These are inspirational, motivational, wise, sad and funny leadership quotes, sayings, and proverbs that inspire us. See more inspirational quotes on MindBootstrap.
What is leadership?
Leadership is a choice you make, not a place you sit. ~Robert F. Tucker
Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. ~Warren G. Bennis
Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you’re in control, they’re in control. ~Tom Landry
Leadership is a choice, not a position. ~Stephen Covey
Leadership is not a title. It’s a behavior. Live it. ~Robin Sharma
Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average. ~Jim Rohn
Leadership is about vision and responsibility not power.
Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.
Leadership is, among other things, the ability to inflict pain and get away with it – short-term pain for long-term gain. ~George Will
Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It’s about impact, influence, and inspiration. Impact involves getting results, influence is about spreading the passion you have for your work, and you have to inspire team-mates and customers.
Leadership is an ever-evolving position. ~Mike Krzyzewski
Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions. ~Harold S. Geneen
Short leadership quotes
One voice can change a room. ~Barack Obama
Success is achieved by ordinary people with extraordinary determination.
Old ways won’t open new doors.
My life didn’t please me, so I created my life. ~Coco Chanel
When people talk, listen completely. ~Ernest Hemingway
Earn your leadership every day. ~Michael Jordan
Normal is boring.
There is always room at the top. ~Daniel Webster
Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. ~Margaret Fuller
The obstacle is the path.
Don’t find fault. Find a remedy. ~Henry Ford
Whatever you are, be a good one. ~Abraham Lincoln
Done is better than perfect. ~Sheryl Sandberg
Life is too short to spend it at war with yourself.
All leaders are readers. ~Jim Rohn
Courage breeds leadership.
A winner is a dreamer who never gives up. ~Nelson Mandela
Dreams don’t work unless you do.
Act or do not act, but do not hedge. ~Peter F. Drucker
Do what you fear and fear disappears. ~David Joseph Schwartz
Leadership distilled down to 3 words: Make a difference. ~Robin Sharma
Funny leadership quotes
I am a leader. Not a follower. Unless it’s a dark place, then fuck that shit. You’re going first.
People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. ~Peter F. Drucker
Remember the difference between a boss and a leader; a boss says “Go!”, a leader says “Let’s go!”. ~E.M. Kelly
Lead me, follow me, or get the hell out of my way. ~George Patton
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet. ~Theodore Hesburgh
You can not lead a battle if you think you look silly on a horse. ~Napoleon Bonaparte
A leader is a dealer in hope. ~Napoleon Bonaparte
When people ask, “What do you do?”
Answer: “Whatever it takes”
You either run with lions or walk with sheep. ~Matshona Dhliwayo
Bad leadership quotes
You can’t create greater followers under poor leadership.
A bad leader can take a good staff and destroy it, causing the best employees to flee and the remainder to lose all motivation.
A bad system can destroy good people. ~Gary Mottershead
Bad leadership is an oxymoron. ~Joseph C. Rost
Never be afraid to speak your mind on relevant issues; good leaders stand for relevance and they are never afraid to face the facts head on. Bad leaders see the problems, close their eyes and do something else! ~Israelmore Ayivor
Bad leadership during the past years has cast on our party the shadow of great and grave burdens. ~Janos Kodar
A good leader takes care of those in their charge. A bad leader takes charge of those in their care. ~Simon Sinek
A leader’s job is to develop committed followers. Bad leaders destroy their followers’ sense of commitment. ~Dean Smith
Good leadership is pervasive persuasive, and persistent. Bad leadership is poisoned with pedanticism, posturing, self-importance. ~Marcia Lynn Whicker
Military leadership quotes
Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.
They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership. ~Colin Powell
A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent. ~Douglas MacArthur
Leadership is a responsibility to do more, not an excuse to do less. ~CSM Scott Schroeder
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.
