Quotes on True Leadership

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.

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.

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders.

The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.

A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.

A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.

Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.

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

The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born - that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.

Great leaders are willing to sacrifice the numbers to save the people. Poor leaders sacrifice the people to save the numbers.

True Leadership always begins with the inner person.

Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less...titles don't have much value when it comes to leading. True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned, it comes only from influence, and that cannot be mandated. It must be earned.

The exercise of true leadership is inversely proportional to the exercise of power.

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

Leaders aren't born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that's the price we'll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.

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

A good general not only sees the way to victory; he also knows when victory is impossible.