John C. Maxwell

By choosing to embrace and practice good values every day, you choose the higher course in life. And your life goes in a direction that you will always feel good about. You may not always get what you desire, but you will always be the person you desire to be.

Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.

Everything rises and falls on leadership.

If a person doesn't govern his temper, his temper will govern him.

An idea is worthless unless you use it.

Every new level of growth we hope to experience as leaders calls for a new level of change. You cannot have one without the other. If you want to be a better leader, get ready to make some trades.

It's true that charisma can make a person stand out for a moment, but character sets a person apart for a lifetime.

Success is due to our stretching to the challenges of life. Failure comes when we shrink from them.

Reaching the top is a monumental achievement, but remaining there may be the most spectacular feat of all.

You build trust with others each time you choose integrity over image, truth over convenience, or honor over personal gain.

There are two paths people can take. They can either play now and pay later, or pay now and play later. Regardless of the choice, one thing is certain. Life will demand a payment.

Often people fail to start or complete a task because they don't see any connection between what they're doing and what they really want to accomplish in life.

Earn the right to be heard by listening to others. Seek to understand a situation before making judgments about it.

Creative leaders inherently know when rules need to be challenged, and they can see when a more flexible approach should be taken.

Successful leaders have the courage to take action while others hesitate.

Making matters worse is people's natural inclination to be easy on themselves, judging themselves according to their good intentions-while holding others to a higher standard and judging them by their worst actions.

If you want to improve your world, then focus your attention on helping others.

To achieve all that is possible, we must attempt the impossible. To be all we can be, we must dream of being more.

Practice the 101 Percent Principle. Whenever possible, find the 1 percent you do agree on in a difficult situation, and give it 100 percent of your effort.

Teamwork gives you the best opportunity to turn vision into reality.

Team leaders have to connect with their team and themselves. If they don't know their team's strengths and weaknesses, they cannot hand off responsibilities to the team. And if they don't know their own strengths and weaknesses, they will not hand off responsibilities to the team.