Thursday, March 26, 2009

Leadership Quotations

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

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
John F. Kennedy

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

We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That's not leadership. That's not going to happen.
Barack Obama

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
Peter Drucker

A 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

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

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

I speak directly to the people, and I know that the people of California want to have better leadership. They want to have great leadership. They want to have somebody that will represent them. And it doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican, young or old.
Arnold Schwarzenegger

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.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

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

I have a different vision of leadership. A leadership is someone who brings people together.
George W. Bush

Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time.
George W. Bush

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.
Stephen Covey

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

Example is leadership.
Albert Schweitzer

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

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.
John D. Rockefeller
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 Tse-Tung

Leadership is influence.
John C. Maxwell

Educationists should build the capacities of the spirit of inquiry, creativity, entrepreneurial and moral leadership among students and become their role model.
Abdul Kalam

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

Character matters; leadership descends from character.
Rush Limbaugh

Absolute identity with one's cause is the first and great condition of successful leadership.
Woodrow Wilson

We must recognize that as the dominant power in the world we have a special responsibility. In addition to protecting our national interests, we must take the leadership in protecting the common interests of humanity.
George Soros

Leadership is intangible, and therefore no weapon ever designed can replace it.
Omar N. Bradley

There are many elements to a campaign. Leadership is number one. Everything else is number two.
Bertolt Brecht

This assumption of Negro leadership in the ghetto, then, must not be confined to matters of religion, education, and social uplift; it must deal with such fundamental forces in life as make these things possible.
Carter G. Woodson

In our system leadership is by consent, not command. To lead a President must persuade. Personal contacts and experiences help shape his thinking. They can be critical to his persuasiveness and thus to his leadership.
Donald Rumsfeld

Presidential leadership needn't always cost money. Look for low- and no-cost options. They can be surprisingly effective.
Donald Rumsfeld

Don't necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.
Donald Rumsfeld

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

To have long term success as a coach or in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way.
Pat Riley

Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.
Tom Landry

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

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

Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you're ready to play as tough as you're able to, you'd better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you're not giving it all you've got.
Larry Bird

While Mayor Daley surprised me today with his decision to not run for reelection, I have never been surprised by his leadership, dedication and tireless work on behalf of the city and the people of Chicago.
Rahm Emanuel
A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.
John Updike

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.
Warren G. Bennis

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

But no nation can base its survival and development on luck and prayers alone while its leadership fritters away every available opportunity for success and concrete achievement.
Ibrahim Babangida

To meet the expectations of the majority of our people, and to open up new vistas of economic opportunity so that the aspirations of Nigerians can stand a fair chance of being fulfilled in a lifetime, there must be a truly committed leadership in a democratic Nigeria.
Ibrahim Babangida

Each one of us, and, indeed, all those who aspire to national leadership must bring their own visions, views and styles to the business of reforming Nigeria, and the search for solutions.
Ibrahim Babangida

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

We needed to go back on the offense and offer clear leadership on Iraq.
Condoleezza Rice

I've developed a huge regard for Toyota for its environmental awareness, for its immense commitment to research and development in this field, and for its leadership in developing hybrids which others are now following.
Maurice Strong

There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud.
Edward Kennedy

The art of leadership... consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.
Adolf Hitler

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

I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
Ralph Nader

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

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

Leadership is, among other things, the ability to inflict pain and get away with it - short-term pain for long-term gain.
George Will

Leadership in today's world requires far more than a large stock of gunboats and a hard fist at the conference table.
Hubert H. Humphrey

I urge the Iraqi leadership for sake of its own people... to seize this opportunity and thereby begin to end the isolation and suffering of the Iraqi people.
Kofi Annan

The democratic idealist is prone to make light of the whole question of standards and leadership because of his unbounded faith in the plain people.
Irving Babbitt

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

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

I'm sad to report that in the past few years, ever since uncertainty became our insistent 21st century companion, leadership has taken a great leap backwards to the familiar territory of command and control.
Margaret J. Wheatley

I think it is quite dangerous for an organisation to think they can predict where they are going to need leadership. It needs to be something that people are willing to assume if it feels relevant, given the context of any situation.
Margaret J. Wheatley

