With the passing of Steve Jobs, here are some quotes on leadership we can all reflect on.
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
– Steve Jobs
“The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.”
– Steve Jobs
“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
– Steve Jobs
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
– Peter F. Drucker
“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 manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.”
– Warren Bennis
“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you.”
– Max DePree
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
– John Quincy Adams
“The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.”
– Eric Hoffer
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“Lead and inspire people. Don’t try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be lead.”
– Ross Perot
“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.”
– John Kenneth Galbraith
“Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.
– Harold S. Geneen
“Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.”
– John Maxwell
“The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision.”
-Theodore Hesburgh
“The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.”
– Kenneth Blanchard
“Leaders conceive and articulate goals that lift people out of their petty preoccupations and unite them in pursuit of objectives worthy of their best efforts.”
– John Gardner
“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The ability to summon positive emotions during periods of intense stress lies at the heart of effective leadership.”
– Jim Loehr
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”
– General George Patton
“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.”
– Bill Gates
“Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.
– Norman Schwarzkopf
“Ever since uncertainty became our insistent 21st century companion, leadership has taken a great leap backwards to the familiar territory of command and control.”
– Margaret Wheatley
“The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.”
– Harvey S. Firestone
“One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.”
– Arnold Glasow
“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.”
– Ralph Nader
“You don’t lead by hitting people over the head. That’s assault, not leadership.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.”
– Stephen Covey
“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“A leader is a dealer in hope.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte
“To be able to lead others, a man must be willing to go forward alone.”
– Harry Truman
“Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing.”
– Albert Schweitzer
“People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert.”
– Theodore Roosevelt