50 Leadership Quotes

Some people are born leaders, and some may have to work at it. Depending on who you are, you could always use a little motivation.

these leadership quotes focus on the qualities and way of thinking of leaders. This is motivation to stand up for what you are believing, while being able to communicate and direct.

The 50 leadership quotes include well-known leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, John C. Maxwell, Napoleon Bonaparte, and several others. These were and still are great examples of a proper leader. So let the student become the master by learning from their teachings.

Here are 50 Leadership Quotes!

1. I must follow the people. Am I not their leader? —Benjamin Disraeli
2. 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
3. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way. — General George Patton
4. You don’t need a title to be a leader. –Multiple Attributions
5. 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

1. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has. —Margaret Mead
2. 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
3. He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander. —Aristotle
4. Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position. —Brian Tracy
5. Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes. —Peter Drucker

1. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together. —Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
2. Leadership is influence. —John C. Maxwell
3. When I give a minister an order, I leave it to him to find the means to carry it out. —Napoleon Bonaparte
4. 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
5. Where there is no vision, the people perish. —Proverbs 29:18

1. A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. —John Maxwell
2. 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 Drucker
3. The nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are keeping their ears to the ground. —Sir Winston Churchill
4. To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less. —Andre Malraux
5. I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. —Ralph Nader

1. Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. —Publilius Syrus
2. 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
3. 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
4. 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 S. Truman
5. 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

1. 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
2. A ruler should be slow to punish and swift to reward. —Ovid
3. Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. —General Dwight Eisenhower
4. Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems. —Brian Tracy
5. Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. —General George Patton

1. 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
2. Don’t necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership. —Donald Rumsfeld
3. Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out. —Stephen Covey
4. Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths. —John Zenger
5. He who has learned how to obey will know how to command. —Solon

1. I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody. —Herbert Swope
2. If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing. —Benjamin Franklin
3. In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. —Thomas Jefferson
4. 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
5. 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

1. Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. —John F. Kennedy
2. Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise. —Woodrow Wilson
3. 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
4. Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better. —Bill Bradley
5. Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall. —Stephen Covey

1. Leadership is the key to 99 percent of all successful efforts. —Erskine Bowles
2. Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing. —Tom Peters
3. Never give an order that can’t be obeyed. —General Douglas MacArthur
4. What you do has far greater impact than what you say. —Stephen Covey
5. No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent. —Abraham Lincoln