared with the architect, who adjusts the plan and directs its execution. His skill must extend to every part of the work; that of his workmen is limited by their respective tasks.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Truly inspiring leaders are authentic, that is, they have done their strategic homework, they have a vision that matches the people they are working with, and they believe in that vision deeply. They are not faking it.
RONALD J. BURKE & CARY L. COOPER
Inspiring Leaders
Good leadership is largely invisible.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
A leader, you see, is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people.
FRANK HERBERT
Dune
The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
SAMUEL SMILES
Character
The right man comes at the right time.
ITALIAN PROVERB
Leadership is the outward expression of our inner character.
DICK ABEL
The DNA of Leadership
Every age fraught with discord and danger seems to spawn a leader meant only for that age, a political giant whose absence, in retrospect, seems inconceivable when the history of that age is written.
DAN SIMMONS
The Fall of Hyperion
True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned. It comes only from influence, and that can't be mandated. It must be earned. The only thing a title can buy is a little time -- either to increase your level of influence with others or to erase it.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
He who thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Leading from the Lockers