Quotes

It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.
-Adlai Stevenson

Leadership can be thought of as a capacity to define oneself to others in a way that clarifies and expands a vision of the future.
-Edwin H. Friedman

The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.
-Tony Blair

Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.
-H. Ross Perot

A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice.
-James Callaghan

Time is neutral and does not change things. With courage and initiative, leaders change things.
-Jesse Jackson

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
-John Quincy Adams

Leaders shouldn't attach moral significance to their ideas: Do that, and you can't compromise.
-Peter F. Drucker

I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
-Ralph Nader

Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach.
-Rosabeth Moss Kantor

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
-Albert Einstein

What you always do before you make a decision is consult. The best public policy is made when you are listening to people who are going to be impacted. Then, once policy is determined, you call on them to help you sell it.
-Elizabeth Dole

I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.
-Everett Dirksen

A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
-Henrik Ibsen

There's nothing more demoralizing than a leader who can't clearly articulate why we're doing what we're doing.
-James Kouzes and Barry Posner

Pity the leader caught between unloving critics and uncritical lovers.
-John Gardner

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.
-Kenneth Blanchard

It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.
-Noam Chomsky

You who are journalists, writers, citizens, you have the right and duty to say to those you have elected that they must practice mindfulness, calm and deep listening, and loving speech. This is universal thing, taught by all religions.
-Thich Nhat Hanh

A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be.
-Rosalynn Carter

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.
-Stephen Covey

In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
-Eric Hoffer

The only safe ship in a storm is leadership.
-Faye Wattleton

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure: which is: Try to please everybody.
-Herbert B. Swope

[Y]ou must unite your constituents around a common cause and connect with them as human beings.
-James Kouzes and Barry Posner

Most important, leaders can conceive and articulate goals that lift people out of their petty preoccupations and unite them in pursuit of objectives worthy of their best efforts.
-John Gardner

Leadership is not manifested by coercion, even against the resented. Greatness is not manifested by unlimited pragmatism, which places such a high premium on the end justifying any means and any measures.
-Margaret Chase Smith

If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.
-Tom Peters

A tyrant is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
-Plato

Good leaders must first become good servants.
-Robert Greenleaf

You do not lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

It is not so much that man is a herd animal, said Freud, but that he is a horde animal led by a chief.
-Ernest Becker

Whoever is providing leadership needs to be as fresh and thoughtful and reflective as possible to make the very best fight.
-Faye Wattleton

If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants.
-Isaac Newton

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 involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.
-John Naisbitt

When leaders take back power, when they act as heroes and saviors, they end up exhausted, overwhelmed, and deeply stressed.
-Margaret J. Wheatley

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision.
-Theodore Hesburgh:

A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go but ought to be.
-Rosalynn Carter

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others.
-Robert Louis Stevenson