A note about all of my quotes and resources pages – you will find people represented below of many genders, times, places, and viewpoints. Some of them will be people who believe in or stood for things you don’t agree with. Some of them are people who believe in or stood for things I don’t agree with either.
But what I also don’t believe in, is some puritanical idea of a person’s whole value and wisdom being tainted by their beliefs in one area, no matter how important. Follow that path to it’s end and it is the same as saying that if a person disagrees with you on anything you consider important enough, that person loses their humanity and their right to speak.
Instead, I believe wisdom can come from many places, and considering the source shouldn’t be the same as throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
We are all fighting to live a human life.
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The respect that leadership must have requires that one’s ethics be without question. A leader not only stays above the line between right and wrong, he stays well clear of the gray areas. — G. Alan Bernard
I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism. – Charles Swab
People do not follow uncommitted leaders. Commitment can be displayed in a full range of matters to include the work hours you choose to maintain, how you work to improve your abilities, or what you do for your fellow workers at personal sacrifice. – Stephen Gregg
The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. – Colin Powell
It isn’t the incompetent who destroy an organization. The incompetent never get in a position to destroy it. It is those who achieved something and want to rest upon their achievements who are forever clogging things up. – F.M. Young
Don’t fight a battle if you don’t gain anything by winning. – Erwin Rommel
The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him. – Niccolo Machiavelli
Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader. Don’t fall victim to what I call the ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome. You must be willing to fire. – T. Boone Pickens
The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way you can make a man trustworthy is by trusting him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust. – Henry L. Stimson
A great man is always willing to be little. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The man who trusts men will make fewer mistakes than he who distrusts them. – Camillo Di Cavour
As a leader, you have to not only do the right thing, but be perceived to be doing the right thing. A consequence of seeking a leadership position is being put under intense public scrutiny, being held to high standards, and enhancing a reputation that is constantly under threat. – Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already. – John Buchan
Never give an order that can’t be obeyed. – Douglas MacArthur
Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better. – Harry S Truman
You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too. – Sam Rayburn
He who has great power should use it lightly. – Lucius Anneaus Seneca
The leader must know, must know that he knows, and must be able to make it abundantly clear to those around him that he knows. – Clarence Randall
High sentiments always win in the end, 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
You have to be willing sometimes to listen to some remarkably bad opinions. Because if you say to someone, ‘That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard; get on out of here!’—then you’ll never get anything out of that person again, and you might as well have a puppet on a string or a robot. – John Bryan
We should never pretend to know what we don’t know, we should not feel ashamed to ask and learn from people below, and we should listen carefully to the views of the cadres at the lowest levels. Be a pupil before you become a teacher; learn from the cadres at the lower levels before you issue orders. – Mao Tse-Tung
You’ve got to give loyalty down, if you want loyalty up. – Donald T Regan
Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it. – Dwight D Eisenhower
Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. – Mark Twain
The commander must decide how he will fight the battle before it begins. He must then decide how he will use the military effort at his disposal to force the battle to swing the way he wishes it to go; he must make the enemy dance to his tune from the beginning and not vice versa. – Bernard Law Montgomery
Trust men and they will be true to you: treat them greatly and they will show themselves great. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The true leader serves. Serves people. Serves their best interests, and in doing so will not always be popular, may not always impress. But because true leaders are motivated more by loving concern than a desire for personal glory, they are willing to pay the price. – Eugene B Habecker
What you always do before you make a decision is consult. The best public policy is made when you are listening to people who are going to be impacted. Then, once policy is determined, you call on them to help you sell it. – Elizabeth Dole
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win. – Jonathan Kozel
Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him. – Booker T Washington
The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say “I.” And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say “I.” They don’t think “I.” They think “we”; they think “team.” They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but “we” gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done. – Peter Drucker
Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique. – James MacGregor Burns
Example has more followers than reason. – Christian Nestell Bovee
Treat a man as he is, he will remain so. Treat a man the way he can be and ought to be, and he will become as he can be and should be. – Johann Wolfgang Van Goethe
You do not lead by hitting people over the head — that’s assault, not leadership. – Dwight D Eisenhower
The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office. – Dwight D. Eisenhower
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 humor, but without folly. – Jim Rohn