Powerful Leadership Quotes to Inspire the Leader Within You

“There are no office hours for leaders.” Cardinal J. Gibbons

“You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.”  Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company

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

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

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”  Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of Apple

“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” Margaret Fuller

“The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.” Tony Blair

“Those who let things happen usually lose to those who make things happen.”  Dave Weinbaum

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

“Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership.” James Humes

“Leadership is the ability to get extraordinary achievement from ordinary people”

“Lead from the back and let others believe they are in front.” Nelson Mandela

“Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals.”

“The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.” Ray Kroc

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

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

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

“A good leader leads the people from above them. A great leader leads the people from within them.” M. D. Arnold

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

“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.” Sheryl Sanberg

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”  Peter F. Drucker, author, and educator

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

“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

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists…when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will all say: We did it ourselves.” Lao Tzu

“There exist limitless opportunities in every industry. Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.” Charles F. Kettering

“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, founder of Disney

“The nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are keeping their ears to the ground.” Sir Winston Churchill

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”  Warren Buffett, investor

“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

“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

“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” Dwight D. Eisenhower

“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

“Organizations exist to serve. Period. Leaders live to serve. Period.” Tom Peters

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Mahatma Gandhi

“Good leaders must first become good servants.” Robert K. Greenleaf

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

“Leadership is an action, not a position.” Donald McGannon

“Earn your success based on service to others, not at the expense of others.” H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles, but today it means getting along with people.” Mahatma Gandhi

“Serving others prepares you to lead others.” Jim George

“A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.” Arnold H. Glasow

“Bosses push, Leaders pull. Real leadership is servant leadership.” Dave Ramsey

“The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is a leader first.” Robert K. Greenleaf

“Serving people means growing their capacity and implies that everyone can contribute.” Juana Bordas

“The first and most important choice a leader makes is the choice to serve, without which one’s capacity to lead is severely limited.” Robert Greenleaf

“Servant leadership is easy for people with high self-esteem. Such people have no problem giving credit to others. They have no problem listening to other people for ideas. They have no problem in building other people up.” Ken Blanchard

“The best leaders have a high consideration factor. They really care about their people.” Brian Tracy

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

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

“ 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

“Don’t follow the crowd; let the crowd follow you.” Margaret Thatcher

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

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

“Clarity is the key to effective leadership. What are your goals?”

“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

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

“A leader is someone who holds her or himself accountable for finding the potential in people and processes.” Brené Brown

“Among all the great qualities of a leader, the most important quality is that a leader can never be selfish. A leader polishes his personality and with it helps others also to become the better version of them.

“Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men  the other 999 follow women.” Groucho Marx

“Leader. Ship. The word ‘ship’ is hidden inside the word ‘leadership,’ as its… derivation.” Michael Scott

“When trouble arises, and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that person is crazy.” Dave Barry

“The question, ‘Who ought to be boss?, is like asking, ‘Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?’ Obviously, the man who can sing tenor.”  Henry Ford

“Some people say, ‘Never let them see you cry.’ I say if you’re so mad that you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.” Tina Fey

“It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.” Adlai Stevenson

“People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.” Thomas Sowell

“The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.” Casey Stengel

“A leader must have the courage to act against an expert’s advice.” James Callaghan

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

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

“You do not lead by hitting people over the head  that’s assault, not leadership.” Dwight Eisenhower

“Mountaintops inspire leaders, but valleys mature them.” Winston Churchill

“A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.” Max Lucado

“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.

“Nothing will work unless you do.” Maya Angelou

“Don’t tell people how to do things; tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.”  George S. Patton

“Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.” Malcolm Muggeridge

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

“It’s only after you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.”Roy T. Bennett

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

“You never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone.”Roy T. Bennett

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.”  John Q. Adams

“Outstanding leaders go out of the way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.”  Sam Walton, founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club

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

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

“Always do everything you ask of those you command.” General George S. Patton, U.S. Army

“It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.” General Norman Schwarzkopf, U.S. Army

“The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.” Colin Powell

“The most important thing I learned is that soldiers watch what their leaders do. You can give them classes and lecture them forever, but it is your personal example they will follow.” – General Colin Powell

“Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.” John F. Kennedy

“Great powers don’t get angry; great powers don’t make decisions hastily in a crisis.” – General John Allen

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

“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.” General Dwight D. Eisenhower

“If there is not the war, you don’t get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don’t get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.” Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States & former Army Colonel

“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

“The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.” Padmasree Warrior 

“Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good.” Joanne Ciulla (Author and Educator)

“I learned to always take on things I’d never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist.” Ginni Rometty (Executive Chairman, IBM)

“Leadership is hard to define, and good leadership even harder. But if you can get people to follow you to the ends of the earth, you are a great leader.” Indra Nooyi (Former CEO, PepsiCo)

“Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want.” Dianne Feinstein (Senior United States Senator)

“Leadership should be more participative than directive, more enabling than performing.” Mary D. Poole (Author)

“One of the criticisms I’ve faced over the years is that I’m not aggressive enough or assertive enough or maybe somehow, because I’m empathetic, it means I’m weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong.” Jacinda Ardern (Prime Minister of New Zealand) 

“We need to accept that we don’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes. Understand that failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success.” Arianna Huffington (Founder & CEO, Thrive Global)

“Part of leadership is knowing when to go ahead with a decision that’s within your authority because you’re really convinced it’s the right thing, even if other people don’t understand it at that point.” Dr. Ingrid Mattson (Professor, Huron University College)