quotations about leadership
Little leading makes much following.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
SAMUEL SMILES
Character
The man fit to command may be compared with the architect, who adjusts the plan and directs its execution. His skill must extend to every part of the work; that of his workmen is limited by their respective tasks.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Truly inspiring leaders are authentic, that is, they have done their strategic homework, they have a vision that matches the people they are working with, and they believe in that vision deeply. They are not faking it.
RONALD J. BURKE & CARY L. COOPER
Inspiring Leaders
Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them.
ROBERT JARVIK
attributed, Deliberate Success
Because leadership is contextual and culturally contingent, its practice cannot be divorced from the specific socio-cultural context within which it occurs. Leadership development must begin to make contextual sense to its recipients, and to the social contexts in which they will be practicing as leaders.
VANESSA IWOWO
"Leadership: one size does not fit all contexts", Business Review, April 20, 2016
Leadership is not something you own and keep for yourself. It is a responsibility you are entrusted with for a period of time, and it is a duty you fulfill.
KEITH D. HARRELL
The Attitude of Leadership
Those who are successfully to lead their fellow-men, should have once possessed the nobler feelings. We have all known individuals whose magnanimity was not likely to be troublesome on any occasion; but then they betrayed their own interests by unwisely omitting the consideration, that such feelings might exist in the breasts of those whom they had to guide and govern: for they themselves cannot even remember the time when in their eyes justice appeared preferable to expediency, the happiness of others to self-interest, or the welfare of a State to the advancement of a party.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
To some extent, leaders are storytellers; really, though, they are characters in stories. They play leading roles, but in dramas they can't predict and don't always understand. Because the serialized drama of history is bigger than any one character's arc, leaders can't guarantee our ultimate narrative satisfaction. Because events, on the whole, are more protean than people, leaders grow less satisfying with time, as the stories they're ready to tell diverge from the stories we want to hear.
JOSHUA ROTHMAN
"Shut Up and Sit Down", The New Yorker, February 29, 2016
True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned. It comes only from influence, and that can't be mandated. It must be earned. The only thing a title can buy is a little time -- either to increase your level of influence with others or to erase it.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
Once you've given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject.
FRANK HERBERT
Dune
The first act of leadership is coming to grips with yourself, who you are, where you are, and what is of value to you, and shaping yourself by acts of conscious will into what you want to become.
FENWICK W. ENGLISH
The Art of Educational Leadership
Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
address at the Episcopal National Cathedral, Washington D.C., Mar. 31, 1968
Leaders are said to be responsive to what their followers want because the followers choose the leader and leaders want to keep their leadership positions. The assumption that leaders will be responsive to followers because leaders want to win and hold power is a useful starting point for understanding the politics of leadership in any democratic institution. However, such an assumption may become misleading if leaders are understood to care only about retaining their leadership positions. If some congressional leaders are strongly committed to political goals beyond remaining leader--and we shall see that some are--we would not expect those leaders always to be inclined to take their bearings from what their followers want. When opportunities arise to pursue other intensely held goals, some may be willing to act independently of followers and even risk their leadership positions in pursuit of those goals. If so, leaders who are more risk-tolerant may be consequential for influencing outcomes in a wider range of political situations than just those situations in which their followers are already mostly in agreement.
RANDALL STRAHAN
Leading Representatives
Leading means running fast enough to keep ahead of your people.
S. M. STIRLING
The Sunrise Lands
To be a leader of men one must turn one's back on men.
HAVELOCK ELLIS
introduction, Against the Grain
It often happens that less depends upon the valor of an army than the skill of the leader.
ARISTOPHANES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Leadership is not just one quality, but rather a blend of many qualities; and while no one individual possesses all the needed talents to go into leadership, each man can develop a combination to make him a leader.
VINCE LOMBARDI
attributed, Run to Win: Vince Lombardi on Coaching and Leadership
The leader continually passes on the vision to those who come around, knowing that dreams, if presented right, are contagious.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Developing the Leader Within You
When one sheep leads the way all the rest follow.
CHINESE PROVERB