201 Leadership Quotes To Inspire You Towards The Next Level

 

Great Inspirational Leadership Quotes To Grow The Leader Within You

 

“A Leader must lead. Where others see obstacles, he must see opportunities. When others see problems, he must see possibilities… Civilization is not built on a negation but on an affirmation – an affirmation of the bright and promising possibilities that the future holds for those who are enterprising enough to pursue them.”

– David J. Vaughan

Great Inspirational Leadership Quotes For Future Leaders: Leadership is one of the most vital soft skills desired in the corporate world which provides direction for an organization and its workers. It is the ability of an individual or organization to “lead” or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. However, the question of what makes a good leader is widely debated.

It is clear that the ability to lead effectively relies on a number of key skills, but also that different leaders have very different characteristics and styles. Usually, Individuals who are more aware of their personality qualities, including their values and beliefs, and are less biased when processing self-relevant information, are more likely to be accepted as leaders.

Leadership primarily involves showing workers how to effectively perform their responsibilities and regularly supervising the completion of their tasks, but actually, it is more than that. Here are some inspirational leadership quotes that can help you to understand and develop your leadership potential. Feel free to share these quotes on social media with your friends and followers.

 

Leadership must be based on goodwill. Goodwill does not mean posturing and, least of all, pandering to the mob. It means an obvious and wholehearted commitment to helping followers. We are tired of leaders we fear, tired of leaders we love, and of tired of leaders who let us take liberties with them. What we need for leaders are men of the heart who are so helpful that they, in effect, do away with the need of their jobs. But leaders like that are never out of a job, never out of followers. Strange as it sounds, great leaders, gain authority by giving it away.

– Admiral James B. Stockdale

Humans will probably always need the help of specially gifted moral leaders in order to extend the bonds of caring and trust beyond the easy range of the family and the face-to-face community. Such bonds have become essential to the future of humanity.

– Paul R. Lawrence

Lead yourself whenever your boss’ leadership deteriorates. When your boss doesn’t praise what you do, praise yourself. When your boss doesn’t make you big, make yourself big. Remember, if you have done your best, failure does not count.

– Mario Teguh

Leadership is simply the ability of an individual to coalesce the efforts of other individuals toward achieving common goals. It boils down to looking after your people and ensuring that, from top to bottom, everyone feels part of the team.

– Frederick W. Smith

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

The topic of leadership is a touchy one. A lot of leaders fail because they don’t have the bravery to touch that nerve or strike that chord. Throughout my years, I haven’t had that fear.

– Kobe Bryant

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

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.

– Benjamin Carson

The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart from the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines.

– Charles de Gaulle

The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.

– Elaine Agather

The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones.

– Brandon Sanderson

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want to be done because he wants to do it.

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

Big jobs usually go to the persons who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

– Theodore Roosevelt

Leaders set high standards. Refuse to tolerate mediocrity or poor performance.

– Brian Tracy

The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.

– Ralph Nader

Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.

– Oscar Wilde

There go the people. I must follow them for I am their leader.

– Alexander Ledru-Rollin

Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.

– Harold Geneon

Leaders live by choice, not by accident.

– Mark Gorman

Earn your leadership every day.

– Michael Jordan

Read More Quotes: 201 Friendship Quotes For True Friends

 

Leadership Quotes That Will Help You To Achieve Your Goals

The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say “I.” And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say “I.” They don’t think “I.” They think “we”; they think “team.” They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but “we” get the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.

– Peter F. Drucker

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality; The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor… A friend of mine characterized leaders simply like this: ‘Leaders don’t inflict pain; they bear the pain.’

– Max De Pree

The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.

The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.

– Vaclav Havel

If you want to develop leadership skills in you then surround yourself with those people who have ability, judgment, and knowledge; but above all who have a passion for serving mankind.

– Anonymous

There are good leaders who actively guide and bad leaders who actively misguide. Hence, leadership is about persuasion, presentation, and people skills.

– Shiv Khera

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

You learn far more from negative leadership than from positive leadership. Because you learn how not to do it. And, therefore, you learn how to do it.

– Norman Schwarzkopf

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

I think that in any group activity – whether it be business, sports, or family – there has to be leadership or it won’t be successful.

– John Wooden

Give me a man or woman with common sense and who is not an idiot and I assure you can make a leader out of him or her.

– General Sam Manekshaw

Successful leaders see the opportunities in every difficulty rather than the difficulty in every opportunity.

– Reed Markham

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

– John Quincy Adams

Leadership is a way of thinking, a way of acting, and, most importantly, a way of communicating.

– Simon Sinek

Leadership requires the courage to make decisions that will benefit the next generation.

– Alan Autry

Whenever you find the whole world against you just turn around and lead the world.

– Anonymous

I forgot to shake hands and be friendly. It was an important lesson about leadership.

