Quotes

“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” — Ralph Nader

“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.” — Sheryl Sandberg

“A leader who always has an opinion and is not open to new ideas is not a leader at all, but a dictator.” — Brian Tracy

“Leadership is not about being in charge. It’s about taking care of those in your charge.” — Simon Sinek

“You have to ask the questions you need to ask, admit without apology what you don’t understand, and do the work to learn what you need to learn as quickly as you can. There’s nothing less confidence-inspiring than a person faking a knowledge they don’t possess. True authority and true leadership come from knowing who you are and not pretending to be anything else.” — Robert Iger

“The first step in solving a problem is to recognize that it does exist.” – Zig Ziglar

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”―Harry S. Truman

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” — Theodore Roosevelt

“The temptation to lead as a chess master, controlling each move of the organization, must give way to an approach as a gardener, enabling rather than directing. A gardening approach to leadership is anything but passive. The leader acts as an “Eyes-On, Hands-Off” enabler who creates and maintains an ecosystem in which the organization operates.” ― Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams

“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.” — Sheryl Sandberg

“When leaders teach, they invest in their people’s ability to solve and avoid problems in the future. The highest quality of thinking cannot emerge without learning. Learning can’t happen without mistakes.” ― Liz Wiseman, Multipliers

“It is the mark of a charlatan to explain a simple concept in a complex way.” — Raval Navikant

“The most powerful leadership tool you have is your own personal example.” — John Wooden

“You can have everything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want.” — Zig Ziglar

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not turbulence itself, but to act with yesterday’s logic.” –Peter Drucker

“Meetings are at the heart of an effective organization, and each meeting is an opportunity to clarify issues, set new directions, sharpen focus, create alignment, and move objectives forward.” ― Paul Axtell, Meetings Matter

Many of us say yes to things because we are eager to please and make a difference. Yet the key to making our highest contribution may well be saying no. As Peter Drucker said, “People are effective because they say ‘no,’ because they say, ‘this isn’t for me.’” ― Greg McKeown, Essentialism

“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” — Jack Welch

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” — Steve Jobs

“A leader who talks about what they’re going to do, but never takes action, is not a leader worth following.” — David Gergen

“Don’t let the small things get in the way of the big things.” — Ken Blanchard

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” — Benjamin Franklin

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.” — John Quincy Adams

“The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” — Ken Blanchard

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” — Gloria Steinem

“Praise in public; criticize in private.” — Vince Lombardi

“For love of bustle is not industry - it is only the restlessness of a hunted mind.” — Seneca

“The price of greatness is responsibility.” — Winston Churchill

“There are no solutions, there are only trade-offs; and you try to get the best trade-off you can get, that’s all you can hope for.” — Thomas Sowell

"Once leaders develop self-awareness, they create the possibility for shifting, a master skill of conscious leaders. Shifting is moving from closed to open, from defensive to curious, from wanting to be right to wanting to learn, and from fighting for the survival of the individual ego to leading from a place of security and trust." — Jim Dethmer

“Leadership development should not be an event, it should be a process that’s integrated into the fabric of the organization.” — Kevin Kruse

“Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge.” — Simon Sinek

“The more power a leader has, the more important it is for them to be held accountable for their actions. Without accountability, corruption is almost inevitable.” — Brian Klaas

“Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means.” — Albert Einstein

“The scarcity of good leaders is not due to a lack of talent, but rather a lack of investment in leadership development.” — Simon Sinek

“The aggressive person fights. The passive one runs away. But the assertive person stands ground, assesses the situation, adapts, and acts with purpose and passion. Be that person.” — Charles F Glassman

“Any attempt to attack, defend, or withdraw will work against you. Instead, you must restrain these reactive tendencies, find the courage to stand your ground, and then step forward in the face of this determined opposition.” — Rick Brinkman

“Being nice is blocking you from standing up for yourself, being honest with others, creating deeper relationships, or boldly expressing yourself in the world.” — Aziz Gazipura

"There are many ways to center a business. You can be competitor focused, you can be product focused, you can be technology focused, you can be business model focused, and there are more. But in my view, obsessive customer focus is by far the most protective of day one vitality." — Jeff Bezos

"One thing that separates design (especially UX design) from pure art is that design’s value lies in the impact of our work." — Jane Li