I was reading about leadership on-line the other day
and found these quotes. I just thought I’d share them ’cause they’re good. I
especially love the second one from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Something about that
one just rings true in my heart. There’s this sort of resounding
“Yes!” that just wants to rise up out of me when I hear it.
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when
people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. But of a good leader,
who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, ‘We
did this ourselves.'”
— Lao-Tse
“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us
to be what we know we could be.”
— Ralph
Waldo Emerson
“If
the blind lead the blind, both shall fall in the ditch.”
— Jesus Christ
“Dictators ride
to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting
hungry.”
— Winston Churchill
“The task of
the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not
been.”
— Henry Kissinger
“The task of
leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness
is there already.”
— John Buchan
“Great leaders
are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and
doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.”
— General Colin Powell
“Men make
history and not the other way around. 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
“A leader is one
who influences a specific group of people to move in a God-given
direction.”
— J. Robert Clinton
“All Leadership
is influence.”
— John C. Maxwell
Injoy, Inc.
“You cannot be a
leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow,
too.”
— Sam Rayburn
“Your position
never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so
living your life that others may receive your orders without being
humiliated.”
— Dag Hammarskjöld
“The final test
of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men, the conviction and the
will to carry on.”
— Walter Lippmann
“People ask the
difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss
drives.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
“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 DePree
“Management is
efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the
ladder is leaning against the right wall.”
— Stephen R. Covey
“He who has
great power should use it lightly.”
— Seneca
“As a leader,
you’re probably not doing a good job unless your employees can do a good
impression of you when you’re not around.”
— Patrick Lencioni
“The older I get
the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do.”
— Andrew Carnegie
“I think leadership
comes from integrity – that you do whatever you ask others to do. I think there
are non-obvious ways to lead. Just by providing a good example as a parent, a
friend, a neighbor makes it possible for other people to see better ways to do
things. Leadership does not need to be a dramatic, fist in the air and trumpets
blaring, activity.”
— Scott Berkun
“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you
become a leader, success is all about growing others.” — Jack
Welch