Leadership Quotes

Leadership quotes are words of wisdom and inspiration that motivates and encourages. They usually describe how the leaders should lead his followers. Famous people like Steve Jobs, Ronal Reagan, Lao Tzu, John Maxwell and many more have shared their own quotes about leadership. They describe how the leaders should act, think and motivate their followers. The ideal and the characters of the great leaders are also describe on most leadership quotes.

With a huge number of quotes about leadership, I’ve categorized them according to the topic and the author. Scroll down to read my collection of quotes on leadership. Our quote section also include other sayings and quotations of famous people like Bob Marley and Marilyn Monroe. Read some of the best William Shakespeare quotes as well.

Famous Leadership Quotes

Quotes about leadership, good leadership quotes

A leader is best when people barely know he exists,
when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.
— Lao Tzu

 

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.
The last is to say thank you.
In between, the leader is a servant.
— Max DePree

 

Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights,
The raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard,
The building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.
—Peter Drucker

 

To command is to serve,
Nothing more and nothing less.
— Andre Malraux

Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily;
Even if you had no title or position.
— Brian Tracy

 

Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked;
leadership is defined by results not attributes.
— Peter Drucker

 

A great person attracts great people
And knows how to hold them together.
— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

 

Don’t find fault, find a remedy.
— Henry Ford

 

Management is doing things right;
Leadership is doing the right things.
— Peter Drucker

 

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.
— Stephen Covey

 

A man always has two reasons for doing anything:
A good reason and the real reason.
— J. P. Morgan

 

Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.
— Harold S. Geneen

 

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision.
It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion.
You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.
— Reverend Theodore Hesburgh

 

Leaders instill in their people a hope for success and a belief in themselves.
Positive leaders empower people to accomplish their goals.”
— Unknown

 

Great Leadership Quotes

Best leadership quotes, great quotes on leadership

 

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.
— Kenneth Blanchard

 

The challenge of leadership is to
Be strong, but not rude;
Be kind, but not weak;
Be bold, but not bully;
Be thoughtful, but not lazy;
Be humble, but not timid;
Be proud, but not arrogant;
Have humor, but without folly.
—Jim Rohn

 

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

 

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

 

Don’t necessarily avoid sharp edges.
Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.
— Donald Rumsfeld

 

Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness,
but rather by the presence of clear strengths.
— John Zenger

 

I cannot give you the formula for success,
but I can give you the formula for failure,
which is: Try to please everybody.
— Herbert Swope

 

It is absurd that a man should rule others,
who cannot rule himself.
— Latin Proverb

 

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front,
Especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur.
You take the front line when there is danger.
Then people will appreciate your leadership.
— Nelson Mandela

 

A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved.
He inspires the power and energy to get it done.
— Ralph Nader

 

To lead the people, walk behind them.
— Lao-Tzu

 

Leadership is the special quality which enables people to stand up
and pull the rest of us over the horizon.
— James Fisher

 

Leadership should be more participative than directive,
more enabling than performing.
— Mary D. Poole

 

Inspirational Leadership quotes

Motivational leadership quotes, educational leadership quotes

 

If your actions inspire others to dream more,
Learn more, do more and become more,
You are a leader.
— John Quincy Adams

 

He led his regiment from behind –
He found it less exciting.
But when away his regiment ran,
His place was at the fore, O.
— W.S. Gilbert

 

A leader who doesn’t hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.
— Golda Meir

 

A man is only a leader when a follower stands beside him.
— Mark Brouwer

 

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
— John F. Kennedy

 

Leldership is the key to 99 percent of all successful efforts.
— Erskine Bowles

 

Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.
— Bill Bradley
Management is about arranging and telling.
Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.
—Tom Peters

 

Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.
— Chinese Proverb

 

True leadership lies in guiding others to success.
In ensuring that everyone is performing at their best,
doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well.
— Bill Owens

 

We live in a society obsessed with public opinion.
But leadership has never been about popularity.
— Marco Rubio

 

Leadership Quotes by Women

 

A leader takes people where they want to go.
A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.
— Rosalynn Carter

 

I praise loudly, I blame softly.
— Catherine the Great

 

We need women leaders.
But we need them to have a vision for something.
— Charlotte Bunch

 

Knowing that we can make a difference in this world is a great motivator.
How can we know this and not be involved?
— Susan Jeffers

 

Getting ahead in a difficult position requires avid faith in yourself.
That is why some people with mediocre talent,
but with great inner drive,
go much further than people with vastly superior talent.
— Sophia Loren

 

Don’t let anything stop you.
There will be times when you’ll be disappointed, but you can’t stop.
Make yourself the very best that you can make of what you are.
The very best.
— Sadie T. Alexander

 

The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone.
You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.
— Elaine Agather

 

Being powerful is like being a lady.
If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t!
— Margaret Thatcher

 

Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach!
— Rosabeth Moss Kantor

 

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
— Eleanor Roosevelt

 

