Quotes on Leadership

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

There are times when leadership needs to take a bold move forward. And there are times when the leadership needs to act on the basis of what the grass roots say. You need to have your political thermometer constantly in the political waters to know when to give leadership in what way.

An Airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.

Dedicate yourself to a core set of values. Without them, you will never be able to find personal fulfillment, and you will never be able to lead effectively.

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down.

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

If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

We have this myth that extroverts are better salespeople. As a result, extroverts are more likely to enter sales; extroverts are more likely to get promoted in sales jobs. But if you look at the correlation between extroversion and actual sales performance - that is, how many times the cash register actually rings - the correlation's almost zero.

For success of any mission, it is necessary to have creative leadership. Creative leadership is vital for government, non-governmental organisations as well as for industries.

While society cannot provide employment for its members, the production/work/income nexus has to be abandoned as a justification for our present parsimony to the unemployed. An assumption cannot be used to justify making second-class citizens of those who are unfortunate enough to constitute living proof of the inaccuracy of that assumption.

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

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

As a leader, you will never get ahead until your people are behind you.

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.

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.

The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.

We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases and the alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine that these things could be done to us.

Leadership is simply the ability of an individual to coalesce the efforts of other individuals toward achieving common goals. It boils down to looking after your people and ensuring that, from top to bottom, everyone feels part of the team.

It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.