Leadership Quotes

It is said, great leaders are not born, but are made. With enough willpower and desire, as well as a ceaseless process of self-study, experience, training, and education, good leadership qualities can be developed. As Warren G. Bennis says: "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."

Leadership quotes are words spoken by men and women who have been there, seen what it is all about, and thus they can be a great source of inspiration to us. Given below are some of the most profound leadership quotes that portray the wisdom of some of the greatest minds in the world.

"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision." - Theodore Hesburgh

"If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." - The Bible

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

"A leader is a dealer in hope." - Napoleon Bonaparte

"Pity the leader caught between unloving critics and uncritical lovers." - John Gardner

"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet." - Theodore M. Hesburgh

"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

"The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why." - Warren Bennis

"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

"The only safe ship in a storm is leadership." - Faye Wattleton

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

"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

"Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach." - Rosabeth Moss Kantor

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

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." - Peter F. Drucker

"What you cannot enforce, do not command." - Sophocles

"If you're not confused, you're not paying attention." - Tom Peters

"Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others." - Robert Louis Stevenson

"A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice." - James Callaghan

"The price of greatness is responsibility." - Winston Churchill

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

"Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too." - Robert Half

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

"I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?" - Benjamin Disraeli

"The question, 'Who ought to be boss?', is like asking, 'Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?' Obviously, the man who can sing tenor." - Henry Ford

"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:

"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:

"Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men - the other 999 follow women." - Groucho Marx