Edwards, a retired police lieutenant from California, believes that leaders in any industry share attribute such as confidence, integrity, determination, and a commitment to excellence.
All of these characteristics, when combined, produce leaders who inspire others to think, act, and be better.
Whether you are now a leader or hope to be one in the future, it is critical to remember that effective leadership necessitates the ongoing honing and refinement of talents.
It takes more than having a specific job title to be a leader. It all comes down to having a clear vision, perseverance, and the capacity to inspire others to work toward a common objective.
We hope that these inspiring leadership quotes motivate you to continue learning and achieving new heights.
160+ Excellent Leadership Quotes
Leadership is the ability to guide a group toward its aims and goals. Leadership is a skill that may be learnt rather than inherited. Any obstacle or difficulty that stands in the way of success is confronted by a leader. Being a leader isn’t easy.
True leadership accepts responsibility for the team’s mistakes and gives the team credit for its accomplishments. True leaders possess attributes such as confidence, integrity, wisdom, hard effort, patience, and problem resolution, among others. A leader should be able to make swift decisions when the circumstance calls for it.
It’s only after you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.― Roy T. Bennett
Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals.
If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more.― Roy T. Bennett
When people talk, listen completely.___Ernest Hemingway
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.___Kurt Vonnegut
The important thing is this: to be able to give up in any given moment all that we are for what we can become.___DeSeaux
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them become what they are capable of being.___Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The price of greatness is responsibility.___Winston Churchill
Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership.___James Humes
To add value to others, one must first value others.___John Maxwell
Let the improvement of yourself keep you so busy that you have no time to criticize others.― Roy T. Bennett
Always remember people who have helped you along the way, and don’t forget to lift someone up.― Roy T. Bennett
Don’t follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.___Margaret Thatcher
Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.___Seth Godin
Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.___Publilius Syrus
Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.___Margaret Fuller
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. ___ Dwight D. Eisenhower
A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.___Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You manage things; you lead people.____Grace Murray Hopper
A good leader leads the people from above them. A great leader leads the people from within them.____M.D. Arnold
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.― William Arthur Ward
If you have a strong purpose in life, you don’t have to be pushed. Your passion will drive you there.― Roy T. Bennett
Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.― Robert Louis Stevenson
One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.___Arnold Glasow
The highest of distinctions is service to others.___King George VI
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.___Thomas Jefferson
The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.____Tony Blair
A leader is a dealer in hope.___Napoleon Bonaparte
Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.____Brian Tracy
The things we fear most in organizations–fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances–are the primary sources of creativity.___Margaret Wheatley
Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway.___Eleanor Roosevelt
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.___John Quincy Adams
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.___Theodore Hesburgh
Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success. ___ Dale Carnegie
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
There is a troublesome humor some men have, that if they may not lead, they will not follow; but had rather a thing were never done, than not done their own way, tho’ other ways very desirable.____William Penn
If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.― Dr Roopleen
Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another. __John Maxwell
Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.___Brian Tracy
Doing what is right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what is right.___Lyndon B. Johnson
There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.____Indira Gandhi
Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.___Dwight D. Eisenhower
You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. ____ Mark Twain
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
Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas?___Margaret Thatcher
If you’re not sure where you are going, you’re liable to end up someplace else.____Robert F. Majer
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.___Margaret Mead
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.___Edith Wharton
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.)___Winston Churchill
Leaders don’t inflict pain, they share pain.___Max Depree
It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.___Bill Gates
You take people as far as they will go, not as far as you would like them to go.___Jeanette Rankin
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
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
The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them.___Carlos Ghosn
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.___Ben Carson
Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.___Diogenes of Sinope
Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.___Warren Bennis
The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.___Harvey S. Firestone
A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit. – Arnold Glasow
There exist limitless opportunities in every industry. Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.___Charles F. Kettering
The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them.___John Maxwell
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
An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.__Jack Welch
Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.___Warren G. Bennis
Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes.___Peter F. Drucker
A leader is a person you will follow to a place you would not go by yourself.___Joel Barker
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.___Ralph Waldo Emerson
To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult. – Friedrich Nietzsche
What you do has far greater impact than what you say.___Stephen Covey
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. – John F. Kennedy
You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.___Henry Ford
Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.___Robert Louis Stevenson
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
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 F. Drucker
It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.― Adlai E. Stevenson
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.___Jack Welch
Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead. __ Pete Hoekstra
Don’t follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.― Margaret Thatcher
If you want to rebel, rebel from inside the system.That’s much more powerful than rebelling outside the system.― Marie Lu
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
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
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.___Peter F. 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
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. – Steve Jobs
One of the most important things for any leader is to never let anyone else define who you are. And you define who you are. I never think of myself as being a woman CEO of this company. I think of myself as a steward of a great institution.___Ginni Rometty
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.___Abraham Lincoln
When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.___Malala Yousafzai
I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.____Alexander the Great
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.____Martin Luther King Jr.
Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50 percent of your time in leading yourself–your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20 percent leading those with authority over you and 15 percent leading your peers.___Dee Hock
If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself and the organization gets pulled up with you.___Indra Nooyi
To be a leader, you have to make people want to follow you, and nobody wants to follow someone who doesn’t know where he is going. – Joe Namath
If ‘leadership’ has come to be known as something much bigger than us, aligned to changing the world, then we are spending way too much time celebrating things that hardly anyone can do and not celebrating things we can do every day.___Drew Dudley
Leaders instill in their people a hope for success and a belief in themselves. Positive leaders empower people to accomplish their goals.___Unknown
Each group and each youngster is different. As a leader or coach, you get to know what they need.___Mike Krzyzewski
True leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed… Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection.___Sheryl Sandberg
A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd. – Max Lucado
The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.
Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.___Vince Lombardi
Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen. – Michael Jordan
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.___Eleanor Roosevelt
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
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 person always doing his or her best becomes a natural leader, just by example. – Joe DiMaggio
Knowing what must be done does away with fear.___Rosa Parks
If you don’t believe in yourself, why is anyone else going to believe in you.___Tom Brady
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 quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.___Ray Kroc
Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it.___David Star Jordan
The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.___Ralph Nader
Leadership is something you earn, something you’re chosen for. You can’t come in yelling, ‘I’m your leader!’ If it happens, it’s because the other guys respect you.___Ben Roethlisberger
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
Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.― John Maxwell
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.___Henry Kissinger
There are no office hours for leaders.___Cardinal J. Gibbons
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
Rejection is an opportunity for your selection.― Bernard Branson
A leader is not an administrator who loves to run others, but someone who carries water for his people so that they can get on with their jobs.____Robert Townsend
You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.― Steve Jobs
Look over your shoulder now and then to be sure someone’s following you.___Henry Gilmer
I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.___Herbert Swope
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.____John Buchan
Don’t blow off another’s candle for it won’t make yours shine brighter.― Jaachynma N.E. Agu
I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through–then follow through.___Edward Rickenbacker
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
If you want to make enemies, try to change something.___Woodrow Wilson
Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.___Stephen Covey
Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.___Harold Geneen
Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want.___Dianne Feinstein
Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.___Bill Bradley
I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.___Mahatma Gandhi
Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths. – John Zenger
To have long term success as a coach or in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way.___Pat Riley
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand. – Gen. Colin Powell
Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.― George S. Patton
Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.___Theodore Roosevelt
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
Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.― Harry S. Truman
To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful. – Edward Murrow
I learned that things are never as complicated as we imagine them to be. It is only our arrogance which seeks to find complicated answers to simple problems.___Muhammad Yunus
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.____Amelia Earhart
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.― Peter Drucker
People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.___John Maxwell
Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men — the other 999 follow women.― Groucho Marx
To lead people, walk beside them. As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence … When the best leader’s work is done, the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!’___Lao Tzu
The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing people around a shared vision. – Ken Blanchard
You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.___Sam Rayburn
Don’t tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.___George S. Patton Jr.
We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better___J.K. Rowling
Leadership is an ever-evolving position.___Mike Krzyzewski
Earn your leadership every day.____Michael Jordan
Those who let things happen usually lose to those who make things happen.____Dave Weinbaum
Leadership is an action, not a position.___Donald McGannon
You get in life what you have the courage to ask for. – Nancy D. Solomon
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.___Bill Gates
To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.___Eleanor Roosevelt
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.___Aristotle
A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see.____Leroy Eimes
He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command. – Niccolo Machiavelli
If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.___Dolly Parton
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.___Maya Angelou
I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.___Leonardo da Vinci
The true mark of a leader is the willingness to stick with a bold course of action — an unconventional business strategy, a unique product-development roadmap, a controversial marketing campaign — even as the rest of the world wonders why you’re not marching in step with the status quo. In other words, real leaders are happy to zig while others zag. They understand that in an era of hyper-competition and non-stop disruption, the only way to stand out from the crowd is to stand for something special.____Bill Taylor