quotations about leadership
Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50 percent of your time leading yourself--your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20 percent leading those with authority over you and 15 percent leading your peers. If you don't understand that you work for your mislabeled 'subordinates,' then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny.
DEE HOCK
attributed, 100 Ways to Motivate Others
Life is the leader's laboratory, and exemplary leaders use it to conduct as many experiments as possible. Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, learn. That's the leader's mantra. Leaders are learners. They learn from their failures as well as their successes, and they make it possible for others to do the same.
JAMES M. KOUZES & BARRY Z. POSNER
The Leadership Challenge
A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice.
JAMES CALLAGHAN
The Harvard Business Review, Nov. 1, 1986
When there is danger, a good leader takes the front line; but when there is celebration, a good leader stays in the back of the room.
NELSON MANDELA
O: The Oprah Magazine, Apr. 2001
Leadership is about creating the future, not predicting it.
MARSHALL SASHKIN & MOLLY G. SASHKIN
Leadership that Matters
Man, like all other animals of a gregarious nature, is more inclined to follow than to lead. There are few who are endued with that impetus of soul which prompts them to stand foremost as leaders in the storming of the breach, whether it be of a fortress of stone, or the more dangerous one of public opinion, when failure in the one case may precipitate them on the sword, and in the other consign them to the scaffold.
FREDERICK MARRYAT
King's Own
Leadership is the catalytic gift that energizes, directs, and empowers all the other gifts.
BILL HYBELS
Courageous Leadership
Leadership is the dream made reality.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Leadership Gold
Leadership is defined not by the scale of the opportunity but by the quality of the response.
CHRIS LOWNEY
Heroic Leadership
Leadership in today's world requires far more than a large stock of gunboats and a hard fist at the conference table.
HUBERT H. HUMPHREY
speech in Gainesville, Florida, Oct. 20, 1966
A good leader makes a good follower.
BION
attributed, Day's Collacon
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
GEORGE S. PATTON
"Reflections and Suggestions", War As I Knew It
Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.
ALAN KEITH
attributed, The Leadership Challenge
A leader ... is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.
NELSON MANDELA
Long Walk to Freedom
Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths.
JOHN H. ZENGER & JOSEPH FOLKMAN
The Extraordinary Leader
Most of the ladies and gentlemen who mourn the passing of the nation's leaders wouldn't know a leader if they saw one. If they had the bad luck to come across a leader, they would find out that he might demand something from them, and this impertinence would put an abrupt and indignant end to their wish for his return.
LEWIS H. LAPHAM
"Leadership", Money and Class in America
The multitude who require to be led, still hate their leaders.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
It is very comforting to believe that leaders who do terrible things are, in fact, mad. That way, all we have to do is make sure we don't put psychotics in high places and we've got the problem solved.
TOM WOLFE
"Jonestown", In Our Time
Leadership is evoking in others the capacity to dream.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Leadership Gold
And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
BIBLE
Matthew 15:14