Leader Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

John Kotter

Newt Gingrich

Frances Perkins

Walter Lippmann

James Callaghan

Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell

Jerry Falwell

A conservative government survives essentially by dampening expectations and subduing hopes. Conservatism is basically pessimistic, reformism is basically optimistic.
The Honourable Leader of the Opposition, Sir Billy Snedden, has broken his promise: the promise he made to me before the election. He promised not to tell any lies about me, if I didn't tell the truth about him.

Leaders are not pale reflectors of major social conflicts; they play up some, play down others, ignore still others.

James MacGregor Burns

Woodrow Wilson called for leaders who, by boldly interpreting the nation's conscience, could lift a people out of their everyday selves. That people can be lifted into their better selves is the secret of transforming leadership.

James MacGregor Burns

No amount of study or learning will make a man a leader unless he has the natural qualities of one.

Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell

In Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canada has at last produced a political leader worthy of assassination.

There is no proletarian, not even a Communist movement, that has not operated in the interests of money, and for the time being permitted by money – and that without the idealists among its leaders having the slightest suspicion of the fact.

Oswald Spengler

The leader is one who mobilizes others toward a goal shared by leaders and followers.... Leaders, followers and goals make up the three equally necessary supports for leadership.

In real life, the most practical advice for leaders is not to treat pawns like pawns, nor princes like princes, but all persons like persons.

James MacGregor Burns

I'm not a natural leader. I'm too intellectual; I'm too abstract; I think too much.

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born — that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born. And the way we become leaders is by learning about leadership through life and job experiences, not with university degrees.

Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence. This explains why we have so many stupid leaders.

Because management deals mostly with the status quo and leadership deals mostly with change, in the next century we are going to have to try to become much more skilled at creating leaders.

You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.

It is to be hoped that the leaders of this movement will place the nation above the party.

Franz von Papen

Not only the priceless heritage of our fathers, of our seamen, of our Empire builders is being thrown away in a war that serves no British interests - but our alliance leader Stalin dreams of nothing but the destruction of that heritage of our fathers?

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

Leaders talk about communicating a vision as an instrument of change, but I prefer the notion of communicating an aspiration. It's not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The leader of men in warfare can show himself to his followers only through a mask, a mask that he must make for himself, but a mask made in such form as will mark him to men of his time and place as the leader they want and need.

Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens, people feel centered and that gives their work meaning.

To have a man who can flirt is next thing to indispensable to a leader of society.

Margaret Oliphant

Great men are usually the products of their times and one of the men developed by these times takes rank with the greatest railroad leaders in history.

John Moody (financial analyst)

A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice.

James Callaghan

A leader has to appear consistent. That doesn't mean he has to be consistent.

James Callaghan

Leadership is hard to define and good leadership even harder. But if you can get people to follow you to the ends of the earth, you are a great leader. As a leader I am tough on myself and I raise the standard for everybody; however I am very caring because I want people to excel at what they are doing so that they can aspire to be me in the future.

The quality of his being one with his people, of having no artificial or natural barriers between him and them, made it possible for him to be a leader without ever being or thinking of being a dictator.

Frances Perkins