Leadership quotes
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“Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.”
Source: Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”
This quote is widely attributed to Margaret Thatcher on various websites, and also appears in a number of books, including The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, Columbia University Press (1989), ed. Robert Andrews, p. 320 : ISBN 0231069901. 9780231069908 , but without any further source information such as date, location or any other context.
One valid Thatcher quote which may be the basis for the version above appears in the Second Carlton Lecture http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105799 (‘Why Democracy Will Last’), delivered at the Carlton Club, London (November 26, 1984) : Mr. Chairman, each generation has to stand up for democracy. It can’t take anything for granted and may have to fight fundamental battles anew. You know that marvellous quotation from Goethe : ‘That which thy fathers bequeathed thee / Earn it anew if thou would possess it.’
Thatcher also expressed this thought in a Speech to Atlantic Bridge (May 14, 2003) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/111266, delivered at the St. Regis Hotel, New York City : My friends, every generation has to fight anew the battle for liberty.
Disputed
“You do not lead by hitting people over the head -- that's assault, not leadership.”
“As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.”
“Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.”
“In matters of style, swim with the current: in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
As quoted in Careertracking: 26 success Shortcuts to the Top (1988) by James Calano and Jeff Salzman; though used in an address by Bill Clinton (31 March 1997), and sometimes cited to Notes on the State of Virginia (1787) no earlier occurence of this has yet been located.
Disputed
“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”
1950s, First Inaugural Address (1953)
Context: We must be ready to dare all for our country. For history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. We must acquire proficiency in defense and display stamina in purpose. We must be willing, individually and as a Nation, to accept whatever sacrifices may be required of us. A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. These basic precepts are not lofty abstractions, far removed from matters of daily living. They are laws of spiritual strength that generate and define our material strength. Patriotism means equipped forces and a prepared citizenry. Moral stamina means more energy and more productivity, on the farm and in the factory. Love of liberty means the guarding of every resource that makes freedom possible--from the sanctity of our families and the wealth of our soil to the genius of our scientists.
“If you want to make enemies, try to change something.”
Address to World's Salesmanship Congress http://books.google.com/books?id=w0IOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA286&dq=%22want+to+make+enemies,+try+to+change+something%22, Detroit (10 July 1916)
1910s
Broca's Brain (1979), p. 64 http://books.google.com/books?id=90DuAAAAMAAJ
Source: Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
Context: The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
The attribution to Shaw comes from Leadership Skills for Managers (2000) by Marlene Caroselli, p. 71. But this quote seems more likely to come from William H. Whyte. The Biggest Problem in Communication Is the Illusion That It Has Taken Place, Quote Investigator, 2014-08-31, 2015-11-09 http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/31/illusion/,
Misattributed
Speaking as the Director of USIA, in testimony before a Congressional Committee (May 1963) http://pdaa.publicdiplomacy.org/?page_id=6
Context: American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that.
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”
1963, Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas
Context: It is fitting that these two symbols of Dallas progress are united in the sponsorship of this meeting, for they represent the best qualities, I am told, of leadership and learning in this city — and leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. The advancement of learning depends on community leadership for financial and political support and the products of that learning, in turn, are essential to the leadership's hopes for continued progress and prosperity. It is not a coincidence that those communities possessing the best in research and graduate facilities — from MIT to Cal Tech — tend to attract the new and growing industries. […] This link between leadership and learning is not only essential at the community level, it is even more indispensable in world affairs. Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this country's security. In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America's leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason, or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.
“it's wrong to be right; it's right to be wrong.”
Watson, Jr. cited in: Joseph Mancuso (1975) Managing technology products. p. 160.
“Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.”
Quoted in The Congressional Record, August 24, 1967 http://books.google.com/books?id=jTs4AQAAMAAJ&q=%22Problems+are+only+opportunities+in+work+clothes%22&pg=PA88#v=onepage
Variant: Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes.
War As I Knew It (1947) "Reflections and Suggestions"
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.”
Warren Bennis, cited in: Dianna Daniels Booher (1991) Executive's portfolio of model speeches for all occasions. p. 34
1990s
“T is what you will,—or will be what you would.”
First Week, Third Day.
La Semaine; ou, Création du monde (1578)
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
Peter Drucker, and Warren Bennis, as quoted in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989) by Stephen R. Covey, p. 101
1980s
“The business of business is business.”
Widely attributed to Milton Friedman, and sometimes cited as being in his work Capitalism and Freedom (1962) this is also attributed to Alfred P. Sloan, sometimes with citation of a statement of 1964, but sometimes with attestations to his use of it as a motto as early as 1923.
