Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Alan Shelton on Awakened Leadership. Alan is a leadership coach, blogger, speaker, and the author of Awakened Leadership: Beyond Self-Mastery.
The idea behind Awakened Leadership is to transcend beyond trained behaviors to awareness, and lead a life of authentic leadership. In other words, to be a more effective leader, you have to be more of who you already are.
I’ve been reading Alan’s book. It’s entertaining and deeply engaging. The stories really bring Alan’s insight to life, as we follow him along on his journey to enlightenment.
What I really like about Alan’s approach to leadership, is that it reminds me of Bruce Lee’s approach to martial arts. Bruce Lee rose above techniques through awareness. I think of the Bruce Lee quote, “When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has no style, he can fit in with any style.” Another Bruce Lee quote says, “I do not experience; I am experience. I am not the subject of experience; I am that experience. I am awareness. Nothing else can be I or can exist.” In the movie, Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee said, “Don’t think. FEEL. It’s like a finger pointing at the moon.” The point is that thinking is assessment, while feeling is awareness. We can respond better in the moment, when we are actually in the moment, embracing the experience in an authentic way.
Without further ado, here is Alan on Awakened Leadership and how we can be better leaders by being more of who we already are …

Often the leadership world is divided into two categories, transactional and transformational. Transactional in how we give and receive from our learning and from one another, and transformational in how we choose to view and grow in our own personal maturity.

The reality is, in order to arrive at the doorway to transformational growth, many transactional concepts will have been learned. That is to say that there is a normal course, or arc, that human beings follow in the journey of life. In my experience this is absolutely true. In the beginning of our life we are exposed to learning which involves concepts, diagrams, and written examinations to measure our learning. All of this learning is in the service of becoming a polished ego or self. The arrival point of this process is normally designated as self-mastery. Self-mastery, however, is just the doorway to a new style of learning. And in order to pass through the doorway we must stand on the shoulders of those who brought us to this point.

Self-Mastery

In the self-mastery approach, we are taught that we are all self-contained entities to which attributes apply. For instance, we say that some people possess humility, intelligence, or even leadership capability. In this kind of learning we are the lump of clay to which all exterior forces are brought into play in which to shape us. Our goal in the end is to stand as though we were a product of Michelangelo himself.

Most of us, however, come to the end of this kind of learning somewhere in the first 10 years of our career. And then what are we supposed to do? Surely you’ve noticed that many executives continue to pursue exactly the same style of learning that they always have. If you ask many of them, you’d be surprised to find that they know that they are simply going through the motions. They can tell because of the tiredness and boredom that arises in the 10th or 20th time that they have heard exactly the same concept.

Internally they know that concepts did not translate into anything else all by themselves. It is no longer effective to onboard content and concept from the outside with the expectation that something will change.

Reactive to Transformation

Many times the frustration of learning less and less from the same activity begins to motivate managers to look for something new. They realize that this external learning of new concepts has exhausted itself yet they’re left longing for more. So, it occurs to many executives that it’s now time to take an internal look at themselves. When this observation takes root they have now entered into the transformational or developmental world.

So what is the difference? Each leader’s behavior is now seen as having the possibility of being either an obstacle or an enhancement to leadership itself. Human beings by nature arrive at adulthood with conditionings known as reactive traits. These reactive traits are unconscious and triggered by events and everyday life. Unfortunately, many times these reactions do not belong in the business process.

How many times have you sat in a meeting and watched while some moment of behavior defies any of your ability to understand it? That is reactive behavior. Dedicated leaders see that their own behavior cannot be allowed to derail leadership outcomes. The frustration of the old style of learning transforms into the challenge of internal development and transformation.

Leadership has now seen an entirely new light. No longer is it the Christmas tree holding the ornaments of personal attributes such as humility and the like. True leadership emerges from the ability of the leader to stand in his own personal authenticity. Leadership is now who you are.

Much like athletes who find that mentally processing their plays make them slow on the field, leaders begin to see that the game slows down for them. They no longer see themselves as an individual attempting to execute an idea. Now, they are part of the game and the authenticity of their leadership capability is the field on which it is played. No longer does the leader take the big space and the followers squeeze into what’s left over. Now, the leader sees himself properly situated as a member of the team and in the situation stands to respond to the action when it comes his way.

