Top 100 Quotes About Great Leaders
#1. Culture is more important than vision. Some leaders have great vision, but have created a toxic culture where that vision will never happen.
Phil Cooke
#2. The duty of the people is to tend to their own affairs.
The duty of government is to help them do it.
This is the pasta of politics.
The inspired leader, the true prince, no matter how great, can only be sauce upon the pasta.
Bombolini
Robert Crichton
#3. Great leaders don't just know the sweet spots of their people. They tap into and unchain the infinite potential imprisoned within their people...
Assegid Habtewold
#4. Would anybody be offended if we gave a $150 million bonus to Gandhi? How about a $250 million bonus to Mother Teresa? Do we have an issue with that? None at all. Great leaders would never sacrifice the people to save the numbers. They would sooner sacrifice the numbers to save the people.
Simon Sinek
#5. The leaders who we admire who have been able to bring great change in the past - Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela - they're all inspirational religious leaders and smart tacticians. It would be nice to find the Muslim Gandhi, wouldn't it?
Dennis C. Blair
#6. I have learnt from the politics of my great country, Nigeria that there is nothing wrong with the heads of states, but there is something wrong with the state of the heads.
Ogwo David Emenike
#7. Only Jesus has prophecies made hundreds of years in advance made literally true. Only He did miracles; only His immediate followers claimed He died and rose from the dead, so in comparison, He comes out superior to other great religious leaders.
Norman Geisler
#8. I'll proudly stand with one of the great leaders this state and country have ever produced: Rick Perry.
Taya Kyle
#9. ALEC is one great organization, I think, for growing future political leaders.
Don Nickles
#10. Great leaders motivate large groups of individuals to improve the human condition.
John P. Kotter
#11. Great companies in the way they work, start with great leaders.
Steve Ballmer
#12. Even to an outsider like myself, not only in the theatre was such disunity evident, but in much else in government Spain. Alvarez del Vayo, Socialist Minister of Foreign Affairs, once asked, Why is it Spain's people are so great, but her leaders so small?
Langston Hughes
#13. Oh for 'Shael's sweet sake, girl, you think you can rule an empire without lying? You think your father didn't lie? Or his father? Or any of your goldy-eyed great-great-founders of Annur? It's built into the job. Bakers have flour, fishermen have nets, and leaders have lies.
Brian Staveley
#14. Great leaders are never too proud to learn.
John Donahoe
#15. I have worked for a lot of really great leaders and mentors that I felt provided me, along with many of my peers - many of them women - opportunities.
Mary Barra
#16. Our great privilege as worship leaders is to help people see through the eyes of faith how great God has actually revealed himself to be. He doesn't change. We do.
Bob Kauflin
#17. The defining qualities that will distinguish great leaders from the rest are stemmed from the mindset level.
Pearl Zhu
#18. If you want to become a great leader, you need to prepare yourself to become a great leader, and the best way to do that is to study great leaders.
Bo Schembechler
#19. It takes healthy, resilient leaders and employees to achieve great results.
Sue Tetzlaff
#20. We are domesticated animals, revolving in a cage which we have built for ourselves - with its contentions, wranglings, its impossible political leaders, its gurus who exploit our self-conceit and their own with great refinement or rather crudely.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
#21. A turbulent history has taught Chinese leaders that not every problem has a solution and that too great an emphasis on total mastery over specific events could upset the harmony of the universe.
Henry Kissinger
#22. The downfall of any great nation ... always comes at the hands of it's pompous and insensitive leaders.
Timothy Pina
#23. A true leader is one who creates a favourable environment to bring out the energy and ability of his team. A great leader creates more great leaders, and does not reduce the institution to a single person.
Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum
#24. Through mutual understanding, sincerity and goodwill, and with great wisdom and broad views, the leaders on both sides should jointly initiate new opportunities for peace, stability, cooperation and mutual benefit.
Chen Shui-bian
#25. I am a leader. Leaders always get heat. They're always going against the grain. Jimi Hendrix got heat; Bob Marley got heat; Miles Davis got heat. Every great artist got heat. Heat means you're doing something right.
Ziggy Marley
#26. We need to be clear when we venerate entrepreneurs what we are venerating. They are not moral leaders. If they were moral leaders, they wouldn't be great businessmen.
Malcolm Gladwell
#27. Some great people are leaders and others are more lucky, in the right place at the right time. I'd put myself in the latter category. But I'd never call myself a normal designer of anything.
Steve Wozniak
#28. We always enter markets where the leaders are not doing a great job, so we can go in and disrupt them by offering better quality services.
Richard Branson
#29. I have seen competent leaders who stood in front of a platoon and all they saw was a platoon. But great leaders stand in front of a platoon and see it as 44 individuals, each of whom has aspirations, each of who wants to live, each of whom wants to do good.
