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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
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I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.
-Mahatma Gandhi
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Although leadership and the exercise of power are distinguishable activities, they overlap and interweave in important ways. Consider a corporate chief executive officer who has the gift for inspiring and motivating people, who has vision, who lifts the spirits of employees with a resulting rise in productivity and quality of product, and a drop in turnover and absenteeism. That is leadership. But evidence emerges that the company is falling behind in the technology race. One day with the stroke of a pen the CEO increases the funds available to the research division. That is the exercise of power. The stroke of a pen could have been made by an executive with none of the qualities one associates with leadership.
-John W. Gardner
On Leadership, ch. 6, Free Press (1990)
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I don't believe in just ordering people to do things. You have to sort of grab an oar and row with them.
-Harold S. Geneen
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Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and where ever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power.
-Henry George
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There are no office hours for leaders.
-Cardinal J. Gibbons
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A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.
-Arnold Glasgow
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One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.
-Arnold Glasgow
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Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one's self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea.
-Johann von Goethe
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Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.
-Lewis Grizzard
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The leader seeks to communicate his vision to his followers. He captures their attention with his optimistic intuition of possible solutions to their needs. He influences them by the dynamism of his faith. He demonstrates confidence that the challenge can be met, the need resolved, the crisis overcome.
-John Haggai
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Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too.
-Robert Half
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Those who can command themselves command others.
-William Hazlitt
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Ethics must begin at the top of an organization. It is a leadership issue and the chief executive must set the example.
-Edward Hennessy
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There is great force hidden in a gentle command.
-George Herbert
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The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.
-Theodore Hesburgh
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A true measure of your worth includes all the benefits others have gained from your success.
-Cullen Hightower
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The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.
-Adolf Hitler
Mein Kampf
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The art of leadership, as displayed by really great popular leaders in all ages, consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention into sections. The more the militant energies of the people are directed towards one objective the more will new recruits join the movement, attracted by the magnetism of its unified action, and thus the striking power will be all the more enhanced. The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to the one category; for weak and wavering natures among a leader's following may easily begin to be dubious about the justice of their own cause if they have to face different enemies.
As soon as the vacillating masses find themselves facing an opposition that is made up of different groups of enemies their sense of objectivity will be aroused and they will ask how is it that all the others can be in the wrong and they themselves, and their movement, alone in the right.
-Adolf Hitler
Mein Kampf, vol. 1, ch. 3, 1925
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It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence.
-Eric Hoffer
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GOD, give us men! A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office can not buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty, and in private thinking;
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps.
-Josiah Gilbert Holland
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Coaching is nothing more than eliminating mistakes before you get fired.
-Lou Holtz
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In the great mass of our people there are plenty individuals of intelligence from among whom leadership can be recruited.
-Herbert Hoover
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He who influences the thought of his times influences the times that follow.
-Elbert Hubbard
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One secret of leadership is that the mind of a leader never turns off. Leaders even when they are sightseers or spectators, are active; not passive observers.
-James C. Humes
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Books about Leadership
