23 Leadership Quotes To Help You Grow & Inspire Others

The following leadership quotes are the beliefs of many successful leaders, innovators, experts, pioneers and mentors from around the world.

This collection of leadership quotes will help you grow and inspire others around you.

Here are 63 of my favorite leadership quotes, grouped by theme so you can jump to the lessons you need most right now:

Vision & Inspiration Quotes

Great leaders see what others don’t yet see. These quotes will help you dream bigger and bring others along.

“A leader is a dealer in hope.”- Napoleon Bonaparte

“The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision.” – Theodore Hesburgh

“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” – Warren Bennis

“‘Good’ is the enemy of ‘Great.'” – Jim Collins

“The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.” – John Buchan

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

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” – Alan Kay

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs

“Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.” – Bill Bradley

“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” – John F. Kennedy

“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” – Nelson Mandela

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs

Serving & Growing Others Quotes

Leadership isn’t about you – it’s about lifting the people around you. I keep these close.

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

“People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.” – Michelle Obama

“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.” – Andrew Carnegie

“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 mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” – William Arthur Ward

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

“Help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.” – Jim Rohn

“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

“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” – Ronald Reagan

“Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.” – Tom Peters

“I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.” – Woodrow Wilson

“The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” – Harvey S. Firestone

“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

“Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.” – Colin Powell

“Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.” – Warren Bennis

“Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise.” – Sam Walton

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

Decisions & Character Quotes

Your choices and your integrity define the kind of leader you become. Read these before the hard calls.

“Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.”– Vince Lombardi

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” – Charles Swindoll

“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King

“A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.” – Max Lucado

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” – Henry Ford

“Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.” – H. Norman Schwarzkopf

“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” – Max De Pree

“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you.” – Max De Pree

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” – Peter Drucker

“A leader is a person you will follow to a place you wouldn’t go by yourself.” – Joel Barker

“Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.” – Stephen Covey

“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

“Managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing.” – Warren Bennis

Teamwork & Influence Quotes

Nobody builds anything great alone. These lines are my go-to reminders about working together and earning trust.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.” – Ralph Nichols

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” – Henry Ford

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” – Michael Jordan

“Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” – Vince Lombardi

“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” – Phil Jackson

“Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” – Steve Jobs

“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” – H.E. Luccock

“The art of communication is the language of leadership.” – James Humes

“Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.” – Ronald Reagan

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

“Leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less.” – John C. Maxwell

Which one of the 63 leadership quotes above was your favorite?

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