Norman Schwarzkopf
#30. Great leaders do not see people for who they are, but who than can become. Further, the great leader compels those that follow them to become that man or woman of the future, likely exceeding the expectations of both.
Chris Alexander
#31. When we read of the great Biblical leaders, we see that it was not uncommon for God to ask them to wait, not just a day or two, but for years, until God was ready for them to act.
Gloria Gaither
#32. Great leaders genuinely care for and love the people they lead more than they love leading itself.
Rick Warren
#33. Great leaders don't succeed because they are great. They succeed because they bring out the greatness in others.
Jon Gordon
#34. Not everyone is born a great leader, but anyone can foster core leadership competencies for themselves and become actionable, effective leaders.
Ravinder Tulsiani
#35. The more noisy Negro leaders, by depicting all whites as natural and implacable enemies to their race, have done it a great disservice. Large numbers of whites who were formerly very
friendly to it, and willing to go to great lengths to help it, are now resentful and suspicious.
H.L. Mencken
#36. Great leaders have an air of confidence," he replied. "Subordinates need to look up to somebody who is still standing strong, like an oak, regardless of events around them.
Carmine Gallo
#37. (P58) It is curious how, with his stark Darwinian outlook, his elevation of war to the central place in human history, and his racism, as well as his fixation on "great leaders," Churchill's worldview resembled that of his antagonist, Hitler.
Ralph Raico
#38. All great leaders have understood that their number one responsibility is cultivating their own discipline and personal growth. Those who cannot lead themselves cannot lead others.
John C. Maxwell
#39. Great upheavals produce shock waves that widen cracks in political, economic, and security orders. Sometimes the old orders break. Yet it can be in the power of leaders and peoples to shape the directions of change.
Robert Zoellick
#40. Sometimes servant leaders focus on the servitude part and forget the leader part. Great leadership isn't about abdication of power, it about the benevolent application of that power.
Scott Hammerle
#41. Too many companies believe people are interchangeable. Truly gifted people never are. They have unique talents. Such people cannot be forced into roles they are not suited for, nor should they be. Effective leaders allow great people to do the work they were born to do.
Warren G. Bennis
#42. Great leadership is about human experiences, not processes.
Lance Secretan
#43. If I can inspire some leaders, that would be great. I don't know if I want to be a leader.
Joe Wurzelbacher
#44. If you will always remember your age and forget your dream, you will live great years and narrow impacts will come out of it.
Israelmore Ayivor
#46. One cannot deny that if a person has the energy to get you interested and excited, then that is half the battle won, like all the great leaders had this quality.
Gale Harold
#47. It's a pity that the land of great leaders like Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka and Akbar, has to be led by a dummy PM. - Shruti Ranjan
Tuhin A. Sinha
#48. The great need of the world has always been for leaders. With more leaders we could have more industry. More industry, more employment and comfort for all.
Henry Ford
#49. It is said that great leaders are born, not made. The saying is true to this degree, that no man can persuade people to do what he wants them to do, unless he genuinely likes people, and believes that what he wants them to do is to their own advantage.
Bruce Barton
#50. Great leaders, like Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos, also focused on the long term.
Reed Hastings
#52. Leaders must embrace those they need the most versus holding them hostage.
Curt Coffman
#53. We Americans are lucky to live in a country with a history full of noble ideas, great leaders, and awe-inspiring accomplishments. Sadly, many of our elites want no part of it.
Michael Barone
#54. Religious leaders and men of science have the same ideals; they want to understand and explain the universe of which they are part; they both earnestly desire to solve, if a solution be ever possible, that great riddle: Why are we here?
Arthur Keith
#55. All great leaders find a sense of balance through their levels of reception. For instance, those who support a leader may soften him, those who ignore him may challenge him, and those who oppose him may stroke his ego.
Criss Jami
#56. Great leaders make leadership look so easy.
Pat Heim
#57. You talk about seeing around corners as an element of success. That's what differentiates the good leader. Not many people have it. Not many people can predict that corner. That would be a characteristic of great leaders.
Jack Welch
#58. Preaching the Word is the primary task of the Church, the primary task of the leaders of the Church, the people who are set in this position of authority; and we must not allow anything to deflect us from this, however good the cause, however great the need.
David Lloyd-Jones
#59. Great leaders have no need for reputation. Reputation is what you are in public. Character is who you are in private.
Myles Munroe
#60. What you can't enforce, do not command.
Sophocles
#61. All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill at dancing.
Moliere
#62. I'm from the school that great performers and great leaders create more great leaders. Give people other experiences, other responsibilities. Have them join organizations within the company and outside the company.
John Stumpf
#63. It is a great privilege, as well as our responsibility, to pray for our government leaders.
Billy Graham
#64. Great men are usually the products of their times and one of the men developed by these times takes rank with the greatest railroad leaders in history.