Disputed
“It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.”
As quoted in Born to Run : Origins of the Political Career (2003) by Ronald Keith Gaddie, p. 119
Quoted in "The Military Quotation Book" (2002) by James Charlton, p. 83
Disputed
“Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions..”
Managing, Chapter Six (Leadership), p. 111.
“Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.”
Warren Bennis cited in: Cecil O. Kemp, Jr. (2000) Wisdom Honor & Hope: The Inner Path to True Greatness. p. 207
2000s
“The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.”
Bennis (1989, p. 45), cited in: Terrence Mech, Gerard B. McCabe (1998) Leadership and Academic Librarians. p. 56
1980s
“You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too”
Reported in The Leadership of Speaker Sam Rayburn, Collected Tributes of His Congressional Colleagues (1961), p. 34; House Doc. 87–247.
As quoted in "America's Best Leaders: Benjamin Carson, Surgeon and Children's Advocate" http://www.usnews.com/news/best-leaders/articles/2008/11/19/americas-best-leaders-benjamin-carson-surgeon-and-childrens-advocate, U.S. News (November 19, 2008)
“All our dreams can come true — if we have the courage to pursue them.”
Source: How to Be Like Walt : Capturing the Magic Every Day of Your Life (2004), Ch. 3 : Imagination Unlimited, p. 63; Unsourced variant: All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them.
“Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.”
In support of John Kerry at the Democratic National Convention, Boston, MA, July 26, 2004
2000s
“In life to handle yourself, use your head, but to handle others, use your heart.”
Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago
“The business of business is business.”
Widely attributed to Friedman, and sometimes cited as being in his work Capitalism and Freedom (1962) this is also attributed to Alfred P. Sloan, sometimes with citation of a statement of 1964, but sometimes with attestations to his use of it as a motto as early as 1923.
Disputed
As quoted in Hearts Touched With Fire: My 500 Favorite Inspirational Quotations (2004) by Elizabeth Hanford Dole, p. 143
Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World (1954), by Louis Fischer, p. 177
Mahatma Gandhi to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, August 29, 1947 https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/ghp_booksection_detail/Ny0yMzUtMg==#page/258/mode/2up. In Letters to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur. 1st edition (April, 1961), p. 246
Posthumous publications (1950s and later)
“Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.”
2000s, The Powell Principles (2003)
Montrose and Leadership (1930), p 24; republished in Men and Deeds (1977)
“The highest of distinctions is service to others.”
Taken from the British Royal Family History website, http://www.britroyals.com/windsor.asp?id=george6
Attributed
This is presented as a statement of 1877, as quoted in From Telegraph to Light Bulb with Thomas Edison (2007) by Deborah Headstrom-Page, p. 22.
1800s
“The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.”
Mail on Sunday, 2 October 1994.
1990s
“Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.”
Managing, Chapter Six (Leadership), p. 99.
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
Peter Drucker, and Warren Bennis, as quoted by Covey, in The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People (1989), this has sometimes become misattributed to him.
Misattributed
“When placed in command — take charge.”
Quoted in "Leadership" (2007) by David M. Atkinson, p. 42
“Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.”
In tranquillo esse quisque gubernator potest.
Maxim 358
Sentences
“A teacher affects eternity: he can never tell where his influence stops.”
Henry Brooks Adams, in The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
Misattributed
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Misattributed
Variant: We are what we repeatedly do, therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit.
Source: Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers (1926), reprinted in Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, 1991, ISBN 0-671-73916-6], Ch. II: Aristotle and Greek Science; part VII: Ethics and the Nature of Happiness: "Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; 'these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions'; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: 'the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life... for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy'" (p. 76). The quoted phrases within the quotation are from the Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, 4; Book I, 7. The misattribution is from taking Durant's summation of Aristotle's ideas as being the words of Aristotle himself.
“That is the first thing to learn — not to seek.”
1960s, Freedom From The Known (1969)
Context: That is the first thing to learn — not to seek. When you seek you are really only window-shopping. The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality, or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosophers or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself and that is why you must know yourself. Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self. To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.
“Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
(Proverbs 29:18) Christian transhumanists see science and technology as the key to bring lasting peace and hasten the Second Coming of Christ.
The Transhumanism Handbook, 2019
Source: Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't
“You've got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is.”
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply!”
“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.”
“There is value in NOT doing a thing.”
Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Twitter