Quotes and Sayings About Leadership

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."
--Peter F. Drucker

Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.
--George S. Patton

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
--Dwight Eisenhower

"The difference between a boss and a leader: a boss says, 'Go!' - a leader says, 'Let's go!'"

"A leader is a dealer in hope."
--Napoleon Bonaparte

"A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune."

"I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?"
--Benjamin Disraeli

"The ultimate leader is one who is willing to develop people to the point that they eventually surpass him or her in knowledge and ability."

"The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it."
--Elaine Agather "People who work sitting down make more than those who work standing up."

"Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too."
--Robert Half

"Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men -- the other 999 follow women."
--Groucho Marx

"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet. --Theodore M. Hesburgh

"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

"A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd."
--James Crook

"If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."
--The Bible

"Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all."
--Dwight D. Eisenhower

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worse when they despise him. But of a good leader who talks little when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: We did it ourselves."
--Lao-Tzu

"What you cannot enforce, do not command."
--Sophocles

"People cannot be managed. Inventories can be managed, but people must be led."
--H. Ross Perot "Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility."
--St. Augustine

"Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes."
--Lewis Grizzard

"It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead -- and find no one there."
--Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The question, 'Who ought to be boss?', is like asking, 'Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?' Obviously, the man who can sing tenor."
--Henry Ford