Leadership lessons and quotations from the best leaders

1. Leadership Lessons
From the Masters

2. Effective leadership is not about
making speeches or being liked;
leadership is defined by results
not attributes.
—Peter Drucker
Results and the end state are the only thing that counts.

3. You gain strength, courage, and
confidence by every experience
in which you really stop to look
fear in the face. You must do
the thing you think you cannot
do.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Not fearing failure is one of the most important things to learn.

4. A good plan violently
executed now is better than
a perfect plan executed next
week.
–George Patton
Now vs later … speed and decisiveness count a lot.

5. One of the tests of leadership is the
ability to recognize a problem
before it becomes an emergency.
—Arnold Glasow
Your results rely on ability to avoid time spend on problems.

6. What you do has far greater
impact than what you say.
—Stephen Covey
Be a leader of decisive action with speed.

7. Leadership is unlocking
people’s potential to become
better.
—Bill Bradley
Being able to find the right key is a mark of a great
coach, Bill Bradley would certainly appreciate that skill.

8. Leadership and learning are
indispensable to each other.
—John F. Kennedy
No one is ever done with their learning, are they?

9. In matters of style, swim with
the current; in matters of
principle, stand like a rock.
—Thomas Jefferson
As a leader you need to know when you should bend
and when you need to stand your ground.

10. If your actions inspire others to
dream more, learn more, do
more and become more, you
are a leader.
—John Quincy Adams
Getting the best out of everyone is a leader’s most
important function, isn’t it?

11. 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
Simplicity in analysis, communication, and
action can never be over stated.

12. As we look ahead into the
next century, leaders will be
those who empower others.
—Bill Gates
Leaders must empower their people, otherwise
there is little to gain. And little trust.

13. Never tell people how to do
things. Tell them what to do
and they will surprise you with
their ingenuity.
—General George Patton
Give your people lots of room to roam and act on
your behalf. Let them learn from experience. Realize
there are lots of ways to achieve the desired results.

14. Leaders think and talk about
the solutions. Followers think
and talk about the problems.
—Brian Tracy
Leaders have the required optimism to focus
discussion on solutions and courses of action
to implement them.

15. Leadership is the art of getting
someone else to do something
you want done because he
wants to do it.
—General Dwight Eisenhower
Ability to be a great motivator is at the top of the
leadership list of skills required.

16. 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
A great leader is one who is an effective coach and
educator.

17. The key to successful leadership
today is influence, not
authority.
—Kenneth Blanchard
Can’t be said any simpler or more direct, can it?

18. 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
Surround yourself with the best of the best and delegate
authority to act in your behalf. That also means ability to
accept mistakes and failures.

19. I start with the premise that the
function of leadership is to
produce more leaders, not more
followers.
—Ralph Nader
A good leader knows that he often must be a good
follower. And this world never has enough leaders, even
if they are not required to lead often.

20. Leaders should be reliable without
being predictable. They should be
consistent without being
anticipated.
– Mike Krzyzewski
If you are not reliable and consistent, no one will be
following for long, will they?

21. Never doubt that a small group
of thoughtful, concerned citizens
can change world. Indeed it is
the only thing that ever has.
—Margaret Mead
Understand that everyone has a role in making
the world around themselves a better place.
However small that role may be.

22. A leader is one who knows the
way, goes the way, and shows
the way.
—John Maxwell
It starts with knowledge and understanding and
continues with ability to do what you say with
examples.

23. Before you are a leader, success
is all about growing yourself.
When you become a leader,
success is all about growing
others.
—Jack Welch
Followers’ growth and development are high on the
list of a good leader’s priorities.

24. Leadership is the capacity to
translate vision into reality.
—Warren Bennis
A leader certainly needs a good vision. But a vision
is not worth much if it is not executed.

25. 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
The leader’s job is to serve, simple as that. Period.

26. 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
Ego is one of the worst traits of a personality, while
being humble is the best.

27. A simple reminder …
business leadership competencies to shape
the future, like swimming, cannot be learned
by reading about it… it takes lots of
consistent practice. You need to dive into the
pool as soon as possible.

28. Thank You !
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