quotations about leadership
The best boss is the one who bosses the least.
RALPH MOODY
Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers
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
Good leadership is largely invisible.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
That's what leadership is all about, identifying quality people, giving them the opportunity and experience to create and develop to continue to make the company successful. The best leaders identify and mentor potential leaders. A leader's most important legacy is the leaders he or she develops.
KENNETH E. STRONG & JOHN A. DICICCO
Leadership Is a Choice
There are two kinds of leaders: those who are interested in the flock, and those who are interested in the fleece.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
"Safety first" has been the motto of the human race for half a million years; but it has never been the motto of leaders. A leader must face danger. He must take the risk and the blame, and the brunt of the storm.
HERBERT N. CASSON
The Office Economist
There is no such thing as a perfect leader.... If there is one, he is only pretending, like a pig inserting scallions into its nose in an effort to look like an elephant.
LIU SHAOQI
attributed, Mao and China: From Revolution to Revolution
Leadership is a form of captivity, in which one is both separated from others and exposed to their judgment.
JOSHUA ROTHMAN
"Shut Up and Sit Down", The New Yorker, February 29, 2016
The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.
TONY BLAIR
Mail on Sunday, Oct. 2, 1994
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.
ERIC HOFFER
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
Leading means running fast enough to keep ahead of your people.
S. M. STIRLING
The Sunrise Lands
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
To be a leader of men one must turn one's back on men.
HAVELOCK ELLIS
introduction, Against the Grain
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
Who aspires to remain leader must keep in advance of his column. His fear must not play traitor to his occasions. The instant he falls into line with his followers, a bolder spirit may throw himself at the head of the movement initiated, and in that moment his leadership is gone.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Leadership is most effective when those acting in that capacity realize that their effect on others must be indirect. This indirectness means influencing others by changing yourself.
GREG ROBINSON & MARK ROSE
A Leadership Paradox
The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
SAMUEL SMILES
Character
Little leading makes much following.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them.
ROBERT JARVIK
attributed, Deliberate Success
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