Whether learning from leaders throughout history or studying the craft from modern teachers, obtaining information and insight from others’ knowledge helps today’s leaders guide to the best of their abilities. With this in mind, what does leadership mean? Which leadership qualities do leaders need? And what is the purpose of a leader? These inspirational quotes about leadership from some of the greatest leaders of all time serve to answer these questions.
Share and discuss these motivational leadership and learning quotes with your team, an accountability partner, or mentor to dive deeper into their meaning.
Inspirational Leadership Quotes
1. “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” —Jack Welch
2. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” —John Quincy Adams
3. “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.” —Ronald Reagan
4. “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” —John C. Maxwell
5. “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” —Peter Drucker
6. “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.”—Douglas MacArthur
7. “A boss has the title, the leader has the people.”—Simon Sinek
8. “If you think you are leading and turn around to see no one following you, then you are just taking a walk.”—John C. Maxwell
9. “Leadership is an action, not a position.” —Donald McGannon
10. “Leadership is influence.” —John C. Maxwell
11. “Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.” —Bill Bradley
12. “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
13. “You manage things; you lead people.” —Grace Murray Hopper
14. “The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them.” —Carlos Ghosn
15. “Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.” —Warren G. Bennis
16. “Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.” —John C. Maxwell
17. “The task of the leader is to get their people from where they are to where they have not been.” —Henry Kissinger
18. “Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead.” —Pete Hoekstra
19. A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see.” —Leroy Eimes
20. “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” —Warren G. Bennis
21. “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
22. “You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.” —Sam Rayburn
23. “The supreme quality of leadership is integrity.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower
24. “Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.” —Brian Tracy
25. “The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.” —Tony Blair
26. “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” —John F. Kennedy
27. “The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.” —Ray Kroc
28. “Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” —Margaret Fuller
29. “The fastest way to change team culture is to change the leadership.” —Josh Axe
30. “Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.” —Brian Tracy
31. “If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself and the organization gets pulled up with you.” —Indra Nooyi
32. “Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.” —Stephen Covey
33. “One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” —Arnold Glasow
34. “A good leader leads the people from above them. A great leader leads the people from within them.” —M. D. Arnold
35. “The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.” —John C. Maxwell
36. “Great leaders don’t set out to be a leader, they set out to make a difference. It’s never about the role, it’s always about the goal.” —Lisa Haisha
37. “The X-factor of great leadership is not personality, it’s humility.” —Jim Collins
38. “No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.” —Andrew Carnegie
39. “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” —Ralph Nader
40. “The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.” —John Buchan
41. “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
42. “The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them.” —John C. Maxwell
43. “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” —Bill Gates
44. “You can only lead someone as far as you are willing to go yourself” —Josh Axe
45. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
46. “Winning companies win because they have good leaders who nurture the development of other leaders at all levels of the organization.” —Noel Tichy
47. “The challenge of leadership is to: be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” —Jim Rohn
48. “Growing other leaders from the ranks isn’t just the duty of the leader, it’s an obligation.” —Warren G. Bennis
49. “True leadership is servant leadership. Leaders put the interests of others ahead of their own and look to add value by serving them and meeting their greatest needs.” —Josh Axe
50. “A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.” —Arnold Glasgow
51. “Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” —Sam Walton
52. “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because they want to do it.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower
53. “Leadership is like a tree, in order to survive and bear the fruit of success you must have the deep roots of character, convictions, values, and purpose.” —Josh Axe
54. “Leaders surround themselves with great people, delegate authority, then get out of the way.” —Ronald Reagan
55. “The most powerful leadership tool you have is your own personal example.” —John Wooden
56. “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” —Warren Bennis
57. “The very essence of leadership is casting a vision that people are willing to sacrifice for and then following your lead into seeing that vision become a reality.” —Josh Axe
58. “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
59. “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” —Harvey S. Firestone
60. “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.” —Vince Lombardi
61. “The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” —Jim Rohn
62. “If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.” —Dolly Parton
63. “If you delegate tasks, you create followers. If you delegate authority, you create leaders.” —Craig Groeschel
64. “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.” —Steve Jobs
65. “Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership.” —James Humes
66. “Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.” —Colin Powell
67. “Servant leadership is all about creating clear goals, then rolling up your sleeves and doing whatever it takes to help your people win.” —Ken Blanchard
68. “People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.” —John C. Maxwell
69. “Earn your leadership every day.” —Michael Jordan
70. “Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.” —Diogenes of Sinope
71. “One of the tests of leadership is to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” —Arnold Glasgow
72. “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
73. “Leaders don’t adapt to the energy in a room, they influence the energy in a room.” —Josh Axe
74. “A leader is a dealer in hope.” —Napoleon Bonaparte
75. “A leader sees greatness in other people. He nor she can be much of a leader if all she sees is herself.” —Maya Angelou
76. “A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader. A great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
77. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” —Steve Jobs
78. “A genuine leader is not in search of consensus, but a molder of consensus.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.
Greatest Takeaways from These Top Quotes
Each person listed at the end of these leadership quotes formed their words through lived experiences guiding and teaching others. While they all held different positions and had different leadership styles, they share common beliefs about what being a leader means. Leadership isn’t about authority—it’s about influence. Great leaders inspire and motivate people to come together and serve a cause greater than themselves. In doing so, they change the world.
Additionally, one of the other greatest points made in these quotes is that leaders multiply leaders at all levels. Their words and actions are teaching moments. The leaders that come before us are guides and mentors who help us model our own behavior as we continue choosing the journey to serve others. There’s a reason one or more of these leadership and learning quotes sent a rush of inspiration running through your heart and mind. They speak truth into who you are, who you want to be, and who you’re becoming.
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