Humans are ambitious and rational and proud.
And we don’t fall in line with people who don’t respect us
and who we don’t believe have our best interests at heart.
We are willing to follow leaders,
but only to the extent that we believe they call on our best, not our worst.
— Rachel Maddow

 

Leadership Quotes by Famous People

Steve Jobs Leadership Quotes

Be a yardstick of quality.
Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.
— Steve Jobs

 

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
— Steve Jobs

 

My job is not to be easy on people.
My jobs is to take these great people we have
and to push them and make them even better.
— Steve Jobs

 

My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors,
so that’s what I try to do.
— Steve Jobs

 

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
— Steve Jobs

 

Quality is more important than quantity.
One home run is much better than two doubles.
— Steve Jobs

 

Colin Powell leadership quotes

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers,
who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt
to offer a solution everybody can understand.
— General Colin Powell

 

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.
— General Colin Powell

 

Organization doesn’t really accomplish anything.
Plans don’t accomplish anything, either.
Theories of management don’t much matter.
Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved.
Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds.
— General Colin Powell

 

There are no secrets to success: don’t waste time looking for them,
success is the result of perfection, hard work,
learning from failure, loyalty to those for whom you work and persistence.
— General Colin Powell

 

Abraham Lincoln Leadership Quotes

 

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.
This expresses my idea of democracy.
— Abraham Lincoln

 

Discourage litigation.
Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can.
As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man.
There will still be business enough.
— Abraham Lincoln

 

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool
Than to speak out and remove all doubt.
— Abraham Lincoln

 

You can fool all the people some of the time,
And some of the people all the time,
But you cannot fool all the people all the time.
— Abraham Lincoln

 

Nearly all men can stand adversity,
But if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
— Abraham Lincoln

 

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
— Abraham Lincoln

 

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.
I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have.
I must stand with anybody that stands right,
And stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
— Abraham Lincoln

 

I am a firm believer in the people.
If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis.
The great point is to bring them the real facts.
— Abraham Lincoln

 

Sun Tzu leadership quotes

Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness.
Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness.
Thereby you can be the director of the opponent’s fate.
— Sun Tzu

 

The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands,
but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
— Sun Tzu

 

If they fear you, they will respect you.
If they love you, they might respect you.
But if they don’t fear you, they’ll never love you or respect you
and they don’t have to!
— Sun Tzu

 

Ronald Reagan Quotes on Leadership

 

The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things.
He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.
― Ronald Reagan

 

There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go
If he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.
― Ronald Reagan

 

A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one,
must have the determination to stick with it
and be undaunted when the going gets rough.
― Ronald Reagan

 

Surround yourself with the best people you can find,
Delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long
As the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.”
— Ronald Reagan

 

Leadership quotes by John Maxwell

 

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.
— John Maxwell

 

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.
— John Maxwell

 

Leadership is influence.
— John C. Maxwell

 

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.
— John Maxwell

 

A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.
—John Maxwell

 

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others,
But far enough ahead to motivate them.
— John C. Maxwell

 

A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame
and a little less than his share of the credit.
—J ohn Maxwell

 

Vince Lombardi quotes on Leadership

 

Leadership is based on a spiritual quality;
the power to inspire,
the power to inspire others to follow.
— Vince Lombardi

 

A Leader must believe in teamwork through participation.
He can never close the gap between himself and the group.
He must walk, as it were, a tightrope between the consent
He must win and the control he must exert.
— Vince Lombardi

 

A Leader must be honest with himself and know that as a leader he is just like everybody else.
He must identify himself with the group, must back up the group,
even at the risk of displeasing superiors.
He must believe that the group wants from him a sense of approval.
If this feeling prevails, production, discipline, morale will be high,
and in return, you can demand the cooperation to promote the goals of the company.
— Vince Lombardi

 

Leadership rests not only upon ability, not only upon capacity;
having the capacity to lead is not enough.
The leader must be willing to use it.
His leadership is then based on truth and character.
There must be truth in the purpose and willpower in the character.”
— Vince Lombardi

 

The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to
their commitment to excellence, regardless of their
chosen field of endeavor.”
— Vince Lombardi

 

Leaders are made, they are not born.
They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us
must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.
— Vince Lombardi

 

The difference between a successful person and others is
not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge,
but rather a lack of will.
— Vince Lombardi

 

When all is said and done, a leader must exercise an effective influence
and the degree he accomplishes this depends upon the personality of the man.
The incandescence of which he is capable;
the flame which burns within him;
the magnetism which draws the hearts of men towards him.
— Vince Lombardi

 

Gandhi Leadership Quotes

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles;
But today it means getting along with people.
— Mahatma Gandhi

 

It is not the man that makes the vision;
It’s the vision that makes the man.
— Mahatma Gandhi

 

Your ability is secondary;
It’s your heart that matters the most
— Mahatma Gandhi

 

The history of the world is full of men who rose to leadership,
by sheer force of self-confidence, bravery and tenacity.
— Mahatma Gandhi

 

If you have no character to lose, people will have no faith in you
— Mahatma Gandhi