Quotes about Leadership

Believing in the cause creates your conviction. Believing in your vision fuels your inspiration. Believing in your people builds your motivation.

If you should observe an occasion to give your officers and friends a little more praise than is their due, and confess more fault than you justly be charged with, you will only become the sooner for it, a great captain. Criticizing and censuring almost everyone you have to do with, will diminish friends, increase enemies, and hereby hurt you affairs.

Leaders are effective because of who they are on the inside—in the qualities that make them up as people. And to go to the highest level of leadership, people have to develop these traits from the inside out.

Prioritize the things that yield high return. What's the key to being productive? Prioritizing. To be an effective leader, you must learn to not only get a lot done, but to get a lot of the right things done. That means understanding how to prioritize time, tasks, resources, and even people. Effective prioritizing begins with eliminating the things you shouldn't be doing.

Leading with a lack of integrity is choosing to fail before taking your first step."

Success is more than just power or not violating the rights of others; it is the privilege of contributing to the betterment of others.

Social influence doesn't become leadership influence until the people following change their behavior and take action as a result of the interaction with the influencer.

The unexamined life is not worth leading." I would add that the unexamined leader is not worth following.

Influencing others is a matter of disposition, not position.

For a team to succeed, responsibility must go down deep into the organization, down to the roots. Getting that to happen requires a leader who will delegate responsibility and authority to the team. Stephen Covey remarked, "People and organizations don't grow much without delegation and completed staff work, because they are confined to the capacities of the boss and reflect both personal strengths and weaknesses." Good leaders seldom restrict their teams; they release them."

Using the word CHARISMA as an acrostic, we can define the outstanding characteristics of charismatic people: Concern Help Action Results Influence Sensitivity Motivation Affirmation Keep.

Just as personal values influence and guide an individual's behavior, organizational values influence and guide the team's behavior.