30 Leadership Quotes

We gathered a few quotes from noteworthy leaders that will help you to add to your own repertoire of leadership knowledge. It’s wisdom of the ages and modern sages. These leadership quotes will help you define what separates a good leader from a great one.

There are many lessons we can learn from the art of leadership. Lead by example. Don’t ask people to do what you would not do yourself. Effective leadership is being able to empower and bring out the best in people.

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Quotes From The Greatest Leaders of Our Time

1. A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

2. A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better. – Jim Rohn

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

4. A leader is a dealer in hope. – Napoleon Bonaparte

5. 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

6. A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. – John Maxwell

7. As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth. – John Whittier

8. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. – Steve Jobs

9. Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position. – Brian Tracy

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

11. Don’t find fault, find a remedy. – Henry Ford

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

13. I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people. – Mahatma Gandhi

14. If you tell me, it’s an essay. If you show me, it’s a story. – Barbara Greene

15. If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right. – Henry Ford

16. 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

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

18. Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. – Steve Jobs

19. It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse. – Adlai E. Stevenson II

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

21. Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. – John F. Kennedy

22. Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men; the other 999 follow women. – Groucho Marx

23. Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

24. Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today. – Robert McKee

25. The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. – William Arthur Ward

26. The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them. – Ralph Nichols

27. The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails. – John Maxwell

28. The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet. – Theodore M. Hesburgh

29. To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart. – Eleanor Roosevelt

30. When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen. – Ernest Hemingway

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