Every entrepreneur knows that the success of their business ultimately rests on their shoulders. Yes, the product you build and the team you hire are important, but your ability to lead is what carries your company.
With that kind of pressure, it’s easy to feel stressed, lonely and overwhelmed at times. Every great leader has faced a challenge that defined their greatness, which is why we often turn to their advice when needed.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, business owner, or team leader, here are 50 inspirational quotes on leadership for when you need a little pep talk.
1. “A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” – Rosalynn Carter
2. “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” – Lao Tzu
3. “It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.” – Adlai E. Stevenson II
4. “Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.” – Colin Powell
5. “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.” – Max DePree
6. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams
7. “A leader is a dealer in hope.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
8. “A leader…is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” – Nelson Mandela
9. “He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.” – Aristotle
10. “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
11. “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” – Bill Gates
12. “A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.” – John Maxwell
13. “Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position.” – Brian Tracy
14. “The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.” – George Orwell
15. “I start each day by telling myself what a positive influence I am on this world.” – Peter Daisyme
16. “Earn your leadership every day.” – Michael Jordan
17. “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” – Jack Welch
18. “Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” – Peter Drucker
19. “My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.” – Steve Jobs
20. “The led must not be compelled. They must be able to choose their own leader.” – Albert Einstein
21. “Great leaders find ways to connect with their people and help them fulfill their potential.” – Steven J. Stowell
22. “To have long-term success as a coach or in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way.” – Pat Riley
23. “If you think you are leading and turn around to see no one following, then you are just taking a walk.” – Benjamin Hooks
24. “The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” – Jim Rohn
25. “A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.” – Max Lucado
26. “To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
27. “It is absolutely necessary…for me to have persons that can think for me, as well as execute orders.” – George Washington
28. “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.” – Vince Lombardi
29. “A cowardly leader is the most dangerous of men.” – Stephen King
30. “A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.”- J.P. Morgan
31. “Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.” – Chinese Proverb
32. “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
33. “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
34. “Average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire others to raise their own bar.” – Orrin Woodward
35. “Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.” – Oscar Wilde
36. “Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” – Sam Walton
37. “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” – Albert Schweitzer
38. “If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.” – Dolly Parton
39. “I am reminded how hollow the label of leadership sometimes is and how heroic followership can be.” – Warren Bennis
40. “In this world a man must either be an anvil or hammer.” – Henry W. Longfellow
41. “It is absurd that a man should rule others, who cannot rule himself. (Absurdum est ut alios regat, qui seipsum regere nescit.)” – Latin Proverb
42. “The history of the world is but the biography of great men.” – Thomas Carlyle
43. “A ruler should be slow to punish and swift to reward.” – Ovid
44. “You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader” – Henry Ford
45. “Rely on your own strength of body and soul. Take for your star self-reliance, faith, honesty, and industry. Don’t take too much advice — keep at the helm and steer your own ship, and remember that the great art of commanding is to take a fair share of the work. Fire above the mark you intend to hit. Energy, invincible determination with the right motive, are the levers that move the world.” – Noah Porter
46. “Don’t blow off another’s candle for it won’t make yours shine brighter.” Jaachynma N.E. Agu
47. “I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.” – Herbert Swope
48. “He who has learned how to obey will know how to command.” – Solon
49. “If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.” – Maya Angelou
50. “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt
Bonus:
“Screw it, let’s just do it.” – Richard Branson
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