Leadership Quotes: Inspirational, Short, & Funny​

Like the emergency room physician who directs his nursing team when someone needs life-saving care, or the elementary school teacher who leads his 5th-grade students to victory in the spelling competition, or the soccer coach who inspires her team before the championship game.Anyone can become a leader, and learning how to develop the qualities that make you a great one can be helpful. Incorporating leadership quotes in your routine is one method that can help shape you into the leader that you hope to be.​

A leader is “influencing, motivating, enabling, or empowering others, often to achieve a specific goal” (Reed et al., 2019). The important qualities of an effective leader are the ability to connect with others, the willingness to self-reflect, and the ability to understand how a leader’s behavior creates a rippling impact (Valcour, 2020). Lastly, being a leader means engaging in the hard work of personal growth, discovery, and development – all for ongoing improvement (Hunt, 2004; Valcour, 2020) 

Therefore, discovering leadership quotes can be helpful as a motivational tool (Woelfel, 2008) that can provide some inspiration on how to become a leader in your own right. Personalities vary, access to resources differs, and character strengths are individualized, but we all have the ability to become a leader if we so choose. 

Previous research has shown that leadership has the potential to improve organizations and impact society (Campos et al., 2020; Sternberg, 2007). In educational settings, leadership has been linked with improved student abilities such as self-efficacy and interpersonal skills (Mumford et al., 2007; Thompson et al., 2020). 

In one study, researchers found that individuals believed that leadership was the foundational aspect of effective change, and a good leader has passion, enthusiasm, and empathy that help transform workers into role models (Campos et al., 2020). Additionally, leadership that emphasizes worker well-being, happiness, and team-based interactions has been advocated as an important quality to improve organizations (Salas-Vallina et al., 2020). 

Collectively, these studies show that effective leadership can have a great impact, and understanding the underlying characteristics of a leader is important (Krasnoff et al., 2015). Reading quotes about what it means to be a leader can be one important step in your journey of personal growth.

• “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” — Warren Bennis
• “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” — Jack Welch
• “You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.” — Ken Kesey
• “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” — John Quincy Adams
• “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
• “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.” — Vince Lombardi
• “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
• “I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.” — Lao Tzu
• “Success isn’t about how much money you make; it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.” — Michelle Obama

• “I just want women to always feel in control. Because we’re capable, we’re so capable.” — Nicki Minaj
• “We need to reshape our own perception of how we view ourselves. We have to step up as women and take the lead.” — Beyoncé
• “Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, She doesn’t have what it takes. They will say, Women don’t have what it takes.” — Clare Boothe Luce
• “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” — Brené Brown
• “One of the criticisms I’ve faced over the years is that I’m not aggressive enough or assertive enough or maybe somehow, because I’m empathetic, it means I’m weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong.” — Jacinda Ardern
• “I’ve always subscribed to the belief that the best leader is not one who has the most followers, but one who creates the most leaders. I strive every day — and in every program and offering we have at Integrous Women — to create more conscious, confident, and soulful leaders who, in return, will build a better world for all.” — Stephanie Courtillier
• “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”  — Alice Walker

• “My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence.” — General Montgomery
• “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead
• “Who you are surrounded by often determines who you become.” — Vicky Saunders
• “Magic happens when you connect people. I credit much of my success to always making it a point to truly get to know people and help them whenever I can. It’s become the backbone of our firm’s success. Women founders in particular are often highly skilled at making connections that can help advance their businesses.” — Susan Macpherson
• “Leadership is about the team ~ the culture they keep and embrace, it’s about empathy for your customers, clients, employees and the communities where you do business, it’s about doing the right thing for the right reasons, being confident enough to take risks and responsible enough to think of those who your decisions and risks may affect.” — Kat Cole
• “A good leader is able to paint a picture of a vision for the future and then enlist others to go on the journey with her. A truly conscious leader recognizes that it is not about her, but that the team is looking to her for inspiration and direction. Keeping her ego in check is essential.” — Tamra Ryan
• “When you find yourself in situations of impossible demands, choose relationships first.
  — Sarah Boyd

