quotations about leadership
Effective leaders are made, not born. They learn from trial and error, and from experience.
COLIN POWELL
"10 Leadership Tenets from Colin Powell", Stanford Graduate School of Business
Leadership is about mobilising people to tackle tough changes and thrive, while authority simply looked at protection, direction and order and can be a strait jacket if not used correctly.
KIRK HUMPHREY
"The Time for Adaptive Leadership is Right Now", Barbados Advocate, April 24, 2016
Leaders are expected to look into the future, to gaze across the time horizon and communicate to us what they see. It's not about being prescient or clairvoyant. It's about being discerning and perceptive. It's about noticing what's around the corner.
JAMES M. KOUZES & BARRY POSNER
A Leader's Legacy
There is nothing worse than a leader who is too far ahead of the people he or she is trying to lead. Have you ever tried to follow someone in a car? Some people are good at leading you -- some aren't. But, the best leadership is always taking you somewhere you haven't been before -- stretching you towards something new.
RON EDMONDSON
"7 Times Leadership is at Its Best -- A Delicate Tension", Crossmap, April 18, 2016
'Tis a dainty thing to command, though 'twere but a flock of sheep.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
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
Poor leadership is itself a scandal.
MARIAM MOKHTAR
"Poor leadership is itself a scandal", Free Malaysia Today, March 30, 2016
A leader is best when people barely know he exists.
LAOZI
Tao Te Ching
What was leadership, after all, but the blind choice of one route over another and the confident pretense that the decision was based on reason.
ROBERT HARRIS
Pompeii
The secret of leadership is simple: Do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there. People will follow.
SETH GODIN
Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
I will not follow where the path may lead; instead I will go where there is no path and leave a trail.
MURIEL STRODE
My Little Book of Prayer
Leadership is made by strong men with strong convictions, not clerks who study commas on lawslates.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
Men are loyal when you lead from the front.
PAOLO BACIGALUPI
The Windup Girl
All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.
JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
The Age of Uncertainty
I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.
ROBERT E. LEE
attributed, Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations
While managers focus on the task to be completed, the process to complete it, and supervising a set of people to get there, the leaders role is more ambiguous. They must envision, set new directions, and inspire and value their team. To be a leader, it is absolutely essential to listen to people and understand their needs.
JACOB MORGAN
"What Does Leadership Look Like In The Future Of Work?", Forbes, March 28, 2016
Leadership is taking responsibility while others are making excuses.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Leadership Gold
If leadership is the act of going beyond what is ... it begins by going beyond what is within ourselves.
KEVIN CASHMAN
Leadership from the Inside Out
By leadership we mean the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done because he wants to do it.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
attributed, The Federal Career Service: A Look Ahead
The strength of the group is in the will of the leader, and the will is character in action.
VINCE LOMBARDI
attributed, Run to Win: Vince Lombardi on Coaching and Leadership