Quotes on Leadership and Influence

A company is a collection of people. It reflects the personality of its employees. If a company employs dislikable people, it will be a dislikable company. If a company hires likable people, it will be a likable company – unless top management is dislikable and pollutes the behavior of employees.

Management is keeping things the way they are today. Leadership is moving things forward from where they are today.

Leadership is influence.

You don’t need a title to be a leader.

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.

Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

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.

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.

My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence.

You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.

Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means.

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

The influential man is the successful man, whether he be rich or poor.

Influence doesn’t come to us instantaneously. It grows by stages.

You don’t have to be a “person of influence” to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they’ve taught me.

Once you’ve found your own voice, the choice to expand your influence, to increase your contribution.

Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means.

The only inheritance that a man will leave that has eternal value is his influence.

The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years.

It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people’s lives.

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.

There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men, the conviction and the will to carry on.

Earn your leadership every day.

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.

Leadership is the key to 99 percent of all successful efforts.

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.