In my terms, I call this Awakened Leadership – where all the concepts have been transcended and the leader simply allows his response to occur. It is a felt experience, this new style of leadership. All transformative experiences are. From concept to ‘who you are’ indeed is an awakening.

So, what’s holding you back from embracing Awakened Leadership?

“It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.” — Tony Robbins

Have you ever made so many decisions in a day that just one more decision, like what’s for dinner, breaks you?   Our decision making throughout the day adds up, leading to decision fatigue.  If you’re a leader, you probably especially feel the burden.

According to Wikipedia, decision fatigue can lead to a reduced ability to make trade-offs, decision paralysis, impulse purchasing, and impaired self-regulation.  I was reading Motley Fool Stock Advisor, by David and Tom Gardner, and they had this to say about decision fatigue: “It turns out that making decisions is actually very stressful.  As we make hundreds of decisions each day on matters big and small, the cumulative stress adds up.  It’s called decision fatigue, and it can often lead us to shut down and do nothing.”

We probably feel decision fatigue now more than ever with instant communication and information overload.  You know it’s bad when deciding whether to “like” something, hurts your brain.

Luckily, we can defeat or mitigate decision fatigue with proven practices.  We can learn from business executives, air force fighter pilots, fire-fighters, doctors, and intense knowledge work, like software development.

10 Ways to Reduce or Defeat Decision Fatigue

Here are 10 ways to reduce or defeat decision fatigue:

1. Use checklists for common routines.    This is a lesson we learn from pilots.  Having checklists as reminders can help you spend less mental energy on little things throughout your day.   Even if it’s something you know how to do, the checklist can help take some of the burden off.    I use checklists to help me remember key things during my projects.  I also write down procedures in the form of little steps.  This way, I can just follow the steps, and not have to think too hard.    See The Power of Checklists.
2. Set time limits.   Timebox or put a time budget on how long you have to make a decision.  If you find yourself getting stuck or mired in decisions, start setting time limits.  Give yourself five minutes to think it through and then decide.  If five minutes gives you too much time to wallow, then shorten it further.
3. Limit your choices.    Throw out bad choices quickly and narrow down to the ones you think are best bets.  The fast you narrow down your choices, the less time you need to spend shuffling over unnecessary information.
4. Satisfice to find a good enough fit for now.    This is a lesson we learn from fire fighters, police offices, and doctors who have to make many split-second decisions under the gun.  Rather than explore all possible options and get bogged down, they look for the first solution that fits the situation.  See Satisficing to Get Things Done.
5. Just decide.  Don’t dwell on it.  It’s easy to fall into the habit of over-thinking ti or over-engineering your decisions.   This is especially true if you have a need for accuracy or feel a need to do all your homework.    You can start to build momentum by making faster decisions, and acting on them.  You’ll find that many of your decisions may not be as important as you thought they were, or that you learn more from actually taking action and testing your decisions.  If you build a habit of responding to new information, then you can make decisions faster and more freely, while learning and adapting as you go.
6. Right-size your decision making effort.  Don’t spend $20 on a $5 problem.   If you keep this strategy in mind, then it will be a lot easier to speed up your decision making, or help you spend less energy on decisions that don’t matter as much.  Instead of making mountains out of molehills, learn to make molehills out of mountains.
7. Take a time out to recharge.   Your working memory burns out as you process information.   Take more breaks or take a time out.   You can quickly recharge, if you really give yourself a break.  It doesn’t need to be long.   Ten minute breaks can work wonders.  Sometimes, you just need to think about something else to do the trick.
8. Delegate more often and more frequently.  Push decisions out to the leaves.  If this were a tree, stop worrying about all the branches and leaves.  Start pushing decisions out to the leaves and branches where you can empower the people closest to the problems to do something about them.
9. Make it a group thing.   Pair up on decisions or share the decision-making process with a group.   This can help share the load, as well as add new perspective.
10. Let things solve themselves.  This is a lesson we learn from executives.  You don’t need to take on every decision.   Sometimes things really are better off left alone.  Be sure to ask, what’s the downside if you do nothing.  If you let it go, then really let it go.  If you can’t let it go, then admit it, then decide and move on.

