How to become a strong leader? What are the leadership qualities?
Leadership is all about becoming a better version of ourselves and then leading or guiding other people or teams to do the same.
Great leaders change lives with their actions, not just their words. When you lead well, people follow you because they want to, not because they have to. They believe in you and your vision.
May this collection of 105 quotes on strong leadership inspire, motivate, and drive you to strive for greatness. Even if a picture is worth a thousand words, an inspirational quote can help you get through the day, inspire your team, or shift your viewpoint.
Keep this list handy throughout the year, it can help you see things in a new way or find the right words to fire up your team. Let these quotes light a spark in you to become the best leader you can be. Then you can help your team reach higher than they ever thought possible.
So, let’s get started.
Jump to the Sections
- Best Quotes on Strong Leadership Development
- Quotes on Great Leadership Skills
- Quotes for Good Leadership Qualities
- Quotes about Strong Women Leaders
- Quotes on Leadership in Tough Times
- Quotes on Effective Leadership Communication
- Quotes on Good Governance and Leadership
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Best Quotes on Strong Leadership Development
1. “Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.” — Harold S. Geneen
2. “The key to successful leadership is influence, not authority.” — Kenneth H. Blanchard
3. “Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good.” — Piyushi Dhir
4. “I think one of the keys to leadership is recognizing that everybody has gifts and talents. A good leader will learn how to harness those gifts toward the same goal.” — Ben Carson
5. “The past doesn’t equal the future. All great leaders, all people who have achieved in any area of life, know the power of continuously pursuing their vision, even if all the details of how to achieve it aren’t yet available.” — Tony Robbins
6. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” — John Quincy Adams
7. “To lead you must first listen with an understanding heart and then act with a decisive mind.” — Shannon Peel
8. “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about others.” — Jack Welch
9. “Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.” — Brian Tracy
10. “Power isn’t control at all – power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give their strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own.” — Beth Revis
11. “Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise.” — Woodrow Wilson
12. “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.” — Nelson Mandela
13. “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” — Jack Welch
14. “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
15. “Wonder what your customer really wants? Ask. Don’t tell.” — Lisa Stone
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Quotes on Great Leadership Skills
16. “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” — Ken Blanchard
17. “There are three essentials to leadership: humility, clarity and courage.” — Chan Master Fuchan Yuan
18. “It’s okay to admit what you don’t know. It’s okay to ask for help. And it’s more than okay to listen to the people you lead – in fact, it’s essential.” — Mary Barra
19. “The difference between a boss and a leader: A boss says go!-A leader says Let’s Go!” — E.M. Kelly
20. “A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.” — Douglas MacArthur
21. “Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.” — Les Brown
22. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” — Steve Jobs
23. “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
24. “Never tell someone how to do something. Just tell them what needs to be done and they will amaze you with their ingenuity.” — General George S. Patton
25. “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.
26. “If you are going to help people reach their potential, they need to be recognized and rewarded. Everyone needs that.” — Jacqueline Norcel
27. “Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.” — Warren Bennis
28. “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” — Warren Bennis
29. “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
30. “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time… so remember: great achievements take time, there is no overnight success.” — Leo Tolstoy
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Quotes for Good Leadership Qualities
31. “Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.” — John D. Rockefeller
32. “Good leaders build products. Great leaders build cultures. Good leaders deliver results. Great leaders develop people. Good leaders have vision. Great leaders have values. Good leaders are role models at work. Great leaders are role models in life.” — Adam Grant
33. “It is the very essence of good leadership to give away all credit for positive achievement, to identify only team goals and always to refer to them as such.” — Joe Klock
34. “The secret to success is good leadership, and good leadership is all about making the lives of your team members or workers better.” — Tony Dungy
35. “A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.” — Arnold H. Glasow
36. “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
37. “Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
38. “Good leaders make people feel that they’re at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens, people feel centered and that gives their work meaning.” — Warren Bennis
39. “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” — Edith Wharton
40. “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
41. “Whatever you are, be a good one.” — Abraham Lincoln
42. “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
43. “Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead.” — Pete Hoekstra
44. “If you can’t swallow your pride, you can’t lead. Even the highest mountain had animals that step on it.” — Jack Weatherford
45. “A boss has the title, the leader has the people.” — Simon Sinek
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Quotes about Strong Women Leaders
46. “You have been assigned this mountain so that you can show others it can be moved.” — Mel Robbins
47. “If you are committed to creating value and if you aren’t afraid of hard times; obstacles become utterly unimportant. A nuisance perhaps; but with no real power. The world respects creation; people will get out of your way.” — Candice Carpenter Olson
48. “If I didn’t fill my schedule with things I felt were important, other people would fill my schedule with things they felt were important.” — Melinda Gates.