John Moody
#65. During the course of my football and business careers, I have had the great honor of meeting and associating with many outstanding leaders.
Bart Starr
#66. Hines Ward, Plaxico Burress, Jerome Bettis-they are great leaders. I listen to everything they say.
Ben Roethlisberger
#67. The best leaders are the most dedicated learners. Read great books daily.
Robin Sharma
#68. The real source of her villainy came from those qualities that supposedly make men great leaders- a thirst for power, relentless drive paired with massive ego, and a total lack of emotions.
Mike Madrid
#69. Great leaders create movements by empowering the tribe to communicate. They establish the foundation for people to make connections, as opposed to commanding people to follow them.
Seth Godin
#70. Workers are on the streets today with a clear message to Europe's leaders. There is a great danger that workers are going to pay the price for the reckless speculation that took place in financial markets.
John Monks
#71. Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths.
John Peter Zenger
#72. In a servant leadership culture we learn by choice or example that if we want to be great, we have to serve others respectfully.
Vern Dosch
#73. If you want to be a great leader, remember to treat all people with respect at all times. For one, because you never know when you'll need their help. And two, because it's a sign you respect people, which all great leaders do.
Simon Sinek
#74. Great leaders are pragmatists who can deal with difficult realities but still have the optimism and courage to act.
Nitin Nohria
#75. Great leaders take care of their men first, and then worry about their own needs.
Bill O'Reilly
#76. So great leaders don't try to please everyone. Great leaders don't water down their message in order to make the tribe a bit bigger. Instead, they realize that a motivated, connected tribe in the midst of a movement is far more powerful than a larger group could ever be.
Seth Godin
#77. Caesar broke the law when he crossed the Rubicon," Frank said. "Great leaders have to think out side the box sometimes.
Rick Riordan
#78. The great political tragedy of our time is that conservative leaders in America have chosen to use their superior messaging and political skills to thwart serious action on global warming.
Joseph J. Romm
#79. Larger-than-life, celebrity leaders who ride in from the outside are negatively correlated with going from good to great. Ten of eleven good-to-great CEOs came from inside the company, whereas the comparison companies tried outside CEOs six times more often.
James C. Collins
#80. The genius of guys like Lincoln and Reagan and FDR - the great communicator leaders - is that they're actually educators, so they understand when they use a phrase that they have to explain it, because, by definition, you won't understand it or they wouldn't need to be using it.
Newt Gingrich
#81. Ordinary leaders move mounds,
good leaders move hills,
but great leaders move mountains.
Matshona Dhliwayo
#82. Successful people become great leaders when they learn to shift the focus from themselves to others.
Marshall Goldsmith
#84. Nowhere has democracy ever worked well without a great measure of local self-government, providing a school of political training for the people at large as much as for their future leaders.
Friedrich August Von Hayek
#85. Great leaders are inspired by a challenge, a need, a problem, an issue that needs to be corrected.
Del Suggs
#87. The great military leaders of the past have gone, their empires have crumbled and burned to ashes. But the empire of Jesus, built solidly and majestically on the foundation of love, is still growing.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#88. A great advantage of a large corporation is supposed to be the large pool of talent in which its leaders can find and groom high achievers and successors.
Margaret Heffernan
#89. America is a country of entrepreneurship and great business leaders.
Nicky Oppenheimer
#90. Very few of the great leaders ever get through their careers without failing, sometimes dramatically.
Phil Crosby
#91. Dreams are where we visit the many lands and landscapes of human possibility and discover the one where we feel at home. The great religious leaders were all dreamers.
Jonathan Sacks
#92. The great leaders of the second world war alliance, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, understood the twin sides of destruction and salvation. Their war aims were not only to defeat fascism, but to create a world of shared prosperity.
Jeffrey Sachs
#93. Great leaders create memorable journeys
John Stein
#94. I am prepared to admit that when it comes to dealing with the House and Senate leaders, Obama is terrible. But he's great with the public. Which hates the House and Senate as much as he does.
Gail Collins
#95. Whatever you want is behind the mountain of struggles. Nothing great comes with ease.
Israelmore Ayivor
#96. Inspiration doesn't lie on the sleeves of great leaders, but it is instead hidden in the hearts of the simple souls who seldom show the potential they carry with them.
Sanhita Baruah
#97. The good-to-great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes. They never aspired to be put on a pedestal or become unreachable icons. They were seemingly ordinary people quietly producing extraordinary results.
James C. Collins
#98. The captain of a ship can run a great ship, but he can't do anything about the tides.
Matthew Norman
#99. Great leaders don't play by the existing rules.
Mark V. Hurd
#100. You can be a great man and still be a fool. Many of our country's leaders can attest to that. Were they still living.
Rachel E. Carter
