Quotes

I have gathered a small collection of leadership quotes which can be helpful to anyone. You can use them whenever writing a paper or simply to find your path – it really helps!

My favorite quotes

”Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”
— Jack Welch

”The time is always right to do what is right.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.

”You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

”I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot… and missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why… I succeed.”
— Michael Jordan

”A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.”
— Arnold H. Glasgow

”Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.”
— Lao-Tzu

”Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.”
— Alexander Hamilton

”One man with courage makes a majority.”
— Andrew Jackson

”A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
— Lao-Tzu

”The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity.”
- Winston Churchill

”Impossible is a word found only in a fool’s dictionary.”
- Napoleon

Other quotes

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

”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 Bonaparte

”It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.”
- Adlai Stevenson

”You do not lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

”A leader must have the courage to act against an expert’s advice.”
- James Callaghan

”There’s nothing more demoralizing than a leader who can’t clearly articulate why we’re doing what we’re doing.”
- James Kouzes and Barry Posner

”If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
- John Quincy Adams

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

”Good leaders must first become good servants.”
- Robert Greenleaf

”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

”The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.”
- Tony Blair

”The price of greatness is responsibility.”
- Winston Churchill

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

”Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.”
- Conrad Hilton

”Be enthusiastic as a leader. You can’t light a fire with a wet match.”
- Unknown author

”Big thinking precedes great achievement”
- Wilfred Peterson

”The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.”
- General Colin Powell

”You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.”
- Lee Iacocca

”The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.”
- John Maxwell

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

”How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?”
- Harry S. Truman

”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

”Don’t wait for your ship to come in, swim out to it.”
- Unknown author

”Anything worth doing, is worth doing now!”
- Ralph Stayer

”Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
- Anais Nin

”Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”
- Robert Francis Kennedy

”There is plenty of room at the top – but no place to sit down.”
- Unknown author

”Clear your mind of can’t.”
- Samuel Johnson

”The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

”Beginning is half done.”
- Unknown author

“The impossible is often the untried.”
- Jim Goodwin

“Take what you learn and make a difference with it.”
- Unknown author

“A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn’t like the tune.”
- Unknown author

“A big man is one who makes us feel bigger when we are with him.”
- John C. Maxwell

“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 first task of a leader is to keep hope alive.”
- Joe Batten

“An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.”
- Arab proverb

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

“He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.”
- Aristotle