Being a leader–being the boss–can feel like the hardest job of all. No matter how large your team, no matter how collaborative and engaged your coaches and gymnasts, ultimately it’s up to you–which means you need to find inspiration and motivation inside yourself.
At the same time, though, it’s possible to gain inspiration and motivation from other leaders who have been there, done that–and done it extremely well.
Here are some great quotes about leadership that can help you become an even better leader–both today and for the rest of your career.
- “My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.” Steve Jobs
- “Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flow charts. It is about one life influencing another.” John C. Maxwell
- “Wisdom equals knowledge plus courage. You have to not only know what to do and when to do it, but you have to also be brave enough to follow through.” Jarod Kintz
- “In a battle between two ideas, the best one doesn’t necessarily win. No, the idea that wins is the one with the most fearless heretic behind it.” Seth Godin
- “Remember, teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.” Patrick Lencioni
- “Leadership is an action, not a position.” Donald McGannon
- “I cannot give you a formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.” Herbert Bayard Swope
- “Show me the man you honor and I will know what kind of man you are.” Thomas John Carlisle
- “The challenge of leadership is to be strong but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” Jim Rohn
- “To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” Eleanor Roosevelt
- “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” William Arthur Ward
- “Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” Robert Louis Stevenson
- “Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.” Tina Fey
- “Power isn’t control at all–power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own.” Beth Revis
- “Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” George Patton
- “I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.” Lao Tzu
- “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
- “Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.” John F. Kennedy
- “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Peter F. Drucker
- “You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.” Woodrow Wilson
- “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” Albert Schweitzer
- “Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.” John C. Maxwell
- “The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones.” Brandon Sanderson
- “You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.” Steve Jobs
- “A leader…is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” Nelson Mandela
- “Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.” Colin Powell
- “Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas?” Margaret Thatcher
- “A leader is a dealer in hope.” Napoleon
- “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” Theodore Roosevelt
- “I don’t see myself being special; I just see myself having more responsibilities than the next man. People look to me to do things for them, to have answers.” Tupac Shakur
- “If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.” Henry David Thoreau
- “I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.” Robert E. Lee
- “The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.” Colin Powell
- “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.” Rosalynn Carter
- “There is a difference between being a leader and being a boss. Both are based on authority. A boss demands blind obedience; a leader earns his authority through understanding and trust.” Klaus Balkenhol
- “You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” Nancy D. Solomon
- “In the end, it is important to remember that we cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” Max De Pree
- “We’re here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark.” Whoopi Goldberg
- “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.” Alexander the Great
- “If you really want the key to success, start by doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing.” Brad Szollose
- “A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.” J.P. Morgan
- “If you spend your life trying to be good at everything, you will never be great at anything.” Tom Rath
- “Average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire others to raise their own bar.” Orrin Woodward
- “Don’t blow off another’s candle for it won’t make yours shine brighter.” Jaachynma N.E. Agu
- “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” Peter F. Drucker
- “When you put together deep knowledge about a subject that intensely matters to you, charisma happens. You gain courage to share your passion, and when you do that, folks follow.” Jerry Porras
- “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: We did it ourselves.” Lao Tzu
- “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” Martin Luther King Jr.
- “It is absolutely necessary…for me to have persons that can think for me, as well as execute orders.” George Washington
- “When eagles are silent, parrots begin to chatter.” Winston Churchill
- “A leader takes people where they would never go on their own.” Hans Finzel
- “You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.” Ken Kesey
- “A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.” Max Lucado
- “Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.” Brian Tracy
- “I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” Ralph Nader
- “Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.” Publilius Syrus
- “People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.” John Maxwell
- “To have long-term success as a coach or in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way.” Pat Riley
- “A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.” John Maxwell
- “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” George Patton
- “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy” Possibly Napoleon
- “No workout plan for bars survives contact with the chalk bucket” Mike Hunger