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Leadership Quotes
"I believe President Bush is one of the most dangerous leaders in the world. He is not in search of peaceful and diplomatic solutions."
47
"The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself."
47
"Leadership is a privilege to better the lives of others. It is not an opportunity to satisfy personal greed."
47
"Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves - and by which they are willing to be judged."
45
"Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it."
44
"It is very hard to be a female leader. While it is assumed that any man, no matter how tough, has a soft side... and female leader is assumed to be one-dimensional."
44
"Presenting leadership as a list of carefully defined qualities (like strategic, analytical, and performance-oriented) no longer holds. Instead, true leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed.... Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection."
43
"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."
42
"To be a successful soldier or a politician, one must be able to suppress one's finer feelings and emotions."
42
"Educationists should build the capacities of the spirit of inquiry, creativity, entrepreneurial and moral leadership among students and become their role model."
41
"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
41
"The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them."
40
"First I shake the whole Apple tree, that the ripest might fall. Then I climb the tree and shake each limb, and then each branch and then each twig, and then I look under each leaf."
40
"Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time."
39
"A leader is someone who helps improve the lives of other people or improve the system they live under."
39
"When employees are happy, they are your very best ambassadors."
38
"He who molds the public sentiment... makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make."
38
"Great leaders are willing to sacrifice the numbers to save the people. Poor leaders sacrifice the people to save the numbers."
37
"The government is us; we are the government, you and I."
37
"People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It is important that people look forward to coming to work in the morning and enjoy working."
36
"There are those who say to you - we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say we are 172 years late."
36
"To lead the people walk behind them."
36
"To supervise people, you must either surpass them in their accomplishments or despise them."
36
"The path to the CEO's office should not be through the CFO's office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design."
35
"Simplicity is the language of leadership."
35
"A wise and frugal Government, which shall retrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned."
34
"Being an anchor is not just a matter of sitting in front of a camera and looking pretty."
34
"The battle is all over except the "shouting" when one knows what is wanted and has made up his mind to get it, whatever the price may be."
34
"No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it."
34
"At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top - I'm afraid that's not quite right."
34
"A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment."
34
"The greatest monarch on the proudest throne is obliged to sit upon his own arse."
34
"There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents."
34
"The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there."
34
"Every true leader is a true follower. Every true follower is a true leader. You are followed because of the dreams you pursue, you pursue others because of the dreams they follow!"
33
"It is, after all, the responsibility of the expert to operate the familiar and that of the leader to transcend it."
33
"I speak directly to the people, and I know that the people of California want to have better leadership. They want to have great leadership. They want to have somebody that will represent them. And it doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican, young or old."
33
"Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to cut all sources of retreat. Only by doing so can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a burning desire to win - essential to success."
33
"There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future."
33
"Great countries are those that produce great people."
33
"The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them."
33
"Lincoln on Grant: "He makes things get. Wherever he is, he makes things move."
33
"It won't do away with hierarchy totally, but the principal leader will be the person who most exemplifies the kind of organization and behavior required who is best able to create the conditions such organizations require."
32
"Leadership is a way of thinking, a way of acting and, most importantly, a way of communicating."
32
"The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes."
32
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