Leadership Quotes

If you want to preach a revolutionary message, wear a suit.

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

Hating clouds the mind. It gets in the way of strategy. Leaders cannot afford to hate.

The day I am afraid to act, that is the day I am no longer fit to lead.

It is a grave error for any leader to be oversensitive in the face of criticism.

Leaders will have to give clear and decisive leadership towards a world of tolerance and respect for difference, and an uncompromising commitment to peaceful solutions of conflicts and disputes.

A real leader uses every issue, no matter how serious and sensitive, to ensure that at the end of the debate we should emerge stronger and more united than ever before.

It is the dictate of history to bring to the fore the kind of leaders who seize the moment, who cohere the wishes and aspirations of the oppressed. Such was Steve Biko, a fitting product of his time; a proud representative of the re-awakening of a people.

Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.

A minister cannot preach the glories of heaven while ignoring social conditions in his own community that cause men an earthly hell. I stressed that the Negro minister had particular freedom and independence to provide strong, firm leadership, and I asked how the Negro would ever gain freedom without his minister's guidance, support and inspiration.

We need leaders not in love with money but in love with justice. Not in love with publicity but in love with humanity.

Mountaintops inspire leaders but valleys mature them.

The difference between mere management and leadership is communication.

People who are not prepared to do unpopular things and defy the clamor of the multitude are not fit to be ministers in time of difficulty.

Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe.

There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hope soon to be swept away.

There must not be lacking in our leadership something of that spirit of the Austrian corporal who, when all had fallen into ruins around him, and when Germany seemed to have fallen into chaos, did not hesitate to march forth against the vast army of victorious nations and has already turned the tables decisively against them.

The loyalties which center upon number one are enormous. If he trips, he must be sustained. If he make mistakes, they must be covered. If he sleeps, he must not be wantonly disturbed. If he is no good, he must be pole-axed.

It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion's heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.

Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling one's pulse and taking one's temperature.