– Lee Iacocca

Outstanding leaders appeal to the hearts of their followers – not their minds.

– Anonymous

I’m not a natural leader. I’m too intellectual; I’m too abstract; I think too much.

– Newt Gingrich

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

– Albert Schweitzer

There are three essentials to leadership: humility, clarity, and courage.

– Fuchan Yuan

Read More Quotes: 151 Best I Love You Quotes For Her

 

Most Powerful Quotes About Leadership By Famous People

Leadership is about creating, day by day, a domain in which we and those around us continually deepen our understanding of reality and are able to participate in shaping the future. This, then, is the deeper territory of leadership–collectively ‘listening to what is wanting to emerge in the world, and then having the courage to do what is required.’

– Joseph Jaworski

Power isn’t control at all–power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own.

– Beth Revis

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Leadership is important. Progress of the society or organization occurs when courageous, virtuous, and skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

– Harry S. Truman

No leader, however strong, can succeed at anything of national importance or significance unless he has the support and cooperation of the people he is tasked to lead and sworn to serve.

– Rodrigo Duterte

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 G. Bennis

He makes a great mistake… who supposes that authority is firmer or better established when it is founded by force than that which is welded by affection.

– Terence

Always remember, Son, the best boss is the one who bosses the least. Whether it’s cattle, or horses, or men; the least government is the best government.

– Ralph Moody

Leadership is a mindset that shifts from being a victim to creating results. Any one of us can demonstrate leadership in our work and within our lives.

– Robin S. Sharma

Honor bespeaks worth. Confidence begets trust. Service brings satisfaction. Cooperation proves the quality of leadership.

– James Cash Penney

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

You did what your heart told you to do,’ Brain complimented. ‘It is what leaders, not followers, do.

– Tonya Hurley

The mind to enlighten, the heart to elevate, the passion to inspire, the power to lead is a ‘Leadership Mantra’.

– Anonymous

The key responsibility of leadership is to think about the future. No one else can do it for you.

– Brian Tracy

A leader is one who influences a specific group of people to move in a God-given direction.

– J. Robert Clinton

A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.

– Henry A. Kissinger

I have a different vision of leadership. Leadership is someone who brings people together.

– George W. Bush

Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together.

– Napoleon Hill

Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.

– John Naisbitt

No leader should be chosen by birth instead of merit.

– Anonymous

Leadership is more who you are than what you do.

– Brian Tracy

Read More Quotes: 201 Happy Mother’s Day Quotes For All Godly Moms

 

Best Quotes on Leadership To Motivate The Leader Within You

Enlightened leadership is spiritual if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love, and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight, and focused attention.

– Deepak Chopra

Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It’s about impact, influence, and inspiration. Impact involves getting results, influence is about spreading the passion you have for your work, and you have to inspire teammates and customers.

– Robin S. Sharma

Leadership can’t be fabricated. If it is fabricated and rehearsed, you can’t fool the guys in the locker room. So when you talk about leadership, it comes with performance. Leadership comes with consistency.

– Junior Seau

The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears, and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

– George Orwell

Superior leaders are willing to admit a mistake and cut their losses. Be willing to admit that you’ve changed your mind. Don’t persist when the original decision turns out to be a poor one.

– Brian Tracy

Leadership is about raising the aspirations of followers and enthusing people with a desire to reach for the stars and it is about creating a worthy dream and helping people achieve it.

– Narayana Murthy

The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it.

– Mao Zedong

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

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

Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes.

– Peter Drucker

Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.

– Brian Tracy

Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flow charts. It is about one life influencing another.

– John C. Maxwell

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

– Mark Twain

Our business in life is not to get ahead of others but to get ahead of ourselves.

– E. Joseph Cossman

The led must not be compelled. They must be able to choose their own leader.

– Albert Einstein

I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.

– Robert E. Lee

A leader takes people where they would never go on their own.

– Hans Finzel

The first and last task of a true leader is to keep hope alive.

– John W. Gardner

Leadership is an action, not a position.

– Donald McGannon

Be the chief but never the lord.

– Lao Tzu

Read More Quotes: 201 Best Friend Quotes To Cherish Good Old Friends

 

Great Leadership Quotes To Inspire You To Do The Impossible

Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time in leading yourself—your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers.

– Dee Hock

Peace comes when you talk to the guy you most hate. And that is where the courage of a true leader comes because when you sit down with your enemy, you as a leader must already have very considerable confidence from your own constituency.

– Desmond Tutu

Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character; it requires moral rather than physical or intellectual effort, and it imposes on both leader and follower alike the burdens of self-restraint.

– Lewis H. Lapham

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

The leader is one who mobilizes others toward a goal shared by leaders and followers. … Leaders, followers, and goals make up the three equally necessary supports for leadership.

