Leadership Quotes
A small page, and a mixed one. It is split between novelists and management writers, so you will find Henry Miller and Tom DeMarco on the same list. Miller, in The Wisdom of the Heart (1941): “The real leader has no need to lead — he is content to point the way.” DeMarco, in Peopleware (1987): “The manager’s function is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work.”
Thomas J. Watson, in 1939, put it in terms of discipline: nothing proves a man’s ability to lead others as much as what he does from day to day to lead himself. The line about leadership being a mix of strategy and character, credited to General Norman Schwarzkopf, is marked disputed.
The real leader has no need to lead—he is content to point the way.
The king's might is greater than human, and his arm is very long.
I cannot consent to place in the control of others one who cannot control himself.
A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice.
The manager's function is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work.
The strategies that managers employ are at least as important as the facilities at their disposal.
Machines are as nothing without men. Men are as nothing without morale.
Successful people become great leaders when they learn to shift the focus from themselves to others.
Leadership is rooted not in power and authority, but in service and wisdom.