14 Quotes on LEADERSHIP

We are confronted by the word “Leaders” and “Leadership” so often that some of us begin to attach some element of mystery and aura to it.

I have come across few quotes on leadership which makes its meaning clear and simple.

"Never give an order that can't be obeyed."

General Douglas MacArthur

"He who has great power should use it lightly."

Seneca

"To lead people, walk beside them ... As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate ... When the best leader's work is done the people say, 'We did it ourselves!'"

Lao-tsu

"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

"Leadership is not magnetic personality that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not "making friends and influencing people", that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations."

Peter F. Drucker

"The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been."

Henry Kissinger

"The best is he who calls men to the best. And those who heed the call are also blessed. But worthless who call not, heed not, but rest."

Hesiod
8th Century BC Greek poet

"All Leadership is influence."

John C. Maxwell Injoy, Inc

"You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too."

Sam Rayburn

"Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned."

Harold Geneen

"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

"Speak Softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."

Theodore Roosevelt\

"Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do."

     Andrew Carnegie