quotations about leadership
Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50 percent of your time leading yourself--your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20 percent leading those with authority over you and 15 percent leading your peers. If you don't understand that you work for your mislabeled 'subordinates,' then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny.
DEE HOCK
attributed, 100 Ways to Motivate Others
The great leaders are like the best conductors--they reach beyond the notes to reach the magic in the players.
BLAINE LEE
The Power Principle
Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.
ALAN KEITH
attributed, The Leadership Challenge
Leadership is the readiness to stand out in a crowd.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Leadership Gold
Leadership is defined not by the scale of the opportunity but by the quality of the response.
CHRIS LOWNEY
Heroic Leadership
And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
BIBLE
Matthew 15:14
Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.
COLIN POWELL
The Powell Principles
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
attributed, Managing Innovation, Design and Creativity
Leadership is the catalytic gift that energizes, directs, and empowers all the other gifts.
BILL HYBELS
Courageous Leadership
The multitude who require to be led, still hate their leaders.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
If the experience of leadership is like being at the edge of an unfamiliar chasm, the act of leadership is building a bridge across that chasm.
KEVIN CASHMAN
Leadership from the Inside Out
There are many leaders, not just one. Leadership is distributed. It resides not solely in the individual at the top, but in every person at every level who, in one way or another, acts as a leader to a group of followers -- wherever in the organization that person is, whether shop steward, team head, or CEO.
DANIEL GOLEMAN, RICHARD BOYATZIS & ANNIE MCKEE
Primal Leadership
Leadership is about creating the future, not predicting it.
MARSHALL SASHKIN & MOLLY G. SASHKIN
Leadership that Matters
A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice.
JAMES CALLAGHAN
The Harvard Business Review, Nov. 1, 1986
If you're a leader, you don't push wet spaghetti, you pull it.
BILL MAULDIN
The Brass Ring
Woe to the country which hath lost its leader; woe to the ship when its captain is no more.
TALMUD
Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths.
JOHN H. ZENGER & JOSEPH FOLKMAN
The Extraordinary Leader
A good leader makes a good follower.
BION
attributed, Day's Collacon
Take the ideas of the masses and concentrate them, then go to the masses, persevere in the ideas and carry them through ... such is the basic method of leadership.
MAO ZEDONG
"Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership", Jun. 1, 1943
It often happens that less depends upon the valor of an army than the skill of the leader.
ARISTOPHANES
attributed, Day's Collacon