Quotes by some leaders.

1. Leadership

2. When nothing is sure,
everything is possible.
~Margaret Drabble

3. In matters of style, swim
with the current;
In matters of principle,
stand like a rock.
~T. Jefferson

4. And when we think we
lead, we are most led.
~Lord Byron

5. The only real training for
leadership is leadership.
~Antony Jay

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

7. People are more easily led
than driven.
~David Harold Fink

8. Leadership should be born
out of the understanding
of the needs of those who
would be affected by it.
~Marian Anderson

9. It is followers who define
the leader. Without them,
success is up to chance.
~Thomas Kohntopp

10. The leader has to be practical
and a realist, yet must talk
the language of the visionary
and the idealist.
~Eric Hoffer

11. Do not follow where the
path may lead. Go instead
where there is no path and
leave a trail.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

12. The very essence of leadership is its
purpose. And the purpose of
leadership is to accomplish a task.
That is what leadership does–and
what it does is more important than
what it is or how it works.
~Colonel Dandridge M. Malone

13. Nearly all men can stand
adversity, but if you want
to test a man’s character,
give him power.
~Abraham Lincoln

14. Where there is no vision,
the people perish.
~Proverbs 29:18

15. Lead and inspire people.
Don’t try to manage and
manipulate people.
Inventories can be managed
but people must be lead.
~Ross Perot

16. Leadership is understanding people and
involving them to help you do a job. That
takes all of the good characteristics, like
integrity, dedication of purpose,
selflessness, knowledge, skill,
implacability, as well as determination
not to accept failure.
~Admiral Arleigh A. Burke

17. Never mistake knowledge
for wisdom. One helps you
make a living; the other
helps you make a life.
~Sandra Carey

18. In calm waters many
captains are able. It is in a
tempest when true
leadership emerges.
~Thomas Kohntopp

19. Good plans shape good
decisions. That’s why good
planning helps to make
elusive dreams come true.
~Lester R. Bittel

20. I used to think that running an
organization was equivalent to
conducting a symphony
orchestra. But I don’t think that’s
quite it; it’s more like jazz. There
is more improvisation.
~Warren Bennis

21. A new leader has to be able to
change an organization that is
dreamless, soulless and
visionless … someone’s got to
make a wake up call.
~Warren Bennis

22. The first responsibility of a
leader is to define reality.
The last is to say thank you.
~Max DePree

23. People ask the difference
between a leader and a boss. . .
The leader works in the open,
and the boss in covert. The
leader leads, and the boss drives.
~Theodore Roosevelt

24. The real leader has no
need to lead – he is
content to point the way.
~Henry Miller

25. 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

26. The best example of
leadership is leadership
by example.
~Jerry McClain

27. Leadership should be more
participative than
directive, more enabling
than performing.
~Mary D. Poole

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

29. To be able to lead others, a
man must be willing to go
forward alone.
~Harry Truman

30. If your actions inspire others
to dream more, learn more,
do more and become more,
you are a leader.
~John Quincy Adams

31. The final test of a leader is
that he leaves behind him in
other men, the conviction
and the will to carry on.
~Walter Lippman

32. Knowing one’s followers is
essential to becoming an
exceptional leader.
~Thomas Kohntopp

33. Example is not the main
thing in influencing others,
it is the only thing.
~Albert Schweitzer

34. Leadership: The art of
getting someone else to do
something you want done
because he wants to do it.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

36. Management is efficiency in
climbing the ladder of success;
leadership determines
whether the ladder is leaning
against the right wall.
~Stephen R. Covey

37. A leader’s role is to raise
people’s aspirations for
what they can become and
to release their energies so
they will try to get there.
~David R. Gergen

38. Leadership is action,
not position.
~Donald H. McGannon

39. He that cannot obey
cannot command.
~Benjamin Franklin

40. Leadership and learning are
indispensable to each other.
~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

41. Debate is common about
which leadership style is
most effective. The answer,
of course, . . . it all depends.
~Thomas Kohntopp

42. The led must not be
compelled; they must be able
to choose their own leader.
~Albert Einstein

43. Leadership is practiced not
so much in words as in
attitude and in actions.
~Harold S. Geneen

44. Leaders must be close
enough to relate to others,
but far enough ahead to
motivate them.
~John Maxwell

45. If your actions inspire others
to dream more, learn more,
do more and become more,
you are a leader.
~John Quincy Adams

46. The manager asks how and
when; the leader asks
what and why.
~Warren Bennis

47. The very essence of
leadership is that you have
to have a vision.
~Theodore Hesburgh

48. 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

49. Leaders are more powerful
role models when they learn
than when they teach.
~Rosabeth Moss Kantor

50. Good leaders must first
become good servants.
~Robert Greenleaf

51. Humans are ambitious and rational and
proud. And we don’t fall in line with
people who don’t respect us and who we
don’t believe have our best interests at
heart. We are willing to follow leaders, but
only to the extent that we believe they call
on our best, not our worst.
~Rachel Maddow

52. I suppose leadership at
one time meant muscles;
but today it means getting
along with people.
~Mohandas K. Gandhi

53. The key to successful
leadership today is
influence, not authority.
~Kenneth Blanchard

54. Most important, leaders can conceive
and articulate goals that lift people
out of their petty preoccupations and
unite them in pursuit of objectives
worthy of their best efforts.
~John Gardner

55. Leadership can be thought of as
a capacity to define oneself to
others in a way that clarifies and
expands a vision of the future.
~Edwin H. Friedman

56. 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

57. A leader is a dealer in hope.
~Napoleon Bonaparte

58. Management is doing
things right; leadership is
doing the right things.
~Peter F. Drucker

59. A sense of humor is part of
the art of leadership, of
getting along with people,
of getting things done.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

60. Innovation distinguishes
between a leader and a follower.
~Steve Jobs

61. Compiled By
Thomas Kohntopp, Ph.D.
Visit
www.Leadership.Tennessee.edu