Peter F. Drucker:
Leaders shouldn't attach moral significance to their ideas: Do that, and you can't compromise.



Peter Senge:
Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static "snapshots." It is a set of general principles -- distilled over the course of the twentieth century, spanning fields as diverse as the physical and social sciences, engineering, and management.... During the last thirty years, these tools have been applied to understand a wide range of corporate, urban, regional, economic, political, ecological, and even psychological systems. And systems thinking is a sensibility -- for the subtle interconnectedness that gives living systems their unique character.



Plato:
A tyrant is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.



Rachel Maddow:
Humans are ambitious and rational and proud. And we don't fall in line with people who don't respect us and who we don't believe have our best interests at heart. We are willing to follow leaders, but only to the extent that we believe they call on our best, not our worst.



Ralph Nader:
I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.



Robert Coles:
Abraham Lincoln did not go to Gettysburg having commissioned a poll to find out what would sell in Gettysburg. There were no people with percentages for him, cautioning him about this group or that group or what they found in exit polls a year earlier. When will we have the courage of Lincoln?



Robert Greenleaf:
Good leaders must first become good servants.



Robert Louis Stevenson:
Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others.



Rosabeth Moss Kantor:
Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach.



Rosalynn Carter:
A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go but ought to be.



Stephen Covey:
Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.



Susan B. Anthony:
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.



Theodore Hesburgh:
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision.



Thich Nhat Hanh:
You who are journalists, writers, citizens, you have the right and duty to say to those you have elected that they must practice mindfulness, calm and deep listening, and loving speech. This is universal thing, taught by all religions.



Tom Peters:
If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.



Tony Blair:
The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.



Unknown:
Some leaders are born women.



Vince Lombardi:
Leaders aren't born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that's the price we'll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.



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



Walter Wink:
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu walked by a construction site on a temporary sidewalk the width of one person. A white man appeared at the other end, recognized Tutu, and said, "I don't make way for gorillas." At which Tutu stepped aside, made a deep sweeping gesture, and said, "Ah, yes, but I do."



Warren Bennis:
The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.



Warren Bennis:
The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.



Warren G. Bennis:
The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born -- that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.



Winston Churchill:
The price of greatness is responsibility