Leadership Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

Great leadership is not the visit of an unexpected fate but rather a flame which is kept burning in spite of the winds of risk and opposition.

Mary Anne Radmacher

Leadership in the church is not entrusted to successful fund raisers, brilliant biblical scholars, administrative geniuses, or spellbinding preachers...but to those who have been laid waste by a consuming passion for Christ - passionate men and women for whom privilege and power are trivial compared to knowing and loving Jesus.

Brennan Manning

Self-sacrifice is essential to leadership. You will give, give all the time.

The goal of leadership is not to eradicate uncertainty but rather to navigate it.

Good leadership means leading the way, not hectoring other people to do things your way.

As a leader, you have to take responsibility for your own failures as well as successes. That's the only way you'll learn.
If you keep learning, you'll improve.
If you improve, your leadership will get better.
And in time, you will earn the right to lead on the level you deserve.

John C. Maxwell

If we lose sight of people, we lose sight of the very purpose of leadership.

Questions are far more effective than defensive statements. They do not imply agreement, but they do convey interest and a desire to understand and facilitate an environment for peak performance, a central thread of effective leadership.... The next time someone accuses you of virtually anything, ask some questions. Resolving the situation may take more time, but the outcome will likely be more productive for both of you.

Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. These events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America's leadership in the world.

To determine whether or not you have the ingredients to be charismatic, answer the following questions: What are your real feelings about who you are? What do you believe in? Do you have goals or a mission in life? Do you project optimism? Do others turn to you for leadership? Non-charismatic people spend their lives auditioning for others and hoping they'll be accepted. Charismatic people don't doubt their ability to add value to a situation, so they move forward with their mission.

Many political experts have told me that nobody will vote for me because America is not ready for such decisive and dynamic leadership. They tell me these things, and I say nay to the negative nincompoops who never nourished the nihilistic nerve to name a novice to nail down the nomination.

On winning in the face of obstacles:

Motivation, teamwork, leadership, patience, constantly looking over you shoulders at the rivals and never over-stretching yourself.

Ranulph Fiennes

Leadership is all about caring, daring and sharing!
Caring for people, Daring to Act fearlessly,
& Sharing the success with all!

The purpose of leadership is to take others to the top. And when you take others who might not make it to the top otherwise, there's no other feeling like it in the world. To those who have never had the experience, you can't explain it. To those who have, you don't need to.

John C. Maxwell

God is grooming us for leadership. He's watching to see how we demonstrate our faithfulness. He does that through his apprenticeship program, one that prepares us for Heaven. Christ is not simply preparing a place for us; he is preparing us for that place.

Perhaps the most promising trend in our thinking about leadership is the growing conviction that the purposes of the group are best served when the leader helps followers develop their own initiative, strengthens them in the use of their own judgment, enables them to grow, and to become better contributors.

John W. Gardner

Those with visible responsibility for leadership are nearly always too visible to take responsibility for change...

Harlan Cleveland

If the United States is to produce a nation of investors-as we must if we are to gain financial world-leadership-it is imperative that boards of directors be so constituted as to adequately represent the interests and inspire the complete confidence of investors of moderate substance.

There is no more powerful leadership tool than your own personal example.

We have to ask ourselves if we have become so focused on supporting personal choices that we're failing to encourage women to aspire to leadership,

Sheryl Sandberg

If becoming a high performing organization is the destination, leadership is the engine.

Loneliness is the penalty of leadership, but the man who has to make the decisions is assisted greatly if he feels that there is no uncertainty in the minds of those who follow him, and that his orders will be carried out confidently and in the expectation of success.

Ernest Shackleton

If we are to remain mission focused, as we must be if we are to be relevant in an uncertain age, the abandoning those things that do not further the mission is a leadership imperative.

Frances Hesselbein

Personal and organizational effectiveness is proportionate to the strength of leadership.

John C. Maxwell

Leadership requires followership and following is an act of trust, faith in the course of the leader, and that faith can be generated only if leaders act with integrity.

Lawrence M. Miller