Leadership quotations

Leadership is intangible, and therefore no weapon ever designed can replace it.
Omar N. Bradley

The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.
Tony Blair

The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it.
Mao Tse-Tung

The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
Ralph Nader

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.
John Kenneth Galbraith

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.
Eric Hoffer

Educationists should build the capacities of the spirit of inquiry, creativity, entrepreneurial and moral leadership among students and become their role model.
Abdul Kalam

The things journalists should pay attention to are the issues the political leadership agrees on, rather than to their supposed antagonisms.
Michael Pollan

A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.
John Updike

The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.
James Buchanan

Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.
Jesse Jackson

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.
Norman Schwarzkopf

You learn far more from negative leadership than from positive leadership. Because you learn how not to do it. And, therefore, you learn how to do it.
Norman Schwarzkopf

The Dalai Lama. He is a very wise man of great inner peace who believes that happiness is the purpose of our lives. Through his teachings and leadership, he continues to make this world a better place in which to live.
Sidney Sheldon

Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.
Harold S. Geneen

Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.
Harold S. Geneen

Honor bespeaks worth. Confidence begets trust. Service brings satisfaction. Cooperation proves the quality of leadership.
James Cash Penney

In our system leadership is by consent, not command. To lead a President must persuade. Personal contacts and experiences help shape his thinking. They can be critical to his persuasiveness and thus to his leadership.
Donald Rumsfeld

Presidential leadership needn't always cost money. Look for low- and no-cost options. They can be surprisingly effective.
Donald Rumsfeld

Don't necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.
Donald Rumsfeld

I think a major act of leadership right now, call it a radical act, is to create the places and processes so people can actually learn together, using our experiences.
Margaret J. Wheatley

I believe that the capacity that any organisation needs is for leadership to appear anywhere it is needed, when it is needed.
Margaret J. Wheatley

I'm sad to report that in the past few years, ever since uncertainty became our insistent 21st century companion, leadership has taken a great leap backwards to the familiar territory of command and control.
Margaret J. Wheatley

I think what actually works best is local-level individual targeting of key leadership nodes.
John Abizaid

Education is the mother of leadership.
Wendell Willkie

The more that social democracy develops, grows, and becomes stronger, the more the enlightened masses of workers will take their own destinies, the leadership of their movement, and the determination of its direction into their own hands.
Rosa Luxemburg

An old African leader says about leadership, he says that leadership should never be shared; it should always remain in the hands of the dispossessed people. We will lead the revolution.
H. Rap Brown

An old African leader says about leadership, he says that leadership should never be shared; it should always remain in the hands of the dispossessed people. We will lead the revolution.
H. Rap Brown

We must recognize that as the dominant power in the world we have a special responsibility. In addition to protecting our national interests, we must take the leadership in protecting the common interests of humanity.
George Soros

Leadership must be established from the top down.
Sam Nunn

One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.
Arnold H. Glasow

The art of leadership... consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.
Adolf Hitler

We in the press, by our power, can actually undermine leadership.
Christiane Amanpour

It is the responsibility of leadership to provide opportunity, and the responsibility of individuals to contribute.
William Pollard

Leadership is the key to 99 percent of all successful efforts.
Erskine Bowles

We need leadership, and we need it now.
Byron Dorgan

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

I emphasize self-esteem, self-confidence, and dignity, not as an ideal, but as a real test of community organization. Without leadership development, community organizations do not have staying power.
Paul Wellstone

And the whole world, the whole world that believes in freedom, whether you're talking about personal freedom, economic freedom, religious freedom, they look to the United States for leadership; and you're part of that leadership.
Don Nickles

And I'd say one of the great lessons I've learned over the past couple of decades, from a management perspective, is that really when you come down to it, it really is all about people and all about leadership.
Steve Case

In this nation, leadership is dollars.
Norman Lear

We live in a time where government is not a leadership thing, it's more a business that's out there and running riot, so I guess the people have to go out there and say stuff.
Yahoo Serious

Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.
John Naisbitt

The art of communication is the language of leadership.
James Humes