Leadership shortens life. ~ Hebrew Proverb
He that would be a leader must be a bridge. ~ Welsh Proverbs
The best leaders of all, the people know not they exist. They turn to each other and say We did it ourselves. ~ Zen Proverb
A church without a leader is prey for the devil. ~ Georgian Proverbs
Wherever the head goes, the tail will follow. ~ Filipino Proverbs
When a blind man bears the standard, pity those who follow. ~ French Proverbs
The right man comes at the right time. ~ Italian Proverbs
When God punishes a land, he deprives it leaders of wisdom. ~ Italian Proverb
If you follow the lead of the cockerel, you’ll be led to the poulterer. ~ Lebanese Proverbs
When one sheep leads the way all the rest follow. ~ Chinese Proverbs
Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow. ~ Chinese Proverb
Those that rule must hear and be deaf, must see and be blind. ~ German Proverbs
Example is the greatest of all seducers. ~ French Proverbs
Quotations about Leadership
Leadership is the readiness to stand out in a crowd. ~ John C. Maxwell
Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them. ~ Robert Jarvik
Leadership is about creating the future, not predicting it. ~ Marshall Sashkin & Molly G. Sashkin
A leader is not an administrator who loves to run others, but someone who carries water for his people so that they can get on with their jobs. ~ Robert Townsend
Do not let a leader lead you on a bad path. ~ Confucius
Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal. ~ Vince Lombardi
Leadership is seeing the possibilities in a situation while others are seeing the limitations. ~ John C. Maxwell
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. ~ John Quincy Adams
True leadership strengthens the followers. It is a process of teaching, setting an example, and empowering others. If you seek to lead, your ability will ultimately be measured in the successes of those around you. ~ David Niven
A leader is best, when people barely know that he exists. ~ Witter Bynner
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail. ~ Author Unknown
A cowardly leader is the most dangerous of men. ~ Stephen King
You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too. ~ Sam Rayburn
Leadership is taking responsibility while others are making excuses. ~ John C. Maxwell
Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. ~ Peter F. Drucker
When the leadership is right and the time is right, the people can always be counted upon to follow — to the end at all costs. ~ Harold J. Seymour
A leader is someone who helps improve the lives of other people or improve the system they live under. ~ Sam Ervin
Leadership is love made visible. ~ Darya Funches
The real leader has no need to lead — he is content to point the way. ~ Henry Miller
To be a leader, you have to make people want to follow you, and nobody wants to follow someone who doesn’t know where he is going. ~ Joe Namath
Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out. ~ Stephen Covey
Know which is your path and follow it wherever it may lead you; do not feel you have to follow in someone else’s footsteps. ~ Gita Bellin
A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done. ~ Ralph Nader
Leadership is the dream made reality. ~ John C. Maxwell
Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen. ~ Alan Keith
A man is only a leader when a follower stands beside him. ~ Mark Brouwer
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
Leadership is based on a spiritual quality; the power to inspire, the power to inspire others to follow. ~ Vince Lombardi
Leadership is the wise use of power. Power is the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it. ~ Warren G. Bennis
If you lead the people with correctness, who will dare not be correct? ~ Confucius
The best leaders turn their followers into leaders, realizing that the journey ahead requires many guides. ~ James M. Kouzes & Barry Z. Posner
Leadership is not something you do to people, but something you do with people. ~ Ken Blanchard
You do not lead by hitting people over the head. That’s assault, not leadership. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
To lead is difficult when you’re a follower of fear. ~ T.A. Sachs
A leader leads by example not by Force. ~ Sun Tzu
Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths. ~ John H. Zenger & Joseph Folkman
One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency. ~ John Glassgow
Leadership is taken, not given. ~ Louise Sterling & Sue Davidoff
Leadership is the outward expression of our inner character. ~ Dick Abel
A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit. ~ John C. Maxwell
If leadership is the act of going beyond what is … it begins by going beyond what is within ourselves. ~ Kevin Cashman
Leadership is the special quality which enables people to stand up and pull the rest of us over the horizon. ~ James L. Fishier
Leadership is not a job, not a role one plays at work and then puts aside during the commute home in order to relax and enjoy real life. Rather, leadership is the leader’s real life. ~ Chris Lowney
The difference between a boss and a leader: a boss says, ‘Go!’ – A leader says, ‘Let’s go!’ ~ E.M. Kelly
There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them. ~ Alexandre Ledru-Rollin
Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way. ~ George S. Patton
The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully. ~ Walter Lippmann
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet. ~ Theodore M. Hesburgh
I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Effective leadership is not about controlling from the top; it is about unleashing the power of people. ~ Gordon R. Sullivan & Michael V. Harper
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist. ~ Eric Hoffer
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
Good leadership is largely invisible. When everything runs smoothly, no one notices. ~ Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson
The led must not be compelled; they must be able to choose their own leader. ~ Albert Einstein
Leading means running fast enough to keep ahead of your people. ~ S. M. Stirling
Anyone can steer the ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course. ~ John C. Maxwell
One secret of leadership is that the mind of a leader never turns off. Leaders even when they are sightseers or spectators, are active; not passive observers. ~ James Humes
True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned. It comes only from influence, and that can’t be mandated. It must be earned. ~ John C. Maxwell
When the best leader’s work is done the people say, “We did it ourselves.” ~ Lao-Tzu
A leader or a man of action in a crisis almost always acts subconsciously and then thinks of the reasons for his action. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru
Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it. ~ Marian Anderson
