10 Powerful Quotes on Leadership to Inspire Your Organization

A primary focus of an employee experience program is career and leadership development for employees, Qualtrics does this using our 360-degree feedback software. In the spirit of leadership development, we gathered a few quotes about leadership from noteworthy leaders, helping us define what separates good leaders from great ones. Share these leadership quotes with your team members and managers when they need a bit of motivation.

These quotes have resonated with us at Qualtrics and we hope they do the same for you.

Here are 10 powerful quotes on leadership:

1. 1. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
      -John Quincy Adams
   2. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
      -Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder
   3. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
      -Ralph Waldo Emerson
   4. “The true mark of a leader is the willingness to stick with a bold course of action — an unconventional business strategy, a unique product-development roadmap, a controversial marketing campaign — even as the rest of the world wonders why you’re not marching in step with the status quo. In other words, real leaders are happy to zig while others zag. They understand that in an era of hyper-competition and non-stop disruption, the only way to stand out from the crowd is to stand for something special.”
      -Bill Taylor, from article “Do You Pass the Leadership Test?”
   5. “Leaders instill in their people a hope for success and a belief in themselves. Positive leaders empower people to accomplish their goals.”
      -Unknown
   6. “The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.”
      -Theodore M. Hesburgh
   7. “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”
      -John F. Kennedy
   8. “A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.”
      -Jim Rohn
   9. “The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them.”
      -John Maxwell
   10. “The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.”
       -John Maxwell

This post was originally published in August 2010 and was republished in Oct 2018