Leadership Quotes - Page 112

In nearly every case, trying to lead everyone results in leading no one in particular.

Desire can't be sated, because if it is, the longing disappears and then we've failed, because desire is the state we seek.

If you're not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it's almost certain you're not reaching your potential as a leader.

The ONLY thing leaders have in common is the shared decision to lead.

'Teamwork' is the word that bosses use when they actually mean 'Do what I say'

The easiest thing is to react. The second easiest thing is to respond. But the hardest thing is to initiate. – When people ask you to tell them what to do, resist.

There's a void of leadership in a lot of Washington. I think one of the reasons why there's so much angst across the country.

Leadership is one of the most enduring, universal human responsibilities.

A runner doesn't just show up and win a race. He trains long and hard. Do you just show up every day and hope to win?

This is easy to say with the benefit of hindsight, but I think it once again points out how very important style of leadership, that is the way he does what he does, is to his perception.

The ability to keep a cool head in an emergency, maintain poise in the midst of excitement, and to refuse to be stampeded are true marks of leadership.

What is leadership, after all, but the blind choice of one route over another and the confident pretense that the decision was based on reason

[Pope Francis] is a humble man. He lives the faith out in his own personal life. ... He's here to be a shepherd; he isn't here to be a scold. I think that's a good thing for the church and for the world, frankly.

I am proud to live in a country with an African-American president. But President Obama cannot be proud of the fact that the prevalence of black poverty has actually increased under his leadership. The specific policies advanced by the president and his allies on the left amount to little more than throwing money at the problem and walking away.

You cannot be effective if those who work for you are not. So building their effectiveness ought to be a priority.

It isn't effective or productive to force your employees to do anything. Choice empowers people and makes for a more content workforce.

I don't think Edward Snowden deserves a death penalty or life in prison. I think that's inappropriate. I think that's why he fled, [because] that is what he faced.

Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being? There are men, who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry nations withthem, and lead the activity of the human race. And if there be such a tie, that, wherever the mind of man goes, nature will accompany him, perhaps there are men whose magnetisms are of that force to draw material and elemental powers, and, where they appear, immense instrumentalities organize around them.

In every company, there is not only the active and passive sex, but, in both men and women, a deeper and more important sex of mind, namely, the inventive or creative class of both men and women, and the uninventive or accepting class.

History is full, down to this day, of the imbecility of kings and governors. They are a class of persons much to be pitied, for they know not what they should do.

When a natural king becomes a titular king, every body is pleased and satisfied.

The superstition respecting power and office is going to the ground. The stream of human affairs flows its own way, and is very little affected by the activity of legislators. What great masses of men wish done, will be done; and they do not wish it for a freak, but because it is their state and natural end.

If the aristocrat is only valid in fashionable circles, and not with truckmen, he will never be a leader in fashion; and if the man of the people cannot speak on equal terms with the gentleman, so that the gentleman shall perceive that he is already really of his own order, he is not to be feared.

Fashion understands itself; good-breeding and personal superiority of whatever country readily fraternize with those of every other. The chiefs of savage tribes have distinguished themselves in London and Paris, by the purity of their tournure.

Those who have ruled human destinies, like planets, for thousands of years, were not handsome men.