Not even a great leader can get very far without great people to lead. ~ Ashleigh Brilliant
It is time for a new generation of leadership, to cope with new problems and new opportunities. For there is a new world to be won. ~ John F. Kennedy
A leader is a person you will follow to a place you wouldn’t go by yourself. ~ Joel A. Barker
Leadership appears to be the art of getting others to want to do something you are convinced should be done. ~ Vance Packard
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been. ~ Henry Kissinger
Leadership is the power of one harnessing the power of many. ~ John C. Maxwell
Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders. ~ Tom Peters
You can’t lead anyone else further than you have gone yourself. ~ Gene Mauch
A good leader can’t get too far ahead of his followers. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
You don’t become an effective leader by default. ~ John C. Maxwell
I must follow the people. Am I not their leader? ~ Benjamin Disraeli
Outstanding leaders appeal to the hearts of their followers — not their minds. ~ Author Unknown
Leadership is the willingness to put oneself at risk. ~ John C. Maxwell
To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead. ~ William Hazlitt
Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish. ~ Sam Walton
A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn’t like the tune. ~ Anon
Leadership is evoking in others the capacity to dream. ~ John C. Maxwell
In the great mass of our people there are plenty individuals of intelligence from among whom leadership can be recruited. ~ Herbert Clark Hoover
Leadership is defined not by the position you hold but by the people who follow you. ~ Charlene Li
It’s the price of leadership to do the thing you believe has to be done at the time it must be done. ~ Lyndon Baines Johnson
Real leaders are ordinary people, with extraordinary determinations. ~ John Seaman Garns
Great leaders….bring out the best in their followers through inspiration, rather than motivation. ~ Dr. Lance Secretan
A leader who doesn’t hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader. ~ Golda Meir
The great leaders are like the best conductors–they reach beyond the notes to reach the magic in the players. ~ Blaine Lee
The nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are keeping their ears to the ground. ~ Winston Churchill
Every leader needs to look back once in a while to make sure he has followers. ~ Author Unknown
A leader is a dealer in hope. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
Leaders create an environment in which everyone has the opportunity to do work which matches his potential capability and for which an equitable differential reward is provided. ~ Elliott Jaques
Leadership is much less about what you do, and much more about who you are. ~ Jim Collins
Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory. ~ George S. Patton
To lead people walk behind them. ~ Lao-Tzu
Reason and judgment are the qualities of a leader. ~ Caius Cornelius Tacitus
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant. ~ Max De Pree
People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision. ~ John C. Maxwell
Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you’re in control, they’re in control. ~ Tom Landry
Managers are people who do things right; leaders are people who do the right thing. ~ Warren G. Bennis
Leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand. ~ John C. Maxwell
Leadership: the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
The leader who exercises power with honor will work from the inside out, starting with himself. ~ Blaine Lee
Leaders don’t force people to follow — they invite them on a journey. ~ Charles S. Lauer
Men are loyal when you lead from the front. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi
Leaders need to be optimists. Their vision is beyond the present. ~ Rudy Giuliani
A great leader never sets himself above his followers except in carrying responsibilities. ~ Jules Ormont
Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men — the other 999 follow women. ~ Groucho Marx
Ah well! I am their leader, I really ought to follow them! ~ Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin
A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd. ~ James Crook
Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself. ~ Thomas J. Watson
Effective leaders are known by the questions they ask rather than the statements they make. ~ Author Unknown
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 art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes. ~ Tony Blair
The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, We did it ourselves. ~ Lao-Tzu
Skill in the art of communication is crucial to a leader’s success. He can accomplish nothing unless he can communicate effectively. ~ Norman Allen
No amount of study or learning will make a man a leader unless he has the natural qualities of one. ~ Archibald Wavell
You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader. ~ Anthony J. D’Angelo
Today’s leaders find the magic in their players. ~ Steve Chandler & Scott Richardson
The first task of a leader is to keep hope alive. ~ Joe Batten
When we think we lead, we are most led. ~ Lord Byron
The only test of leadership is that somebody follows. ~ Robert K. Greenleaf
Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them. ~ Diogenes of Sinope
Leadership is defined not by the scale of the opportunity but by the quality of the response. ~ Chris Lowney
Those who can command themselves command others. ~ William Hazlitt
Good leadership is not obtained by issuing orders but by conviction and delegation–genuine leaders recognize and achieve agreement to an exciting and challenging vision. ~ Gerhard Zapke-Schauer
True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not the enrichment of the leaders. ~ Robert Townsend
The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership. ~ Harvey S. Firestone
The leader seeks to communicate his vision to his followers. He captures their attention with his optimistic intuition of possible solutions to their needs. ~ John Haggai
Leadership is an action, not a position. ~ Donald H. McGannon
I’m their leader; I’ve got to follow them. ~ Alexandre Ledru-Rollin
Leaders don’t inflict pain — they share pain. ~ Max Depree
A person always doing his or her best becomes a natural leader, just by example. ~ Joe Dimaggio
The true leader is always led. ~ Carl Gustav Jung
A leader knows what’s best to do; a manager knows merely how best to do it. ~ Ken Adelman
Rarely do the followers exceed the expectations of the leaders. ~ Author Unknown
Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them. ~ John C. Maxwell
One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you. ~ Dennis A. Peer
Develop Your Leadership Skills. ~ Book