If you can reduce your decision fatigue, then you can save more energy for more important decisions, and put your best thinking where it counts.   Find a few ways from above that you can use today, and put them into practice.  Test them out.  The beauty is you can get better at reducing your decision fatigue with practice over time.

You Might Also Like

• Avoid Mental Burnout
• How To Avoid Task Saturation
• Shutdown, Compartmentalize, or Channelize
• The Power of Checklists

“All our words from loose using have lost their edge.” — Ernest Hemingway

The words we use and the words we choose can shape our moments and our lives.  Have you ever experienced a great leader who never get stuck?  They are always asking things like, “What’s the opportunity?” or “What the next step?” or “How can we use this?’

It turns out that our language reflects fundamental dimensions of personality.  In the book, 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot, Richard Wiseman says that research shows that things like handwriting analysis and graphology don’t work.  Instead, it’s the words we use that provide the greatest insight into real character.

Our Language Has Clues

Have you heard of “The Big Five”?  It’s absolutely fascinating, and as Wiseman puts it, it’s “the holy grail of personality research.”  Anyway, here’s what’s interesting.  According to Wiseman, it started in the 1930s when a group of researchers compiled a list of 18,000+ words from an unabridged dictionary that could be used to describe personality.  They refined the list to about 4,000 words to describe relatively stable and central traits.  In the 1940s, another set of researchers refined this set to about 200 words.  Over the next 40+ years, researchers used increasingly sophisticated techniques to collect and analyze data on personality to identify key dimensions.  Finally, in the early 1990′s consensus emerged across countries and cultures around a set of five fundamental dimensions of personality.  The dimensions are: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Changing Your Language, Changes Your Life

I’m a believer that language is empowering and you can use this.  I believe the key is from finding the words that move you and make you … and avoid the words that paralyze or break you.  Changing your language, changes your life.

We live in the age of insight.  It’s easy to browse the Web to find and explore new ways to say things or express ourselves more fully.

10 Ways to Use the Power of Language

Here are examples of ways to use words to shape your life:

1. Find interesting words to express specific concepts.  I’ve always been a fan of expanding my vocabulary, and learning new languages.  I love it when a word perfectly expresses an idea.  For example, ikigai roughly translates to “the reason for which you wake up in the morning.”
2. Choose metaphors that evoke your best imagery.  What does life mean to you?  Is it a tragedy or a comedy?  Maybe it’s a sitcom.  For me, it’s more like an epic adventure.  For you, maybe it’s more like a dance.  The people that dance with life, find a way to go with the flow, and bend instead of break.  It’s the willow way.
3. Study Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). In simple terms, NLP is a way to program success.  It’s a tool for personal excellence.  It was popularized by Tony Robbins as a way to model and replicate the success of others.   According to Wikipedia, you can think of neuro-linguistic programming as “(‘neuro’), language (‘linguistic’) and behavioral patterns that have been learned through experience (‘programming’) and can be organized to achieve specific goals in life.”   If you study NLP, you can learn ways to dramatically improve your precision and accuracy of language.  You can then use it to reshape your thinking, feeling, and doing.
4. Quotes.  I am a fan of quotes (did you notice my Great Quotes collection?).  As Sean Platt of Writer Dad says, “Life is better with the right words.” It’s so true, especially when we find just the right quote, that says it just the right way.  One of the reasons why I build out these quotes collections is to put the wisdom of the ages and modern sages right at our finger tips.  Quotes are “wisdom that sticks.”
5. One-liner reminders.  This is similar to quotes, but in this case, the idea is to create some pithy prose that makes an idea stick.  It’s a great way to turn insight into action.  In fact, one way I remind myself to take what I learn and apply it is the one-liner reminder:  “Turn insight into action.”  Related to this, I also use the reminder, “Find three take aways.”   I use one-liner reminders to build new habits or practice new skills.  For example, the way I learned to improve my influence was “ask, don’t tell.”  It helped me to start asking better questions, and to pose better questions to help bring others along.
6. Ask better questions.  You can use questions to build a wondering mind, and to explore new ideas.  People that get stuck or limit themselves tend to ask limiting questions, or they don’t ask questions at all.  Asking questions puts you in a more resourceful state.  Your mind is a powerful problem solver, but you need to ask it the right questions.  Here is a set of 101 Questions that Empower You to get you started.
7. Model the leader.  Leaders tend to have a way with words.   The words they use help express conviction.  The words they use help express vision and opportunity.  Here are some of the words some of my favorite leaders use in their vocabulary:   learning moment, leadership opportunity,  challenge, win, excellence, connection, conviction, vision, etc.    Rob White of Mind Adventures is a great example of using inspiring words. mental models, and mantras for personal empowerment and self-leadership.
8. Leverage patterns and pattern languages.  Patterns create a shared vocabulary.  If you haven’t explored patterns and pattern languages before, your world is about to rock.   Patterns are simply named problem and solution pairs.  The benefit is that you can build a simple language around the expert knowledge within a domain.  For example, Christopher Alexander developed pattern languages to share architectural solutions.  The beauty is you can use a single word to express a hundred-word concept.  In software development, one of the ways we rapidly share expertise is through patterns.  Beyond software, a great example of patterns in practice is the collection of Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas, which creates a vocabulary for driving change leadership.   I also have a post on The Power of Patterns.
9. Make it a mantra.    According to Wikipedia, a mantra is “a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of ‘creating transformation.’  One of my mantras is, “stand strong when tested.”  Another is, “lead by example.”
10. Choose your words to use your words.   In nearly every scenario where you say you “HAVE TO” do something, there is really a choice.   The choice may not be attractive, but that’s exactly why you are choosing the choice that you are.  Empower yourself by swapping out more “HAVE TO”s with “CHOOSE TO”s.   You will gradually break the ties that bind you, including your own.

