Good Leader Quotes

A good leader for instance is somebody like Nelson Mandela. I do not have seen such people coming every generation, maybe every ten generations, every hundred generations. People who are miracle workers.

Just like self-interest is not selfishness, well, confidence is not a negative. Confidence is not an off-putting thing. It's, in fact, necessary for all good leaders.

A good leader sees everything, overlooks a great deal, and corrects a little.

Good leaders are scarce; so I'm following myself.

People had so much respect for George Mitchell. They wanted to cooperate with him. I think that's a hallmark of a very good leader.

George Mitchell was a very good leader, and we were more than satisfied with his leadership. And I know the guys were jealous.

Good leaders are focused, directive, and inspiring... in other words, purposeful. People want to look up to leaders, not because they think they are better than us, but because good leaders provide us with a sense of purpose that inspires us to do better.

You have to remain cool under fire and let criticism roll off you. Good leaders handle conflict easily and bad ones are eaten up by it.

A good leader gets people to follow him because they want to, not because he makes them.

We want very good leaders who have a lot of power.

Lead by listening - to be a good leader you have to be a great listener.

A good leader will seek the wisdom of others. After all, no man is an island!

A good leader takes care of those in their charge. A bad leader takes charge of those in their care.

Most people don't like change. They revolt against it unless they can clearly see the advantage it brings. For that reason, when good leaders prepare to take action or make changes, they take people through a process to get them ready for it.

Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that gives their work meaning.

The difference between a good leader and a great leader is humility.

You can't be a good leader without good character.

I think one of the keys to leadership is recognizing that everybody has gifts and talents. A good leader will learn how to harness those gifts toward the same goal.

Good leaders must become what they want their followers to become.

A good leader can't get too far ahead of his followers.

...Good leaders wait to be called and they give up their power when they are no longer needed. Selfish men and fools put themselves first and keep their power until someone throws them out. It is no good to have a way where selfish men and fools fight with each other to be leaders, while the good ones watch.

A good leader must be fair.

In Aristotelian terms, the good leader must have ethos, pathos and logos. The ethos is his moral character, the source of his ability to persuade. The pathos is his ability to touch feelings to move people emotionally. The logos is his ability to give solid reasons for an action, to move people intellectually.

I pray to be a good servant to God, a father, a husband, a son, a friend, a brother, an uncle, a good neighbor, a good leader to those who look up to me, a good follower to those who are serving God and doing the right thing.

Successful people do what is right no matter how they feel, and by doing right, they feel good.

Good leadership is hard to measure on a daily basis which is why so many default to doing what's easy to measure instead.

Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader. Don't fall victim to what I call the 'ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome'. You must be willing to fire.

Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader.

A good leader needs to have a compass in his head and a bar of steel in his heart.

When we're trying to decide whether a leader is a good leader or a bad one, the question to ask is: 'Is he with the Ten Commandments or is he against them?' Then you can determine if the leader is a true messiah or another Stalin.

The height of ability in the least able consists in knowing how to submit to the good leadership of others.

Leadership is hard to define and good leadership even harder. But if you can get people to follow you to the ends of the earth, you are a great leader.

Good leaders don't tell people what to do, they give teams capability and inspiration.

A good leader has a plan that consists of changing simple pictures. Just because a group of people has a bunch of boards, hammers, and nails does not mean that they are building a house or even anything recognizable. Sometimes leaders think they are doing their job just because there is a lot of hammering going on. As a society we like the sound of hammering, but we are uncomfortable with the sound of thinking, which is silence.

A good leader needs to stand behind his or her followers as often as he or she needs to stand in front of them.

You see, when there is danger, a good leader takes the front line. But when there is celebration, a good leader stays in the back room. If you want the cooperation of human beings around you, make them feel that they are important. And you do that by being humble.

Kids raised to be pampered and spoiled don't really end up being good leaders. Leaders need to be independent minded and confident.

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

Strategy equals execution. All the great ideas and visions in the world are worthless if they can't be implemented rapidly and efficiently. Good leaders delegate and empower others liberally, but they pay attention to details, every day.

You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.

A leader leads by example not by force.

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.

I always believe that ultimately, if people are paying attention, then we get good government and good leadership. And when we get lazy, as a democracy and civically start taking shortcuts, then it results in bad government and politics.

Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them.

Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself. It's about advancing your team.

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

Some good leaders are rough around the edges and some leaders are difficult. Some have difficult personalities and some are really nice to be around, but those are not the qualifications. The qualifications are their desire to see us achieve more, their desire to push us to be the best we can be. Not for their selfish gain, but because they believe that we have something to offer.

It's fascinating as we continue to innovate and lead the way in both the application space and the database space. In the very beginning, people said you couldn't make relational databases fast enough to be commercially viable. I thought we could, and we were the first to do it. But we took tremendous abuse until IBM said, "Oh yeah, this stuff is good."