John C. Maxwell Leadership Quotations

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.

People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.

Learn to say 'no' to the good so you can say 'yes' to the best.

Teamwork makes the dream work, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team.

Time management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the answer to maximizing the time we have.

There are two kinds of pride, both good and bad. 'Good pride' represents our dignity and self-respect. 'Bad pride' is the deadly sin of superiority that reeks of conceit and arrogance.

The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.

Good leaders must communicate vision clearly, creatively, and continually. However, the vision doesn't come alive until the leader models it.

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.

Exceptionally hard decisions can deplete your energy to the point at which you finally cave in. If you mentally crumble and degenerate into negative thinking, you'll magnify the problem to the point where it can haunt you.

Family and friendships are two of the greatest facilitators of happiness.

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

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

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.

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 best way a mentor can prepare another leader is to expose him or her to other great people.

When a person starts to talk about their dreams, it's as if something bubbles up from within. Their eyes brighten, their face glows, and you can feel the excitement in their words.

Failed plans should not be interpreted as a failed vision. Visions don't change, they are only refined. Plans rarely stay the same, and are scrapped or adjusted as needed. Be stubborn about the vision, but flexible with your plan.

Everyone has the potential to become an encourager. You don't have to be rich. You don't have to be a genius. You don't have to have it all together. All you have to do is care about people and initiate.

Live to learn and you will really learn to live.

People who add value to others do so intentionally. I say that because to add value, leaders must give of themselves, and that rarely occurs by accident.

If you are a parent, you have probably already realized that your children are always watching what you do. And just as children watch their parents and emulate their behavior, so do employees who are watching their bosses.

Growth is the great separator between those who succeed and those who do not. When I see a person beginning to separate themselves from the pack, it's almost always due to personal growth.

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.

As a leader, the first person I need to lead is me. The first person that I should try to change is me.

A lack of realism in the vision today costs credibility tomorrow.

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn't. In fact, I didn't even know you were supposed to have one.

Growth demands a temporary surrender of security. It may mean giving up familiar but limiting patterns, safe but unrewarding work, values no longer believed in, and relationships that have lost their meaning.

If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it - young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous - is changed by it.

Enjoyment is an incredible energizer to the human spirit.

Inability to make decisions is one of the principal reasons executives fail. Deficiency in decision-making ranks much higher than lack of specific knowledge or technical know-how as an indicator of leadership failure.

Self-centered leaders manipulate when they move people for personal benefit. Mature leaders motivate by moving people for mutual benefit.

People who use time wisely spend it on activities that advance their overall purpose in life.

All of the people in my life whom I consider to be close friends or colleagues are good thinkers.

Life can be boring unless you put some effort into it.

The experience of pain or loss can be a formidably motivating force.

All good leaders are connectors. They relate well and make people feel confident about themselves and their leader.

Look at our society. Everyone wants to be thin, but nobody wants to diet. Everyone wants to live long, but few will exercise. Everybody wants money, yet seldom will anyone budget or control their spending.

To add value to others, one must first value others.

Have the humility to learn from those around you.

The dreams and passions stored within hearts are powerful keys which can unlock a wealth of potential.

Time is more valuable than money, because time is irreplaceable.

Transmit your vision emotionally by gaining credibility, demonstrating passion, establishing relationships and communicating a felt need. Transmit it logically by confronting reality, formulating strategy, accepting responsibility, celebrating victory and learning from defeat.

Leadership is evoking in others the capacity to dream.

Over time, is it easier or harder to sustain your influence within your organization? With charisma alone, influence becomes increasingly more difficult to sustain. With character, as time passes, influence builds and requires less work to sustain.

My leadership began to take flight when I allowed myself to press people to change-whether they thanked me or cursed me.

Talented performers flock to the best and brightest leaders, and these leaders in turn lift the lids off their people and uncork the latent talent inside of them.

Leadership is the dream made reality.

Pride deafens us to the advice or warnings of those around us.

Management is the process of assuring that the program and objectives of the organization are implemented. Leadership on the other hand has to do with casting vision and motivating people.

