Leadership Quotes

"The buck stops here." — Harry S. Truman
According to The Truman Library and others, Truman did not come up with the phrase, though he did popularize it. The idea was in line with his sentiments, and also according to the Truman Library, "Fred M. Canfil, then United States Marshal for the Western District of Missouri and a friend of Mr. Truman, saw a similar sign while visiting the Reformatory and asked the Warden if a sign like it could be made for President Truman." The phrase did come to embody Truman's presidency and life. Add Category or Author

"Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing." — Albert Schweitzer
As quoted in Building character: strengthening the heart of good leadership (2007) pg. 49 Here Schweitzer states an ideal he believed in strongly--that we must live our ideals if we want them to influence others. Add Category or Author

"If you're ridin' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there" — Will Rogers
As quoted in The Land Where My American Mother Died--Palermo, Sicily (2003) pg. 156 Add Category or Author

"A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd." — Max Lucado
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"Love and respect do not automatically accompany a position of leadership. They must be earned." — Author Unknown
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"You don't lead by hitting people over the head-that's assault, not leadership." — Dwight D. Eisenhower
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"Leaders are not born, they're made." — Vince Lombardi
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"What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
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"Leadership is an opportunity to serve. It is not a trumpet call to self-importance." — Donald Walters
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"Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God." — Henry A. Kissinger
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"You don't have to hold a position in order to be a leader." — Anthony D'Angelo
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"Leaders have dashed hopes and squandered opportunities, and empty promises cost lives." — Kumi Naidoo
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"Leadership is liberating people to do what is required of them in the most effective and humane way possible." — Max Depree
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"To be omnipotent but friendless is to reign." — Percy Bysshe Shelley
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"You learn far more from negative leadership than from positive leadership. Because you learn how not to do it. And, therefore, you learn how to do it." — Norman Schwarzkopf
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"Six traits of effective leaders: 1. Make others feel important 2. Promote a vision 3. Follow the golden rule 4. Admit mistakes 5. Criticize others only in private 6. Stay close to the action Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire." — Christian Nevell Bovee
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"The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it." — Mao Tse-Tung
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"Blessed is he who has learned to admire but not envy, to follow but not imitate, to praise but not flatter, and to lead but not manipulate." — William A. Ward
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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 Galbraith
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"A leader is someone who steps back from the entire system and tries to build a more collaborative, more innovative system that will work over the long term." — Robert Reich
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"Those who seek power are not worthy of that power." — Plato
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