“Great necessities call forth great leaders.”
—Abigail Adams
“Whether our task is fighting poverty, stemming the spread of disease or saving innocent lives from mass murder, we have seen that we cannot succeed without the leadership of the strong and the engagement of all.”
—Kofi Annan
“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.”
—Susan B. Anthony
“Leadership requires the courage to make decisions that will benefit the next generation.”
—Alan Autry
“Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.”
—Warren Bennis
“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.”
—Andrew Carnegie
“Times of upheaval require not just more leadership but more leaders. People at all organizational levels, whether anointed or self-appointed, must be empowered to share leadership responsibilities.”
—Rosalynn Carter
"It's amazing how many cares disappear when you decide not to be something, but to be someone."
—Coco Chanel
“Management works in the system. Leadership works on the system.”
—Stephen R. Covey
“A person cannot do right in one department of life while attempting to do wrong in another department. Life is one indivisible whole.”
—Mahatma Gandhi
“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”
Judy Garland
“Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.”
—Harold Geneen
“One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.”
—Arnold H. Glasow
“Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.”
—Jesse Jackson
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”
—John F. Kennedy
“Hope is a renewable option: If you run out of it at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning.”
—Barbara Kingsolver
“America would be a better place if leaders would do more long-term thinking.”
—Wilma Mankiller
"Leadership is action, not position."
—Charles H. McGannon
"Leadership that's reliant on mergers and acquisitions is dangerous leadership.”
—John Varley
“In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.”
—Margaret Wheatley
“Education is the mother of leadership.”
—Wendell Wilkie