Quotes on Powerful Leaders

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.

A great leader's courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.

A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be.

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.

Earn your leadership every day.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

If you think you are leading and turn around to see no one following, then you are just taking a walk.

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: Try to please everybody.

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.

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

In this world a man must either be anvil or hammer.

Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position.

To lead people, walk beside them ... As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate ... When the best leader's work is done the people say, 'We did it ourselves!

A ruler should be slow to punish and swift to reward.

High sentiments always win in the end. The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.

You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.