People who are not leaders automatically gravitate toward lines--limitations set by others. Many people are taught this in kindergarten when they are instructed to stay within the lines while coloring. But leaders are more creative than that. They look for options and opportunities. They try to take things in a new direction, or beyond the limit. Progress and innovation are made by people who think without lines.

The leader continually passes on the vision to those who come around, knowing that dreams, if presented right, are contagious.

Without failure there is no achievement.

Leadership is the power of one harnessing the power of many.

Values hold the team together, provide stability for the team to grow upon, measure the team's performance, give direction and guidance and attract like-minded people.

Progress does not occur without change.

Thank God for the tough times. They are the reason you are there - to be the leader. If everything was going well, the people wouldn't need you!

Be generous, be humble, and be grateful when achieving your dreams.

Needless to say, you can love people without leading them, but you cannot lead people without loving them.

The first order of things to be changed is me, the leader. After I consider how hard it is to change myself, then I will understand the challenge of trying to change others. This is the ultimate test of leadership.

The better you are at surrounding yourself with people of high potential, the greater your chance for success.

Leaders have two characteristics: first they are going somewhere, and second they are able to persuade other people to go with them.

Coming together is a beginning, and staying together is progress, but only when teams sweat together do they find success.

People's purpose in life is always connected to their giftedness.

Successful people make right decisions early and manage those decisions daily.

Every relationship in your organization will affect you one way or another. Those who do not increase you will inevitably decrease you.

Confront your inadequacies and push your personal boundaries: It's the surest way to grow, improve and expand the scope of your influence.

People will summarize your life in one sentence - Pick it now.

Openness by the leader paves the way for ownership by the people. Without ownership, changes will be short term. Changing people's habits and ways of thinking is like writing instructions in the snow during a snowstorm. Every twenty minutes the instructions must be rewritten, unless ownership is given along with instructions.

Seek advice, but make sure it's from someone who has successfully handled mistakes or adversities.

The more credible you are, the more confidence people place in you, thereby allowing you the privilege of influencing their lives.

A leader who produces other leaders multiples their influences.

Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.

Not realizing what you want is a problem of knowledge. Not pursuing what you want is a problem of motivation. Not achieving what you want is a problem of persistence.

Life doesn't do anything to you. It only reveals your spirit.

You must do right before you feel good.

The true measure of leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less.

If you can raise up leaders, you will always have followers, but if you can't raise up leaders, you will only have followers.

Successful people do what is right no matter how they feel, and by doing right, they feel good.

Take the emotional temperature of those listening to you. Facial expressions, voice inflection and posture give clues to a person's mood and attitude.

Persuasive communication involves enthusiasm, animation, audience participation, authenticity and spontaneity.

Great communication depends on two simple skills-context, which attunes a leader to the same frequency as his or her audience, and delivery, which allows a leader to phrase messages in a language the audience can understand.

It's lonely at the top, so you better know why you are there.

Those closest to me will determine the level of my success.

Teams make you better than you are, multiply your value, enable you to do what you do best, allow you to help others do their best, give you more time, provide you with companionship, help you fulfill the desires of your heart and compound your vision and effort.

Diligent follow-up and follow-through will set you apart from the crowd and communicate excellence.

Character creates consistency, and if your people know what they can expect from you, they will continue to look to you for leadership.

Connecting is the ability to identify with people and relate to them in a way that increases your influence with them.

A highly credible leader under-promises and over-delivers.

Real leadership is being the person others will gladly and confidently follow.

One is too small a number to achieve greatness.

Most People have a desire to look for the exception instead of the desire to become exceptional.

He that thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk.

Stay focused instead of getting offended or off track by others.

Growth inside fuels growth outside.

A leader who develops people adds; a leader who develops leaders multiplies.

Character makes trust possible, and trust is the foundation of leadership.

You are the only person who can label what you do a failure. Failure is subjective.

Find something you like to do so much that you would gladly do it for nothing; then learn to do it so well that people are happy to pay you for it.