Shape your words, shape your life.  Always remember that YOU are your most important meaning makers in your life.   Choose your words and use your words with skill.

“When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.” — Lao Tzu

A skilled leader knows when to provide more help with the task.  A skilled leader also knows when to provide more encouragement or motivation.

An effective leader also know that just because you needed more task help in one situation, does not mean you need more task help  in another.  An effective leader also knows that just because you need more relationship support in one situation, does not mean you need more relationship support in another.

As a leader, your ability to identify a specific task, assess what a follower needs to perform the task , and apply the right combination of task and relationship focus, is a way to lead effectively, from moment to moment, or from situation to situation.  It’s leadership acumen in action.

The Hersey Situational Leadership® Model is a great model for applying the right amount of task-focus, and the right amount of relationship-focus to the goal at hand.  It’s a powerful model too because it helps you stay fluid and responsive, and adjust your leadership style based on what your followers need.

In the book, In the book, Little Book of Leadership: The 12.5 Strengths of Responsible, Reliable, Remarkable Leaders that Create Results, Rewards, and Resilience, Jeffrey Gitomer and Paul “Doc” Hersey write about how to use the Hersey Situational Leadership® Model to express and apply leadership in the moment.

Three Learnable Skills to Master

Hersey and Gitomer share three skills for using the Hersey Situational Leadership® Model:

• Skill 1 – Identify a Specific Task.
• Skill 2 – Diagnose the Follower’s Performance Needs for the Task.
• Skill 3 – Apply the Best Combination of Task and Relationship Leader Behaviors.

Applying the Skills

To show how you can apply the skills, Hersey and Gitomer provide a scenario and give some examples of how you would blend your task-focus and relationship-focus behaviors.

In the example, Pat walks into your office and asks if you have a moment.  The situation is a client has asked Pat to change the ordering process by noon the next day.

Here is how you might respond, to apply the three skills:

1. Identify the task. You identify the task as “change the order process.”
2. Diagnose the performance needs. You diagnose the situation.  You know Pat has the skills since she’s changed the order process twice before.  You ask her what is it about this change that you find challenging.  She responds that it’s the time frame.
3. Apply appropriate amounts of task and relationship behaviors.  You ask the following questions: Is this any more complicated than the other two you did so well on?  How much time will this one take? How much time did the previous two take? Do you need any backup resources? Do we need a plan B?