There are no ideas in the Republican Party right now in the Congress. They're the party of no. They desperately need some intellectual leadership. And whatever you think of Newt Gingrich, he can supply intellectual leadership. So I hope he does run.
Howard Dean

For many members of Congress, the time for choosing is near - do what the party leadership demands, or do what the people have asked you to do. If my colleagues don't mind some advice from a newcomer, I'd suggest going with the will of the people.
Scott Brown

I emphasize self-esteem, self-confidence, and dignity, not as an ideal, but as a real test of community organization. Without leadership development, community organizations do not have staying power.
Paul Wellstone

And if the imam and the Muslim leadership in that community is so intent on building bridges, then they should voluntarily move the mosque away from ground zero and move it whether it's uptown or somewhere else, but move it away from that area, the same as the pope directed the Carmelite nuns to move a convent away from Auschwitz.
Peter King

And the whole world, the whole world that believes in freedom, whether you're talking about personal freedom, economic freedom, religious freedom, they look to the United States for leadership; and you're part of that leadership.
Don Nickles

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

Most people associate command and control leadership with the military.
Margaret J. Wheatley

And I'd say one of the great lessons I've learned over the past couple of decades, from a management perspective, is that really when you come down to it, it really is all about people and all about leadership.
Steve Case

In this nation, leadership is dollars.
Norman Lear

If Ralph Nader runs, President Bush is going to be re-elected, and if Ralph Nader doesn't run, President Bush is going to be re-elected. We're going to run on the president's strong and principled leadership and his positive agenda for a second term.
Ed Gillespie

Moreover, as the leadership of the House confirmed last year, the Administration remains opposed to a congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide due to Turkish objections. This approach sends absolutely the wrong signal to Turkey and to the rest of the world.
Patrick J. Kennedy

This administration and the leadership in Congress appear to be intent on valuing wealth over work, thereby placing working families at a distinct disadvantage.
Tim Bishop

We live in a time where government is not a leadership thing, it's more a business that's out there and running riot, so I guess the people have to go out there and say stuff.
Yahoo Serious

On the other hand, the waging of peace as a science, as an art, is in its infancy. But we can trace its growth, its steady progress, and the time will come when there will be particular individuals designated to assume responsibility for and leadership of this movement.
Fredrik Bajer

Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.
John Naisbitt
As far as Iraq, the important thing is that the Taliban is gone in Afghanistan, three-quarters of the al-Qaida leadership is either dead or in jail, and we now have Saudi Arabia working with us, Pakistan working with us.
Peter King

I'm not up on the Internet, but I hear that is a democratic possibility. People can connect with each other. I think people are ready for something, but there is no leadership to offer it to them. People are ready to say, 'Yes, we are part of a world.'
Studs Terkel

The war and terrorism in the Middle East, the crisis of leadership in many of the oil-supply countries in the developing world, the crisis of global warming - all these are very clearly tied to energy.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus

From a parent's right to know what their children are doing, to protecting citizens across the country from the growing threat of gang violence, the House Democrat leadership is simply out to lunch.
Virginia Foxx

Year after year, President Bush has broken his campaign promises on college aid. And year after year, the Republican leadership in Congress has let him do it.
Sherrod Brown

The problem is, is that President Bush and the Republican leadership in the Congress have resisted attempts to increase dramatically our fuel economy standards over the last five years.
Ed Markey

The art of communication is the language of leadership.
James Humes

A significant number of pages and sentences that the administration wants to keep in a classified status have already been released publicly, some of it by public statements of the leadership of the CIA and the FBI.
Bob Graham

Being a CEO still means sitting across the table from big institutional investors and showing your leadership and having them believe in you.
Christie Hefner

President Reagan was a leader at a time when the American people most needed leadership. He outlined a vision that captured the imagination of the free world, a vision that toppled the Communist empire and freed countless millions.
Dennis Hastert

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

The leadership lost its nerve. Instead of taking the lead in the reform movement... they pulled the plug on it. They tried and are still trying to return the church to the dry ice of the previous century and a half.
Andrew Greeley