– Gary Wills

My philosophy of leadership is to surround myself with good people who have ability, judgment, and knowledge, but above all, a passion for service.

– Sonny Perdue

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

– William Arthur Ward

Leadership is getting someone to do what they don’t want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.

– Tom Landry

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.

– John Buchan

If you think you are leading and turn around to see no one following, then you are just taking a walk.

– Benjamin Hooks

The three ‘C’s’ of leadership are Consideration, Caring, and Courtesy. Be polite to everyone.

– Brian Tracy

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.

– John C. Maxwell

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.

– Jesse Jackson

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

– Bill Gates

Don’t necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.

– Donald Rumsfeld

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

– Groucho Marx

You have to lead people gently toward what they already know is right.

– Phil Crosby

He who has learned how to obey will know how to command.

– Solon

Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.

– Bill Bradley

Leadership does not depend on being right.

– Ivan Illich

 

Inspirational Quotes You Need To Read About Leadership

A good cult delivers on its promises. A good cult nourishes the needs of its members, has transparency and integrity, and creates provisions for challenging its leadership openly. A good cult expands the freedoms and well-being of its members rather than limits them.

– Philip Zimbardo

I think the currency of leadership is transparency. You’ve got to be truthful. I don’t think you should be vulnerable every day, but there are moments where you’ve got to share your soul and conscience with people and show them who you are, and not be afraid of it.

– Howard Schultz

You need to develop the resilience and determination to tackle the hard work of leadership. You need personal resolve and tenacity to rise above the daily pressures and lead your organization into the future.

– Vince Molinaro

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

I don’t see myself being special; I just see myself having more responsibilities than the next man. People look to me to do things for them, to have answers.

– Tupac Shakur

Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence. This explains why we have so many stupid leaders.

– Sloan Wilson

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.

– Henry David Thoreau

Great leaders are willing to sacrifice the numbers to save the people. Poor leaders sacrifice the people to save the numbers.

– Simon Sinek

In real life, the most practical advice for leaders is not to treat pawns like pawns, nor princes like princes, but all persons like persons.

– James MacGregor Burns

Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.

– Warren G. Bennis

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

– Theodore M. Hesburgh

One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.

– Arnold H. Glasow

A leader should demonstrate his thoughts and opinions through his actions, not through his words.

– Jack Weatherford

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.

– Max Lucado

Leadership is knowing when to lean on others and let them step up and shine.

– Michelle Peluso

A leader must be humble and serve with humility, compassion, and love.

– Leadership Wisdom Institute

The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.

– Ray Kroc

Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership.

– James Humes

Leadership is the key to 99 percent of all successful efforts.

– Erskine Bowles

A cowardly leader is the most dangerous of men.

– Stephen King

 

Leadership Quotes To Inspire You Towards The Next Level

Leadership is an act of submission to God. To be a leader means listening to all kinds of people and situations. Out of that listening, we are hoping to discern the mind of God as best we can. This is the price of leadership – it’s an act of sacrifice. So leadership is part and parcel of the work of submission to God.

– Richard Foster

You have to enable and empower people to make decisions independent of you. As I’ve learned, each person on a team is an extension of your leadership; if they feel empowered by you they will magnify your power to lead.

– Tom Ridge

The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers. Are the followers reaching their potential? Are they learning? Serving? Do they achieve the required results? Do they change with grace? Manage conflict?

– Max de Pree

No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.

– Peter Drucker

A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others so that they may have the strength to stand on their own.

– Beth Revis

Black leadership has to recognize that principles more than speech, character more than a claim, is greater in advancing the cause of our liberation than what has transpired thus far.

– Louis Farrakhan

It’s time to care; it’s time to take responsibility; it’s time to lead; it’s time for a change; it’s time to be true to our greatest self; it’s time to stop blaming others.

– Steve Maraboli

It’s very important in a leadership role not to place your ego at the foreground and not to judge everything in relationship to how your ego is fed.

– Ruth J. Simmons

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

– Jack Welch

The function of a leader within any institution: to provide that regulation through his or her non-anxious, self-defined presence.

– Edwin H. Friedman

A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see.

– Leroy Eimes

A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.

– Arnold H. Glasow

You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.

– Sam Rayburn

Leadership is the ability to get extraordinary achievement from ordinary people.

– Brian Tracy

Being a leader is making the people you love hate you a little more each day.

– Patrick Ness

Without initiative, leaders are simply workers in leadership positions.

– Bo Bennett

Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.

– Harold S. Geneen

Leadership is about being a servant first.

– Allen West

Leadership is a choice, not a position.

– Stephen R. Covey

 

Beautiful Quotes About Leadership For The Leaders of Tomorrow

Ultimately, leadership is not about glorious crowning acts. It’s about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it, especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter. It is about laying the groundwork for others’ success, and then standing back and letting them shine.