In this case, asking the questions helps stay connected, while exploring the task-needs and relationship needs that Pat may have.

Stay Fluid and Responsive

If your follower needs more task help, you can help provide the who, what, when, where, how, and how much they need to perform.   If you follow needs more relationship help, you can focus on communication, praise, encouragement, or clarity on the “why” behind the task.  Hersey and Gitomer write:

“If the answers to these questions come from Pat, she will come to realize  she can handle this and the leader will be able to delegate. (Low Relationship and Low Task.)  If Pat cannot answer the questions and does not respond  with a little encouragement (High Relationship and Low Task), the leader can become more involved and provide some structure for meeting the deadline  (High Task and High Relationship).  One of the great things about the Hersey Situational Leadership® Model is how fluid and responsive you can be to follower needs.  This is leadership in the moment.”

You can practices your task and relationship leadership behaviors from moment to moment.  If you master this ability, you will dramatically improve your leadership effectiveness.  This will help you avoid micro-managing, and it will help you maintain trust with your followers.  It will also help you grow and expand your followers’ abilities, while providing the encouragement and emotional support that they need.

Every now and then I learn a new way of looking at an old word.   And it changes everything.  For example, when I learned that inspire is “to breathe life into,” inspiration took on new meaning.  I started wondering how many people I breathe life into.

This time, the word is enthusiasm.  I never really was a fan of enthusiasm.  That is, until now.  Somehow, along the way of growing up, I had associated enthusiasm with false inspiration.  Now, I have a new lens.

In the book, Little Book of Leadership: The 12.5 Strengths of Responsible, Reliable, Remarkable Leaders that Create Results, Rewards, and Resilience, Jeffrey Gitomer writes about enthusiasm and how he changed his view on what it means.

Entheos is “The God Within”

It’s a great thing when somebody or something lights our fire.  But, it’s a lot more empowering if you create your own enthusiasm.  Jeffrey writes:

“Thirty five years ago, when I heard Earl Nightingale tell me that enthusiasm came from the Greek word ‘entheos’ (which means ‘the god within’), I changed my entire thought process by realizing that I cannot rely on things or other people to create it for me.”

Spread the Lesson

Empower people to seek or create their own enthusiasm from the inside out.  Jeffrey writes:

“Your job as a leader is to teach the same lesson to all of your people so that they might receive the same gift.  A gift that altered my internal enthusiasm for the better, forever.”

It’s Contagious

It’s contagious.  And it works both way.  Jeffrey writes:

“Enthusiasm is contagious.  Either by presence or by absence.  The more enthusiastic  you are as a leader, the more enthusiastic it’s likely your people will be — and the more ready and willing they will be to accept whatever task you give them.”

To make the most of what’s around you, unleash what’s inside of you.  Share your gift freely.  It’s the gift that gives back.

This is my roundup of top blogs for insight and action.  The Web is a big place, but a lot of roads lead to the same town.

In the spirit of insight and action, I want to share some of the best blogs on the Web that help you get better, smarter, and faster in key areas of your life.  For this list, I looked to people, blogs, and sites that really make us think, surprise us with insight, and share news we can use (or make us laugh, cry, or feel alive..)  Many of the authors are people with a passion for more from life.

Collectively, this collection of top blogs helps equip you with “skills to pay the bills and lead a better life.”  You’ll find it’s a mash up.  The mix includes: business skills, continuous learning, entrepreneurism, fun, leadership, personal development, productivity, strategy, technology, thinking skills, and trends.

I believe these are the sites that truly help you get the edge in work and life.  It’s a living list of top blogs, and I will update it from time to time.

