Top 122 Leadership Quotes

A hand-organized collection of 122 leadership quotes from notable authors and thinkers. Browse the full set, find the lines that resonate, and turn any quote into a shareable image.

At the end of the day, my leadership effectiveness is measured not by what I am able to accomplish, but by what those whom I lead are able to accomplish.
The Kravis Institute
The Kravis Institute
Also featured in: success

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Every great leader is a great teacher, and the greatest leaders seize every opportunity to teach well.
Albert Mohler
Albert Mohler
Also featured in: success

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The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.
Harvey S. Firestone
Harvey S. Firestone
Also featured in: change

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Who is on a team matters less than how the team members interact, structure their work, and view their contributions.
Nr Eyal
Nr Eyal
Also featured in: work

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Do not tolerate brilliant jerks. The cost to teamwork is too high.
Reed Hastings
Reed Hastings
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Without strong visionary leadership, no strategy will be executed effectively.
Robert S. Kaplan
Robert S. Kaplan
Also featured in: inspiration courage

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What is the next thing you need for leadership? It is the ability to make up your mind to make a decision and accept full responsibility for that decision.
Sam Manekshaw
Sam Manekshaw
Also featured in: mindset wisdom

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It is in times of crisis that good leaders emerge.
Rudolph W. Giuliani
Rudolph W. Giuliani
Also featured in: time

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In order to lead the orchestra, you must first turn your back to the crowd.
Marie Nenziger
Marie Nenziger
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The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening.
Ray Kroc
Ray Kroc
Also featured in: inspiration

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We are all leaders-whether we want to be or not. There is always someone we are influencing-either leading them to good-or away from good.
Leif Gibbon
Leif Gibbon
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Scouting is a game for boys under the leadership of boys under the direction of a man.
Baden Powell de Azurin
Baden Powell de Azurin
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Freedom, by definition, is people realizing that they are their own leaders.
Diane Nash
Diane Nash
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The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far- reaching consequence of submission to authority.
Stanley Milgram
Stanley Milgram
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It takes leadership to improve safety.
Jackie Stewart
Jackie Stewart
Also featured in: change

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Leadership is a journey. Each one of us has to take our own path, and get there our own way.
David Gergen
David Gergen
Also featured in: life

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I pray to be a good servant to God, a father, a husband, a son, a friend, a brother, an uncle, a good neighbor, a good leader to those who look up to me, a good follower to those who are serving God and doing the right thing.
Mom McWhorter
Mom McWhorter
Also featured in: friendship faith family

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Somewhere inside, we hear a voice. It leads us in the direction of the person we wish to become. But it is up to us whether or not to follow.
Pat Turner
Pat Turner
Also featured in: change

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If you're too big to serve, you're too big to lead.
Rich Wilkerson Jr
Rich Wilkerson Jr
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Professional land surveyors take on a lot of responsibility, and should be compensated appropriately.
Mark Mason
Mark Mason
Also featured in: work

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Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.
Harold Geneen
Harold Geneen
Also featured in: wisdom

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To me, leadership is about encouraging people. It's about stimulating them. It's about enabling them to achieve what they can achieve - and to do that with a purpose.
Christine Lagarde
Christine Lagarde
Also featured in: success

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The best leaders never stop learning.
Donald T. Phillips
Donald T. Phillips
Also featured in: success wisdom

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A team aligned behind a vision will move mountains.
Kevin Rose
Kevin Rose
Also featured in: inspiration

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Crisis moments create opportunity. Problems and crises ignite our greatest creativity and thought leadership as it forces
us to focus on things outside the norm.
us to focus on things outside the norm.
Also featured in: success wisdom inspiration time

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Decision-making is a skill. Wisdom is a leadership trait.
Mark Miller
Mark Miller
Also featured in: wisdom

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Everyone needs a mentor.
Ernest Lagasse
Ernest Lagasse
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Winning is what happens when commitment, desire, talent, preparation, hard work, and leadership all come together.
Tom Coughlin
Tom Coughlin
Also featured in: motivation success adversity friendship

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Leadership is an opportunity to serve. It is not a trumpet call to self-importance.
Goswami Kriyananda
Goswami Kriyananda
Also featured in: success mindset

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Innovation needs to be nurtured throughout an organization. Management is doing things right, whereas leadership is doing the right things.
Joan Lofgren
Joan Lofgren
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Be a leader, not a superior.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
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Often the biggest test is when the chips are down and you've got to stick together as a team.
Michael Owen
Michael Owen
Also featured in: friendship

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Parker Palmer observes, "A leader is a person who must take special responsibility for what's going on inside him or her self, inside his or her consciousness, lest the act of leadership create more harm than good."
Unknown
Unknown
Also featured in: inspiration

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Paying tax is not a punishment. It's a responsibility.
Chris Matthews
Chris Matthews
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Preparedness and punctuality are two of the most important qualities of a leader.
John Andreas Widtsoe
John Andreas Widtsoe
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Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence! This explains why we have so many stupid leaders.
Simon Wilson
Simon Wilson
Also featured in: motivation success positivity

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To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well.
John Marshall
John Marshall
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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.
Franklin D.Roosevelt
Franklin D.Roosevelt
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You are only as good as your team.
Dominique Wilkins
Dominique Wilkins
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You can only lead by example.
Frank Langella
Frank Langella
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The greatest compliment to any player is he is a great teammate. We can't all be great players, but we can all be great teammates.
Sky Boss
Sky Boss
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Leadership is an active, living process. It is rooted in character, forged by experience, and communicated by example.
John Wooden
John Wooden
Also featured in: life mindset

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Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory.
Franklin P. Adams
Franklin P. Adams
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The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth.
George Mason
George Mason
Also featured in: faith

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Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders - presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of these leaders dismantle democracy quickly, as Hitler did in the wake of the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany. More often, though, democracies erode slowly, in barely visible steps.
Unknown
Unknown
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The only safe ship in a storm is leadership.
Faye Wattleton
Faye Wattleton
Also featured in: adversity

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I am not I. I am this one walking beside me whom I do not see, whom at times I manage to visit, and whom at other times I forget; who remains calm and silent while I talk, and forgives, gently, when I hate, who walks where I am not, who will remain standing when I die.
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
Also featured in: time mindfulness

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Project management is the art of creating the illusion that any outcome is the result of a series of predetermined, deliberate acts when, in fact, it was dumb luck.
David Sawyer
David Sawyer
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