Leadership Quotations | Page 6

So I think democracy, in the long-term, in our countries will survive if it comes to be associated with leadership, will not survive if democracy plus media brings to us more and more followship rather than leadership.

You know, rural Americans are a special people. Their labor puts food on our table and fuel in our gas tanks. Their service in our military sets a powerful example of leadership, honor and sacrifice. Their spirit of community inspires us all.

Don't necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.

I know that the right kind of political leader for the Labour Party is a desiccated calculating machine.

Half a century ago, the amazing courage of Rosa Parks, the visionary leadership of Martin Luther King, and the inspirational actions of the civil rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make real the promise of America for all her citizens.

What happens with a lot of leaders is that their leadership style is like ADD; they are all over the place with different ideas. They could be driving one idea forward but then move on to something else too soon.

When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.

The important thing is that we recognize our President's leadership, that he is not saying: I am going to walk away from this. He is saying: I am going to do the right thing.

If you hire people just because they can do a job, they'll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they'll work for you with blood, sweat, and tears.

The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.

Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.

Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right.

Every person has a longing to be significant; to make a contribution; to be a part of something noble and purposeful.

Doing what's right isn't the problem. It is knowing what's right.

Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.

A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educated, morally grounded leadership.

If Ralph Nader runs, President Bush is going to be re-elected, and if Ralph Nader doesn't run, President Bush is going to be re-elected. We're going to run on the president's strong and principled leadership and his positive agenda for a second term.

To be an objective leader means aligning your models with the needs of the organization. There is no question anymore that collaboration, seeking out diverse perspectives and developing new ways to look at challenges and opportunities, is a key leadership competency.

I'm all for ambition and stretch goals. I set them for myself. But leadership isn't the same as cheerleading. Believing in something is a necessary but absolutely insufficient condition for making it come true.

People in power have to be careful about what comes out of their mouth. They have to find exactly the right word that can't be attacked.

I fell in love with the topic of leadership. For three decades, that has been a major focus of my hands-on work: listening to and working with leaders, their teams and their organizations.

I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.

With gridlock the norm, Congress's approval rating is below 10 percent and the public has lost faith in its national leadership.

Really big people are, above everything else, courteous, considerate and generous - not just to some people in some circumstances - but to everyone all the time.

You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.

Sandwich every bit of criticism between two layers of praise.

When you are full of pride on the inside, it makes you stiff, stubborn, and creates strife with others.

People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.

A lot of times when you have very short-term goals with a high payoff, nasty things can happen. In particular, a lot of people will take the low road there. They'll become myopic. They'll crowd out the longer-term interests of the organization or even of themselves.

Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right.

There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.

I think Caesar is one of the most empathetic characters that I've played. I think that's the key to a successful leadership. Being able to keep your ears open at all times.

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.

We do need an attitude of leadership in our government which demonstrates faith in major population centres outside of Perth.

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.

And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.

The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

Success comes to those who have an entire mountain of gold that they continually mine, not those who find one nugget and try to live on it for fifty years.

Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.

We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.

What's important now are the characteristics of the brain's right hemisphere: artistry, empathy, inventiveness, big-picture thinking. These skills have become first among equals in a whole range of business fields.

In politics, Joseph Smith was something of a radical. He preached, instead of democracy, a version of theocratic rule within a framework given by his own prophetic leadership. At Nauvoo, Smith affected a Napoleonic uniform and made himself into a general and quasi king of the polity he had constituted.

I'm a pragmatist. I think, as a woman, you have to be more careful. You have to be more communal, you have to say yes to more things than men, you have to worry about things that men don't have to worry about. But once we get enough women into leadership, we can break stereotypes down. If you lead, you get to decide.

The leadership lost its nerve. Instead of taking the lead in the reform movement... they pulled the plug on it. They tried and are still trying to return the church to the dry ice of the previous century and a half.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Father of the Republic, made it his great aim in his revolutionary leadership to secure freedom and equality of status for China among the nations of the world.

Sena under the leadership of Uddhav Thackeray has failed. It is a party on the decline, and that decline started the day Maharashtra Navnirman Sena was formed.

Leadership comes in small acts as well as bold strokes.

Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.

Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

I think in any situation, so much of effective leadership is when it comes from your own personality. And I feel very fortunate to be comfortable in the Colts locker room, where people can be who they are, and they don't have to change it when they show up to work that day.

Few things kill likeability as quickly as arrogance. Likable leaders don't act as though they're better than you because they don't think that they're better than you. Rather than being a source of prestige, they see their leadership position as bringing them additional accountability for serving those who follow them.

It's an American worker's right to unionize for sure, but that being said, don't expect me not to point out when or if union leadership takes advantage of union members.

Actions, such as the designation of National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, spring from First Lady Michelle Obama's leadership of efforts to end childhood obesity within this generation.

I think leadership is not something you learn; it's something you discover.

Obama is thoroughly mixed up with all these things he's got. He's got to solve Libya. He's got to solve Afghanistan. He's everywhere. And this nation, I don't know why it's not showing the leadership and capacity to attend different issues at the same time.

I do go against my leadership all the time because I stand firm on the four questions that I ask about all legislation. The first, is it constitutional according to the original intent? The second, does it fit the Judeo-Christian Biblical principles that our nation is founded upon? Third, do we need it? Fourth, can we afford it?

A peace talk is always difficult, always complicated.

Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard.

A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.

If you command wisely, you'll be obeyed cheerfully.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

When the best leader's work is done the people say, 'We did it ourselves.'

I happen to be extremely left-brained; my instinct is to draw a chart rather than a picture. I'm trying to get my right-brain muscles into shape. I actually think this shift toward right-brain abilities has the potential to make us both better off and better in a deeper sense.

The problem is, is that President Bush and the Republican leadership in the Congress have resisted attempts to increase dramatically our fuel economy standards over the last five years.

I think the most important leadership lessons I've learned have to do with understanding the context in which you are leading. Universities are places with enormously distributed authority and many different sorts of constituencies, all of whom have a stake in that institution.

I think national issues play into gubernatorial races less than, obviously, in Senate and Congressional races. Much less. They tend to be more decided by personality, leadership qualities and by state or local issues. They still have some effect, no question about it, but not as much as Senate and Congressional races.

I had the closest thing I have ever had to an out-of-body experience lying in bed one morning. I turned on the 'Today' programme and item four on the news was: 'The shadow chancellor has ruled himself out of the leadership.' I lay there thinking that's interesting, then I realised it was me.

President Ford was a devoted, decent man of impeccable integrity who put service to his country before his own self interest. He helped heal our nation during a time of crisis, provided steady leadership and restored people's faith in the presidency and in government.

The golden rule for every business man is this: 'Put yourself in your customer's place.'

The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it.

All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.

Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.

Tis a dainty thing to command, though 'twere but a flock of sheep.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.

Labor, under their current leadership, want to be the Downtown Abbey party when it comes to educational opportunity. They think working class children should stick to the station in life they were born into - they should be happy to be recognized for being good with their hands and not presume to get above themselves.

Most of what we know about sales comes from a world of information asymmetry, where for a very long time sellers had more information than buyers. That meant sellers could hoodwink buyers, especially if buyers did not have a lot of choices or a way to talk back.

Leadership is a mindset in action. So don't wait for the title. Leadership isn't something that anyone can give you - you have to earn it and claim it for yourself.

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; these three alone lead one to sovereign power.

Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.

Overall, the challenge of leadership is both moral and one of developing the characteristics that make us respected by one another.

The things journalists should pay attention to are the issues the political leadership agrees on, rather than to their supposed antagonisms.

The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.

Many corporate leaders and employees have the right intentions, but it can be overwhelming when you consider how everything is affected from leadership styles, to organizational structure, to employee engagement, to customer service an marketplace.

Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.

In many professions, what used to matter most were abilities associated with the left side of the brain: linear, sequential, spreadsheet kind of faculties. Those still matter, but they're not enough.

The fact is, when it comes to economic leadership, the Republicans have nothing to brag about. This isn't what the American people want. They want to see progress that works for them.

You watch television and see what's going on on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President and nothing's going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress.

The next thing is: we can make IBM even better. We brought IBM back but we're gunning for leadership.

The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap.

We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.