• “Strategic leaders must not get consumed by the operational and tactical side of their work.” — Stephanie S. Mead
• “With kids, they don’t do what you want them to do when you want them to do it. Organizations don’t necessarily, either. You’ve got to listen. You’ve got to learn how to influence.” — Ellen J. Kullman
• “Be open-minded. Embrace being wrong. Free yourself of preconceptions. Talk less, listen more. Question everything, even yourself.” — Karen Salmansohn

• “The challenge of leadership is to be strong but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” — Jim Rohn
• “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” — Bill Gates
• “Always be teachable. You are not always right. There is always something to be learned.” — Lauren Fortenberry

• “Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.” — Tina Fey
  
• “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
  
• “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
  
• “No matter how senior you get in an organization, no matter how well you’re perceived to be doing, your job is never done.” — Abigail Johnson
  
• “When you hear only what you want to hear, you’re not listening. When you read only to confirm what you know, you’re not learning. Stretch yourself. That’s how you grow.” —  Marc & Angel
  

• “Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want.” — Dianne Feinstein
  
• “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
  
• “Leadership should be more participative than directive, more enabling than performing.” — Mary D. Poole
  

• “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.” — Joanne Ciulla
  
• “Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence, and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.” — Sheryl Sandberg
  
• “Cultivate a network of trusted mentors and colleagues. Other people can give us the best insight into ourselves—and our own limitations. We must have the courage to ask for help and to request feedback to expand our vision of what’s possible.” — Maria Castañón Moats
  

• “You are never too small to make a difference.” — Greta Thunberg
• “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” — Marianne Williamson
• “I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.” — Marissa Mayer
• “I think it’s a combination of personality traits that have helped me to succeed. Not only hard work ~ but patience, sacrifice and choosing my battles have all helped me to reach the point in my career to which I aspired, in a company I admired.” — Katelyn Gleason
• “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” — Audre Lorde
• “In the simplest terms, a leader is one who knows where he wants to go, and gets up and goes.” — John Erskin

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

• Motivational Quotes: For Work, Life, & Success
• Success Quotes: For Life, Motivation, Work, & More
• Work Quotes: For Motivation, Success, & Balance
• Leadership Skills: Definition, Examples, & Development
• ​Mentoring: Definition, Examples, & Best Practices​
• ​299 Deep Questions to Ask: A Guy, Girl, Friend, or Anyone​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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• Hunt, J. G. (J.). (2004). What is leadership? In J. Antonakis, A. T. Cianciolo, & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The nature of leadership (pp. 19–47). Sage Publications, Inc.
• Krasnoff, B., Leong, M., & Siebersma, M. (2015). Leadership qualities of effective principals. Education Northwest, 4.
• Mumford, T. V., Campion, M. A., & Morgeson, F. P. (2007). The leadership skills strataplex: Leadership skill requirements across organizational levels. The leadership quarterly, 18(2), 154-166.
• Reed, B. N., Klutts, A. M., & Mattingly, T. J., 2nd (2019). A Systematic Review of Leadership Definitions, Competencies, and Assessment Methods in Pharmacy Education. American journal of pharmaceutical education, 83(9), 7520. https://doi.org/10.5688/ajpe7520
• Salas-Vallina, A., Simone, C., & Fernández-Guerrero, R. (2020). The human side of leadership: Inspirational leadership effects on follower characteristics and happiness at work (HAW). Journal of Business Research, 107, 162-171.
• Sternberg, R. J. (2007). Foreword to the special issue on leadership. American psychologist, 62(1), 1.
• Thompson, C. L., Kuah, A. T., Foong, R., & Ng, E. S. (2020). The development of emotional intelligence, self‐efficacy, and locus of control in Master of Business Administration students. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 31(1), 113-131.
• Valcour, M. (2020, November 4). Anyone Can Learn to Be a Better Leader. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2020/11/anyone-can-learn-to-be-a-better-leader
• Woelfel, K. (2008). Sports metaphors as a motivational leadership strategy. Academic Leadership: The Online Journal, 6(4), 13.