49. “The biggest shame trigger at work is the fear of irrelevance…the most common response to the fear and shame of irrelevance is amour.” — Brené Brown
50. “Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths.” — John Zenger
51. “Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning, because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing things different from everybody else.” — Sara Blakely
52. “Being able to put your blinders on, ignore negative opinions, and follow your strong intuition is what’s validating to me. It’s a great feeling to know you can trust your gut.” — Whitney Wolfe Herd
53. “Every time we got a knockback and understood why people wouldn’t invest, we changed and revised our pitch. Failure was never an option.” —Melanie Perkins
54. “As a leader, I am tough on myself and I raise the standard for everybody; however, I am very caring because I want people to excel at what they are doing so that they can aspire to be me in the future.” — Indra Nooyi
55. “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
56. “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” — Ruth Bader Ginsburg
57. “On my own I will just create, and if it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, I’ll create something else. I don’t have any limitations on what I think I could do or be.” — Oprah Winfrey
58. “I learned to always take on things I’d never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist.” — Ginni Rometty
59. “Rarely are opportunities presented to you in a perfect way. In a nice little box with a yellow bow on top. ‘Here, open it, it’s perfect. You’ll love it.’ Opportunities – the good ones – are messy, confusing and hard to recognize. They’re risky. They challenge you.” — Susan Wojcicki
60. “God measures people by the small dimensions of humility and not by the bigness of their achievements or the size of their capabilities.” — Billy Graham
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Quotes on Leadership in Tough Times
61. “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” — Thomas Jefferson
62. “You don’t get any medal for trying something, you get medals for results.” — Bill Parcells
63. “You’ve got enemies? Good, that means you stood for something in your life.” — Eminem
64. “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” — Warren Buffett
65. “One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” — Arnold Glasow
66. “Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” — Jack Welch
67. “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” — Steve Jobs
68. “The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humour but without folly.” — Jim Rohn
69. “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” — Paulo Coelho
70. “If you have to choose between an easy thing and a hard thing, the hard one’s usually a lot more fun.” — Samantha Cristoforetti
71. “Don’t be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.” — General Colin Powell
72. “Lessons in leadership: Own your mistakes, celebrate your successes, and know your strengths.” — Kristen Hadeed
73. “Be spectacularly great at what you do. Wear your passion on your sleeve and hold your heart in the palm of your hand. And work hard. Really hard.” — Robin Sharma
74. “The true test of leadership is how well you function in a crisis.” — Brian Tracy
75. “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.” — Alexander the Great
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Quotes on Effective Leadership Communication
76. “The art of communication is the language of leadership.” — James Humes
77. “Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership.” —James Humes
78. “Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes.” — Peter Drucker
79. “Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.” — John C. Maxwell
80. “Leaders don’t adapt to the energy in a room, they influence the energy in a room.” — Josh Axe
81. “Communication is the most important skill any leader can possess.” — Richard Branson
82. “People leave managers, not companies.” — Marcus Buckingham
83. “When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.” — Stephen Covey
84. “What you do has far greater impact than what you say.” — Stephen Covey
85. “I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through—then follow through.” — Edward Rickenbacker
86. “Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” — Rumi
87. “It’s not about trying to find something to help you be a more effective leader. It’s about trying to be a better person. The other will follow.” — James A. Autry
88. “Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” — Margaret Fuller
89. “When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.” — Malala Yousafzai
90. “Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want.” — Dianne Feinstein
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Quotes on Good Governance and Leadership
91. “To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
92. “Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.” — Tom Peters
93. “People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.” — Theodore Roosevelt
94. “True leadership lies in guiding others to success – in ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do, and doing it well.” — Bill Owens
95. “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” — Ralph Nader
96. “The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.” — Ray Kroc
97. “One of the keys to good leadership is good followership.” — James Cameron
98. “Bees have no constitution, police, or moral training, but they work together in order to survive. Though they may occasionally squabble, the colony survives on the basis of cooperation.” — Dalai Lama
99. “The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first.” — Iyanla Vanzant
100. “Team-building is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make the money that you want without becoming very good at it.” — Brian Tracy
101. “The X-factor of great leadership is not personality, it’s humility.” — Jim Collins
102. “Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself.” — Gloria Steinem
103. “Sometimes leadership is planting trees under whose shade you’ll never sit.” — Jennifer Granholm
104. “I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.” — Mahatma Gandhi
105. “The most powerful leadership tool you have is your own personal example.” — John Wooden
Final Thoughts
I hope you enjoyed this collection of inspiring quotes on strong leadership. Keep supporting and leading the way; it has an impact on others.
Achieving greatness requires daily mindful action rather than a distant pinnacle. As a result, let these words be your light on the path to leadership success. May they become an eternal source of inspiration, driving you to greater heights!
Which are your favorite leadership quotes? Would you like to add any more quotes to this list? Please feel free to put it in the comments section below.
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