Essential Collections: 103 Motivational Leadership Quotes

Browse our collection of the best, most inspirational quotes about leadership and then download your favorite images for free, unlimited personal or commercial use on social media, blogs, etc.

Leadership comes in many forms. We’ve compiled over 100 of the best motivational, leadership quotes from a variety of voices across all areas of culture and society.

Each quote includes a shareable social graphic, sized for either horizontal (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) or square (Instagram) for easy download and sharing on your own social channels. If you do share socially, tag us (@leadrinc) and we’ll help you promote your post.

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Leadership Quotes from Philosophers & Deep Thinkers

"Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow." - Plato

“Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.” - Henry David Thoreau

“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” - Benjamin Franklin

“The greatness of an organization is directly proportional to the greatness of its leader. As leaders grow personally, they increase their capability to lead. As they increase their capability to lead, they enlarge the capacity of their organization to grow.” Henry & Richard Blackaby

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” –Antoine De Saint Exupery

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” - Thomas Edison

“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.” - John Locke

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” - Alexander Graham Bell

“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” - Isaac Newton

“To lead people, walk beside them. As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence … When the best leader’s work is done, the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!” – Lao Tzu

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” – Peter F. Drucker

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle, Greek Philospher

Leadership Quotes from Poets & Authors

“The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it’s to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they’re valued.” – Ken Robinson

“Everything is hard before it is easy.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.” –Samuel Johnson

"Customers will never love a company until employees love it first.” - Simon Sinek

“Leadership is not about titles. Leadership is about trust.” - Craig Groeschel

“Leadership is not having the right answers — it’s asking the right questions.” - Andy Stanley

“I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.” Brene Brown

“When making plans, think big.When making progress, think small” – James Clear

“Just one great idea can completely revolutionize your life.” - Earl Nightingale

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” - Dale Carnegie

“A true leader not only cares about their success, but the success and empowerment of others.” - Warren G. Bennis

“How wonderful is it that nobody need wait a single moment before beginning to improve the world.” - Anne Frank

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” - Mark Twain

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” - Richard Branson

“Little by little, one travels far.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

“The path to success is to take massive, determined action.” - Tony Robbins

“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.” – Edward R. Murrow

“We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.” – J.K. Rowling

“What you do has far greater impact than what you say.” – Stephen Covey

Leadership Quotes from Artists & Entertainers

“Life will only change when you become more committed to your dreams than you are to your comfort zone.” -Billy Cox

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” - Leonardo da Vinci

“Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” -Dolly Parton

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” - James Baldwin

“The more successful you become, the less you can justify low quality. The more focused you must become, the more consistently your daily behaviors must be high quality — and increasingly higher quality.” - Ben Hardy

“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.” - Oprah Winfrey

“At the end of the day, it’s not about what you have or even what you’ve accomplished. It’s about what you’ve done with those accomplishments. It’s about who you’ve lifted up, who you’ve made better. It’s about what you’ve given back.” - Denzel Washington

“It’s not how much you have that makes people look up to you, it’s who you are.” - Elvis Presley

“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” - Bruce Lee

“Better to build a bridge than a wall.” - Elton John

“Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.” - James Baldwin

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” - Mae West

Leadership Quotes from Business Leaders

"Once we stop being creative, we settle for copying or criticism." - Kary Oberbrunner

“Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you’re proud to live.” — Anne Sweeney, Co-Chair of Disney

“Don't take the attitude of waiting for people to be nice to you - be nice to them. Don’t sit in front of a cold stove waiting for the heat. Put in the fuel. Act first.” - Earl Nightingale

“A boss has the title, a leader has the people.” - Simon Sinek

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” - Mark Zuckerberg

“If you have more than 3 priorities then you don't have any.” - Jim Collins

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” -Alan Kay. Chief Scientist at Apple

“A lot of people don’t do well simply because they major in minor things.” - Jim Rohn

“People are no different than flowers. If you water flowers, they flourish, if you praise people they flourish. And that is a critical attribute of a leader.” - Richard Branson

“Treat your peers as interesting fellow humans, and you may be surprised what it does for their motivation, dedication, and engagement.” - Camille Fournier

“And of course, the perpetually scarcest resource: true leaders.” - Tyler Hogge

“Patience is a key element of success.” - Bill Gates

“For every failure, there’s an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.” - Mary Kay Ash

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.” - Henry Ford

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who actually do.” - Steve Jobs

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

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.” - Coco Chanel

“When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.” - Walt Disney

“Outstanding leaders go out of the way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” – Sam Walton, founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffett

“Before you are leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” - Jack Welch

“You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people what they want.” - Zig Ziglar

Leadership Quotes from Athletes & Coaches

“That was my way of getting through difficult times of low confidence – hard work.” - David Beckham

“The most important measure of how good a game I played was how much better I made my teammates play.” - Bill Russell

“Some people want it to happen, some people wish it would happen, others make it happen.” - Michael Jordan

“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” - Babe Ruth

“There is no way around the hard work. Embrace it.” - Roger Federer

“Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.” - Tom Brady

“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand.” - Neil Armstrong

“Winners never quit, and quitters never win.” - Vince Lombardi

“We don’t want to tell our dreams. We want to show them.” - Cristiano Ronaldo

“Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you’re in control, they’re in control.” – Tom Landry, former Dallas Cowboys coach

“I really think a champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall.” - Serena Williams

“Today, do what others won’t so tomorrow you can accomplish what others can’t.” - Simone Biles

“Champions keep playing until they get it right.” - Billie Jean King

"The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers." - Ralph Nader

"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it." -Maya Angelou

"Tough times never last, but tough people do." -Robert H. Schuller

“A leader is someone who helps improve the lives of other people or improve the system they live under.” – Sam Houston

“Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” - John F. Kennedy

“Success isn’t about how much money you make. It’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.” - Michelle Obama

“The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.” - Richard M. Nixon

“We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.” - Helen Keller

“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

“Always aim high, work hard, and care deeply about what you believe in.” - Hillary Clinton

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” - Gandhi

“It's amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” - Harry S. Truman

“We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.” - Calvin Coolidge

“Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.” -Booker T. Washington

“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” –Winston Churchill

“Success isn’t about how much money you make. It’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.” - Michelle Obama

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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

“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” - John F. Kennedy

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” - Theodore Roosevelt

“Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.” - Princess Diana

“Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.” - Margaret Thatcher

“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” —Thomas Jefferson

“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.” ― Henry Kissinger

“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.” – Mother Teresa

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

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