Top 10 Blogs for Insight and Action

1. 800 CEO Read
2. All Top
3. How To Change the World, by Guy Kawsaki
4. Information is Beautiful, by David McCandless
5. Jim Carroll – Futurist, Trends, and Innovation
6. Psychology Today
7. Scobleizer, by Robert Scoble
8. Seth Godin
9. TED – Ideas Worth Spreading
10. The Blog of Tim Ferris

Top Blogs for Insight and Action A – Z

1. 43 Folders, by Merlin Man
2. 800 CEO Read
3. 1000 Ventures.com, by Vadim Kotelnikov
4. A Daring Adventure, Tim Brownson
5. Alissa Finerman – Author, Speaker, Life Coach
6. All Top
7. Big Think
8. Blue Zones Blog, by Dan Buettner
9. Brain Pickings
10. Business Balls, by Alan Chapman
11. Business Insider
12. Change This
13. Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life, by Steven Aitchison
14. Charlie Rose
15. Chief Executive Magazine
16. CIO.com
17. CIO Insight
18. Cool Infographics, by Randy Krum
19. Danielle LaPorte – White Hot Truth
20. David Zinger – Employee Engagement
21. Dilbert
22. Disease Proof, by Dr. Joel Fuhrman
23. Dr. K’s Blog – How to Click with People, by Dr. Rick Kirshner
24. Entrepreneur’s Journey, by Yaro Starak
25. Entrepreneur Magazine
26. Expert Access, by Steve Kayser
27. Forbes
28. Gaping Void, by Hugh MacLeod
29. Gartner
30. Get Rich Slowly, by J.D. Roth
31. Grow with Stacey
32. HBR (Harvard Business Review)
33. How To Change the World, by Guy Kawsaki
34. Huffington Post
35. Ian’s Messy Desk, by Ian McKenzie
36. I Will Teach You To Be Rich, by Ramit Sethi
37. IGG – Tips, Tools, and Tantalizing Ideas, by Marquita Herald
38. Illuminated Mind, by Jonathan Mead
39. Inc – Small Business Ideas and Resources for Entrepreneurs
40. Information is Beautiful, by David McCandless
41. Jim Carroll – Futurist, Trends, and Innovation
42. John Maxwell on Leadership
43. Jurgen Appelo
44. Leading Answers – Leadership and Agile Project Management Ideas, Observations, and Links
45. Life Optimizer.org, by Donald Latumahina
46. Marc and Angel Hack Life
47. Marie Forleo
48. Mental Toughness Blog, by Steve Siebold
49. Michael Hyatt – Intentional Leadership
50. NPR
51. Personal Development with Fred Tracey
52. Personal Excellence Blog, by Celestine Chua
53. Personal Success Factors, by Stephen Borgman
54. Pick the Brain, by Erin Falconer
55. Possibilities – Master Brew for Creative Minds
56. Psychology Today
57. ReadWriteWeb
58. Richard Branson
59. Scientific American Mind
60. Scobleizer, by Robert Scoble
61. Seth Godin
62. Shake Off the Grind & Begin to Thrive, by Joe Wilner
63. Slate Magazine – Politics, Business, Technology, and the Arts
64. Smart Passive Income, by Pat Flynn
65. Stepcase Lifehack
66. Steve Pavlina
67. Strategy + Business
68. Success Begins Today, by John Richardson
69. Success Magazine Blog
70. Tammy Erickson (Harvard Business Review)
71. TED – Ideas Worth Spreading
72. The Blog of Tim Ferris
73. The Changing Minds Blog, by David Straker
74. The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin
75. The Opinion Pages (The New York Times)
76. The Simple Dollar – Financial Talk for the Rest of Us, by Trent Hamm
77. The Wall Street Journal
78. Think Simple Now, by Tina Su
79. This Isn’t Happiness
80. Tim Sanders
81. Tony Robbins – Change Your Life Now
82. Top Tenz.Net
83. Victoria Vives – Strategies for Unleashing the Superhero in You

“Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.” — General George Patton

Leadership is not limited to role or position.  Leadership is a set of skills that anyone can benefit from.  We lead ourselves first, and that’s how we lead others.

I finished sweeping my Leadership Books list.  It took a while to update it, but I think it reflects a good set of leadership books by key categories now.  I added a few new books to my leadership books list including The 5 Levels of Leadership, by John Maxwell, and StandOut, by Marcus Buckingham, which weren’t available when I first put my list of leadership books together.I also added some books to the list based on feedback from different folks.  For example, I added 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class, by Steve Siebold, Executive Presence: The Art of Commanding Respect Like a CEO, by Harrison Monarth, and The Leadership Test, by Timothy Clark.

