Leadership Quotes

We have compiled some famous, infamous, and our all around favorite leadership quotes from leaders such as Winston Churchill, George Patton, Albert Einstein, Stephen Covey, among others. Enjoy!

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
Peter F. Drucker

The fundamental role of a leader is to look for ways to shape the decades ahead, not just react to the present, and to help others accept the discomfort of disruptions to the status quo.
Indra Nooyi

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
Dwight Eisenhower

Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too.
Robert Half

Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.
George S. Patton

A leader is a dealer in hope.
Napoleon

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?
Benjamin Disraeli

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

Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men — the other 999 follow women.
Groucho Marx

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
Theodore Roosevelt

If it’s a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
Admiral Grace Hopper

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

The real leader has no need to lead – he is content to point the way.
– Henry Miller

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. . . . The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
Theodore Roosevelt

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on. . . . The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.
Walter Lippmann

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.
Katharine Hepburn

In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.
Margaret Wheatly

Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.
Karen Kaiser Clark

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters.
Albert Einstein

The quality of leadership, more than any other single factor, determines the success or failure of an organization.
Fred Fiedler & Martin Chemers

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you.
Max DePree

Excellence is not an accomplishment. It is a spirit, a never-ending process.
Lawrence M. Miller

There is no contest between the company that buys the grudging compliance of its work force and the company that enjoys the enterprising participation of its employees
Ricardo Sempler

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.
Winston Churchill

When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.
Lao Tse

Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their jobs done.
Peter Drucker

I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
Ralph Nader

To lead people, walk beside them …
As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence.
The next best, the people honor and praise.
The next, the people fear;
and the next, the people hate …
When the best leader’s work is done the people say,
“We did it ourselves!”
Lao-tsu

Hell, there are no rules here–we’re trying to accomplish something.
Thomas A. Edison

Lead and inspire people. Don’t try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be led.
Ross Perot

We must become the change we want to see.
– Gandhi

The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
Vincent T. Lombardi

An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success.
Stephen R. Covey

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

Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.
Marian Anderson

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.
Jesse Jackson

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

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
Henry Kissinger

The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.
Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald’s

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Thomas Edison

The only real training for leadership is leadership.
Anthony Jay

Probably my best quality as a coach is that I ask a lot of challenging questions and let the person come up with the answer.
Phil Dixon

Never hire or promote in your own image. It is foolish to replicate your strength and idiotic to replicate your weakness. It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom.
– Dee W. Hock, Fast Company

In matters of style, swim with the current;
In matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Thomas Jefferson

Think of managing change as an adventure. It tests your skills and abilities. It brings forth talent that may have been dormant. Change is also a training ground for leadership. When we think of leaders, we remember times of change, innovation, and conflict. Leadership is often about shaping a new way of life. To do that, you must advance change, take risks, and accept responsibility for making change happen.
Charles E. Rice, CEO of Barnett Bank