– Chris Hadfield

One of the best paradoxes of leadership is a leader’s need to be both stubborn and open-minded. A leader must insist on sticking to the vision and stay on course to the destination. But he must be open-minded during the process.

– Simon Sinek

There is a difference between being a leader and being a boss. Both are based on authority. A boss demands blind obedience; a leader earns his authority through understanding and trust.

– Klaus Balkenhol

Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved. It’s being able to take it as well as dish it out. That’s the only way you’re going to get respect from the players.

– Larry Bird

A leader…is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.

– Nelson Mandela

Leadership is the other side of the coin of loneliness, and he who is a leader must always act alone. And acting alone, accept everything alone.

– Ferdinand Marcos

The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.

– Ronald Reagan

I think leadership is service and there is power in that giving: to help people, to inspire and motivate them to reach their fullest potential.

– Denise Morrison

Leaders concentrate single-mindedly on one thing – the most important thing, and they stay at it until it’s complete.

– Brian Tracy

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

Leadership is a privilege to better the lives of others. It is not an opportunity to satisfy personal greed.

– Mwai Kibaki

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

– Henry Kissinger

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

– Harold R. McAlindon

The best leaders have a high Consideration Factor. They really care about their people.

– Brian Tracy

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.

– John C. Maxwell

He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.

– Aristotle

Great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.

– Charles de Gaulle

If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall in the ditch.

– Jesus Christ

Leadership is something I was born with.

– Carmelo Anthony

To lead people, walk behind them.

– Lao Tzu

 

Great Leadership Quotes To Help You Keep Followers Together

Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not “making friends and influencing people”, that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.

– Peter F. Drucker

To lead people, walk beside them. As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate. When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!’

– Lao Tzu

But the person who scored well on an SAT will not necessarily be the best doctor or the best lawyer or the best businessman. These tests do not measure character, leadership, creativity, perseverance.

– William Julius Wilson

God will never direct us to be prideful, arrogant and unforgiving, immoral or slothful or full of fear. We step into these things because we are insensitive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit within us.

– Charles Stanley

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

A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.

– Ralph Nader

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy.

– General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

It is the responsibility of leadership to provide opportunity, and the responsibility of individuals to contribute.

– William Pollard

Great leaders don’t need to act tough. Their confidence and humility serve to underscore their toughness.

– Simon Sinek

The leader has to be practical and a realist yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.

– Eric Hoffer

Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but leave him when he is wrong.

– Abraham Lincoln

In the simplest terms, a leader is one who knows where he wants to go, and gets up and goes.

– John Erskine

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

– John D. Rockefeller

Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.

– Brian Tracy

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

– Thomas Jefferson

Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead.

– Pete Hoekstra

To do great things is difficult, but to command great things is more difficult.

– Friedrich Nietzsche

Leadership consists of picking good men and helping them do their best.

– Chester W. Nimitz

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.

– Donald Laird

Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise.

– Woodrow Wilson

You May Also Like: 100 Life Lessons I Learned Too Late In The Life

 

Inspirational Leadership Quotes For Men & Women With Images

I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.

– Lao Tzu

Leadership is the ability to establish standards and manage a creative climate where people are self-motivated toward the mastery of long-term constructive goals, in a participatory environment of mutual respect, compatible with personal values.

– Mike Vance

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

– Woodrow Wilson

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

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

– John C. Maxwell

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

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you don’t understand that you work for your mislabeled ‘subordinates,’ then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny.

– Dee Hock

Anyone is a leader in hundred people. Anyone is a brilliant in thousand people but a perfect genius is difficult to find even in millions.

– Plato

Political leaders are the same everywhere. They promise to build bridges even at those places where rivers do not exist.

– Nikita Khrushchev

We live in a society obsessed with public opinion. But leadership has never been about popularity.

– Marco Rubio

A true leader always displays a winning attitude, even if he is fighting with gruesome setbacks.

– Pawan Pratap Singh

Leaders never use the word failure. They look upon setbacks as learning experiences.

– Brian Tracy

An army of deer led by a lion is more to be feared than the army of lions led by a deer.

– Plutarch

Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.

– Seth Godin

An ideal leader cares about the people’s welfare as a mother cares for her children.

– Anonymous

Real leadership is being the person others will gladly and confidently follow.

– John C. Maxwell

He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.

– Aristotle

The people follow the example of those above them.

– Chinese Proverb

Never give an order that can’t be obeyed.

– General Douglas MacArthur

More On Lifelords: 15 Real Ghost Stories That Will Frighten You

We hope these great inspirational leadership quotes help you to understand what is leadership and who is a leader. Leadership is an admirable trait of human personality and its importance in the professional arena is unquestionable. If you are looking for more quotes on leadership please check ‘Short Military Leadership Quotes’ and ‘Famous Leadership Quotes By Women’ in Lifelord’s quotes section.

“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