Many citizens see all the leadership of these large institutions together in a conspiracy against them rather than in any adversary relationship with each other.
Robert Teeter

So I think that our foreign policy, the president's strong and principled leadership when it comes to the war against terror and foreign policy is going to be an asset.
Ed Gillespie

This is easy to say with the benefit of hindsight, but I think it once again points out how very important style of leadership, that is the way he does what he does, is to his perception.
Robert Teeter

We should see the leadership from the White House setting dates certain for certain goals of achieving greater alliance on alternative and renewable energy sources, but we are not.
Ron Kind

In fact, the converse is true: At a time when the United States has been called on for a level of moral leadership, vision and inspiration not seen since World War II, we cannot afford to dissemble about crimes against humanity.
Adam Schiff

The message of the free world to any potential Palestinian leadership should be a simple one: Embrace democratic reform and we will embrace you.
Natan Sharansky

We should be therefore supporting a larger Europe, and in so doing we should strive to expand the zone of peace and prosperity in the world which is the necessary foundation for a stable international system in which our leadership could be fruitfully exercised.
Zbigniew Brzezinski

All Americans and freedom-loving people around the world owe President Reagan our deepest gratitude for his strong, principled leadership that ended the Cold War and brought freedom to millions of people.
Jim Ramstad

I don't know what leadership is. You can't touch it. You can't feel it. It's not tangible. But I do know this: you recognize it when you see it.
Bob Ehrlich

The 9/11 Commission recently released their report, citing important changes which need to be made to improve our nation's homeland security. I voiced my disappointment with the House leadership when this report was left until after the August recess for action.
Leonard Boswell

One of the surest signs of the estimated changes in the consciousness of the American proletariat is to be found in the character of the demands now being put forward by the leadership.
C. L. R. James

I believe that we as the leader of the Free World must provide important leadership on the ethical parameters, the ethical constraints that this research requires.
Ron Kind

In the area we're discussing, leadership begins on Madison Avenue, on the desks and in the offices of people who spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying what will get them ratings.
Norman Lear

We have treated our most serious adversaries, such as Iran and North Korea, in the most juvenile manner - by giving them the silent treatment. In so doing, we have weakened, not strengthened, our bargaining position and our leadership.
Theodore C. Sorensen

Half a world away nations that once lived under oppression and tyranny are now budding democracies due in large part to America 's leadership and the sacrifices of our military.
Bob Riley

Research has shown that the perceived style of leadership is by far the most important thing to most voters in evaluating officeholders and candidates.
Robert Teeter

The House Republican leadership has simply run out of ideas.
Jan Schakowsky

There's a very big gulf between the black civil rights leadership in America and the black middle class in America. The black middle class are conservative. Many of those minorities can be persuaded to be members of the Republican Party.
Pete du Pont

We in the press, by our power, can actually undermine leadership.
Christiane Amanpour

If people want to compete for leadership of a religious group, they can compete in piety. A chilling thought. Or funny.
Mary Douglas

The biggest difference is in the leadership. It was better for us. We had more coaches and mentors to help us. A lot of the younger players today suffer from a lack of direction.
Isiah Thomas

Roosevelt was the one who had the vision to change our policy from isolationism to world leadership. That was a terrific revolution. Our country's never been the same since.
W. Averell Harriman

Republican leadership in Congress let the energy companies write the energy bill that sent prices soaring, and has turned a blind eye to the struggles of working families trying to make ends meet.
Sherrod Brown

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

One simple way to keep organizations from becoming cancerous might be to rotate all jobs on a regular, frequent and mandatory basis, including the leadership positions.
Robert Shea

To my mind the election was stolen by George Bush and we have been suffering ever since under this man's leadership.
Jessica Lange

But I think Steve's main contribution besides just the pure leadership is his passion for excellence. He's a perfectionist. Good enough isn't good enough. And also his creative spirit. You know he really, really wants to do something great.
Andy Hertzfeld

I mean, Emily Harris was his wife. And she seemed to resent his leadership, but on the other hand, she felt like a good soldier, that he had to be the leader.
Patty Hearst

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