115 Leadership quotes from great leaders to achieve success


Credibility, self-awareness, keen foresight, display of humility, and the ability to empower others are the qualities of a good leader. Exhibiting these attributes will help you gain people's trust and respect and will make them follow you. May these quotes about leadership give you insights to help you bring out your best self and achieve greatness in life.

Leadership quotes from great leaders to achieve success
1. “A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see.” – Leroy Eimes

2. “If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.” – Dolly Parton

3. “You don’t lead by hitting people over the head. That’s assault, not leadership.” – Dwight Eisenhower

4. “He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.” – Niccolò Machiavelli

5. “Don't tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” – George S. Patton Jr.

6. “The supreme quality of leadership is integrity.” – Dwight Eisenhower

7. “If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself and the organization gets pulled up with you.” – Indra Nooyi

8. “You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.” – Sam Rayburn

9. “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” – Lao Tzu
Leadership quotes from great leaders to achieve success
10. “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” – Bill Gates

11. “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” – George Patton

12. “To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.” – Edward R. Murrow

13. “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” – Ralph Nader

14. “There are three essentials to leadership: humility, clarity and courage.” – Fuchan Yuan
Leadership quotes from great leaders to achieve success
15. “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” – Mark Twain

16. “The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing people around a shared vision.” – Ken Blanchard

17. “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 Maxwell

18. “I think one of the keys to leadership is recognizing that everybody has gifts and talents. A good leader will learn how to harness those gifts toward the same goal.” – Ben Carson

19. “A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops.” – John J. Pershing
Leadership quotes from great leaders to achieve success
20. “Leadership is unlocking people's potential to become better.” – Bill Bradley

21. “You manage things; you lead people.” – Admiral Grace Murray Hopper

22. “Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths.” – John Zenger

23. “We live in a society obsessed with public opinion. But leadership has never been about popularity.” – Marco Rubio

24. “Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas?” – Margaret Thatcher
Leadership quotes from great leaders to achieve success
25. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs

26. “True leadership lies in guiding others to success. In ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well.” – Bill Owens

27. “Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.” – Dwight Eisenhower

28. “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

29. “To have long term success as a coach or in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way.” – Pat Riley
Leadership quotes from great leaders to achieve success
30. “The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.” – Tony Blair

More Inspirational Leadership Quotes

31. “Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.” – Harold Geneen

32. “To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

33. “There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.” – Indira Gandhi

34. “Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.” – Colin Powell

35. “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” – Harvey Firestone

36. “A leader is a dealer in hope.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

37. “The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.” – Warren Bennis

38. “The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men, the conviction and the will to carry on.” – Walter Lippman

39. “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

40. “The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.” – John Buchan

41. “One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” – Arnold Glasow

42. “In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.” – Harry Truman

43. “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

44. “Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.” – Chinese Proverb

45. “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.” – Alexander the Great

46. “Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.” – Stephen Covey

47. “Never give an order that can't be obeyed.” – Douglas MacArthur

48. “When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.” – Malala Yousafzai

49. “Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want.” – Dianne Feinstein

50. “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.” – Stephen Covey

51. “If you don’t believe in yourself, why is anyone else going to believe in you.” – Tom Brady

52. “Average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire others to raise their own bar.” – Orrin Woodward

53. “Leadership is the key to ninety nine percent of all successful efforts.” – Erskine Bowles

54. “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

55. “Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead.” – Pete Hoekstra

56. “Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.” – Norman Schwarzkopf

57. “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

58. “The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them.” – Carlos Ghosn

59. “Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise.” – Woodrow Wilson

60. “Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.” – Tom Peters

61. “A person always doing his or her best becomes a natural leader, just by example.” – Joe DiMaggio

62. “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

63. “Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.” – Jesse Jackson

64. “It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.” – Madeleine Albright

65. “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

66. “Lead and inspire people. Don’t try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be led.” – Ross Perot

67. “To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less.” – Andre Malraux

68. “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” – William Arthur Ward

69. “It is absurd that a man should rule others, who cannot rule himself.” – Latin Proverb

70. “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

71. “Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

72. “Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.” – Peter Drucker

73. “A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

74. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” – Harold R. McAlindon

75. “Don't necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.” – Donald Rumsfeld

76. “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt

77. “You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.” – Ken Kesey

78. “The leader has to be practical and a realist yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.” – Eric Hoffer

79. “A good general not only sees the way to victory; he also knows when victory is impossible.” – Polybius

80. “Leadership is lifting a person's vision to high sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” – Peter F. Drucker

81. “A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.” – Douglas MacArthur

82. “True leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed. Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection.” – Sheryl Sandberg

83. “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” – Jack Welch

84. “People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.” – John C. Maxwell

85. “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

86. “A ruler should be slow to punish and swift to reward.” – Ovid

87. “Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.” – John C. Maxwell

88. “The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” – Jim Rohn

89. “Leadership is something you earn, something you’re chosen for. You can’t come in yelling, ‘I’m your leader!’ If it happens, it’s because the other guys respect you.” – Steve Jobs

90. “Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.” – Brian Tracy

91. “A great leader's courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.” – John C. Maxwell

92. “Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal.” – Walt Disney

93. “Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.” – Warren Bennis

94. “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” – Kenneth Blanchard

95. “One of the most important things for any leader is to never let anyone else define who you are. And you define who you are. I never think of myself as being a woman CEO of this company. I think of myself as a steward of a great institution.” – Ginni Rometty

96. “Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.” – Brian Tracy

97. “Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it.” – David Star Jordan

98. “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” – Bill Gates

99. “Do what you feel in your heart to be right; for you’ll be criticized anyway.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

100. “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” – Warren Bennis

101. “A leader is a person you will follow to a place you would not go by yourself.” – Joel Barker

102. “Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.” – Diogenes of Sinope

103. “Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least fifty percent of your time in leading yourself, your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least twenty percent in leading those with authority over you and fifteen percent in leading your peers.” – Dee Hock

104. “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” – John C. Maxwell

105. “My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence.” – General Montgomery

106. “He who has great power should use it lightly.” – Seneca

107. “A leader should be visionary and have more foresight than an employee.” – Jack Ma

108. “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” – Thomas Jefferson

109. “I never stopped trying to become qualified for the job.” – Darwin E. Smith

110. “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.” – Nelson Mandela

111. “If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself.” – Jim Rohn

112. “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” – John F. Kennedy

113. “For the success of any mission, it is necessary to have creative leadership. Creative leadership is vital for government, non-governmental organizations as well as industries.” – A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

114. “Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.” – Colin Powell

115. “A real leader uses every issue, no matter how serious and sensitive, to ensure that at the end of the debate, we should emerge stronger and more united than ever before.” – Nelson Mandela

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