I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself. ~Rober E. Lee
The one quality that can be developed by studious reflection and practice is the leadership of men. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
Servant Leadership quotes
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. ~Booker Washington
The servant-leader is servant first…It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first. ~Robert K. Greenleaf
Servant-leadership is more than a concept, it is a fact. Any great leader, by which I also mean an ethical leader of any group, will see herself or himself as a servant of that group and will act accordingly. ~M. Scott Peck
The best leaders are servant leaders – they serve those they lead. ~Tony Hsieh
Leadership is about being a servant first. ~Allen West
Servant leadership always empathizes, always accepts the person, but sometimes refuses to accept some of the person’s effort or performance as good enough. ~Robert K. Greenleaf
Educational leadership quotes
Education is the mother of leadership.~Wendell Willkie
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. ~John Quincy Adams
Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better. ~Bill Bradley
The most powerful leadership tool you have is your own personal example. ~John Wooden
The most important rule of educational leadership is to always remember that people, not policies or programs, are what drive highly effective schools. ~PJ Caposey
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I am convinced that your Mayor must take the leadership role in education too. ~Alan Autry
Leadership quotes by women
If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself and the organization gets pulled up with you. ~Indra Nooyi
I learned to always take on things I’d never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist. ~Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM
We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change. ~Sheryl Sandberg
Each woman would have faced many challenges, but when somebody puts you down, it is when you feel the need to rise up. ~Naina Lal Kidwai, Former Group GM, Country Head, HSBC India
I don’t go by the rule book. I lead from the heart, not the head. ~Princess Diana
Perfect score is always something to strive for. I want to win and I want to succeed no matter what. ~Andrea Yung
When they go low, we go high. ~Michelle Obama
Leadership is hard to define and good leadership is even harder. But if you can get people to follow you to the ends of the earth, you are a great leader. ~Indra Nooyi
If more women are in leadership roles, we’ll stop assuming they shouldn’t be. ~Sheryl Sandberg
Some leaders are born women. ~Geraldine Ferraro
A woman with a voice is, by definition, a strong woman. ~Melinda Gates
You should never let your fears prevent you from doing what you know is right.
Part of the great challenge of living is defining yourself in your moment, of seizing the opportunities that you are given, and of making the very best choices you can. ~Hillary Clinton
In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders. ~Sheryl Sandberg
Leadership quotes for kids, students
A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. ~John C. Maxwell
Every child is designed by God to be a leader.
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. ~John F. Kennedy
We rise by lifting others. ~Robert Ingersoll
If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already. ~John Buchan
If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves. ~Thomas Edison
Successful leaders see the opportunities in every difficulty rather than the difficulty in every opportunity. ~Reed Markham
It’s not about what i is, it’s about what it can become. ~Dr. Seuss
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
The challenge of leadership is to be strong but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly. ~Jim Rohn
I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. ~Jimmy Dean
The less you talk, the more people think about your words.
The key to being a good mentor is to help people become more of who they already are – not to make them more like you. ~Suze Orman
More: success quotes
Leadership quotes by famous people (John Maxwell, Colin Powell, Abraham Lincoln…)
Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them. ~John C. Maxwell
People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision. ~John C. Maxwell
Good leadership isn’t about advancing yourself. It’s about advancing your team. ~John C. Maxwell
The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up. ~John C. Maxwell
A measure of a leader is not the number of people who serve him, but the number of people he serves. ~John C. Maxwell
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you are. ~John C. Maxwell
A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position. ~John C. Maxwell
Insecure leaders think everything is about them, and as a result, every action, every piece of information, every decision is put through their filter of self-centeredness. ~John C. Maxwell
Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. ~John C. Maxwell
A successful person finds the right place for himself. But a successful leader finds the right place for others. ~John C. Maxwell
A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work. ~Colin Powell
Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible. ~Colin Powell
Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand. ~Colin Powell
Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off. ~Colin Powell
Don’t let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn’t go with it.
Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence. ~Colin Powell
The most important thing I learned is that soldiers watch what their leaders do. You can give them classes and lecture them forever, but it is your personal example they will follow. ~Colin Powell
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. ~Abraham Lincoln
The best way to predict the future is to create it. ~Abraham Lincoln
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. ~Abraham Lincoln
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed our gathered collection of the best leadership quotes. Please share with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Thanks for reading!
What is your one? Would you like to add another one here? Share in the comments!