I also added 180 Climbing the Two Ladders to Inner Strength & Outer Freedom, by Rob White to the list of leadership books because I think it’s a great book on leadership from the inside out, and I’m a big believer that all leadership starts with self-leadership.

If you’re looking to give the gift of wisdom this holiday, then explore and enjoy the list of leadership books.   There is something for everyone among the art and science of leadership.

My Related Posts

• Leadership Checklist
• Leadership Quotes

This is my collection of leadership quotes drawing from John Maxwell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sun Tzu, and more.   It’s wisdom of the ages and modern sages, all focused on the topic of leadership.  Use these quotes to add to your own repertoire of leadership knowledge.

When you think of your favorite leaders, what words come to mind?   Some of the words I think of are courage, compassion, connection, and conviction.  I also think of heart, hope, encouragement, inspiration, and optimism.  I also think of accountability, self-awareness, learning and growth.  These are the words I used to organize my leadership quotes.

There are many lessons we can learn on the art of leadership, but some of the most important I think are start with heart, lead by example, lead yourself first, focus on the greater good, know when to follow, don’t ask people to do what you wouldn’t do yourself, and balance connection with conviction.

For me, to put it simply, I think effective leaders bring out the best in people.

Read on to explore leadership in depth from a variety of people and perspectives.

Top 10 Leadership Quotes

1. “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” –  John C. Maxwell
2. “A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn’t like the tune.” – Anonymous
3. “All Leadership is influence.” — John C. Maxwell
4. “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. “Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.” — General George Patton
6. “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” — Warren Bennis
7. “Managers help people see themselves as they are; Leaders help people to see themselves better than they are.” — Jim Rohn
8. “The art of leadership is saying no, not yes.  It is very easy to say yes.” — Tony Blair
9. “The price of greatness is responsibility.” — Winston Churchill
10. “When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.” — Lao Tzu

A Leader Is …

• “A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.” — John C. Maxwell
• “A leader is not an administrator who loves to run others, but someone who carries water for his people so that they can get on with their jobs.” — Robert Townsend
• “A leader’s role is to raise people’s aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.” — David R. Gergen
• “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.” — Lao Tzu
• “A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see.” — Leroy Eimes

Boldness and Courage

• “A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” — William Shedo
• “Boldness, more boldness, and always boldness!” — George Jacques Danton
• “Courage is the enforcing virtue, the one that makes possible all the other virtues common
  to exceptional leaders: honesty, integrity, confidence, compassion and humility.” — John McCain
• “Leaders make decisions that create the future they desire.” — Mike Murdock
• “Rely on your own strength of body and soul. Take for your star self-reliance, faith, honesty and industry. Don’t take too much advice — keep at the helm and steer your own ship, and remember that the great art of commanding is to take a fair share of the work. Fire above the mark you intend to hit. Energy, invincible determination with the right motive, are the levers that move the world.” — Noah Porter
• “The only safe ship in a storm is leadership.” — Faye Wattleton

Challenges and Difficulty

• “Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.” — Publilius Syrus
• “Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “Confront issues and challenges – not each Other.” — Suzanne Mayo Frindt
• “Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.” — Winston Churchill
• “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing.  The worst thing you can do is nothing.” — Theodore Roosevelt
• “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.” — Vince Lombardi
• “Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity.” — Warren Bennis
• “Misfortunes, untoward events, lay open, disclose the skill of a general, while success conceals his weakness, his weak points.” – Horace
• “One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” — Arnold H. Glasgow
• “People who let events and circumstances dictate their lives are living reactively. That means that they don’t act on life, they only react to it.” — Stedman Graham
• “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which have been overcome while trying to succeed.” — Booker T. Washington
• “The hallmark of a well-managed organization is not the absence of problems, but whether or not problems are effectively resolved.” — Steve Ventura
• “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
  Character
• “Character creates consistency, and if your people know what they can expect from you, they will continue to look to you for leadership.” — John Maxwell
• “Character makes trust possible, and trust is the foundation of leadership.” — John Maxwell
• “I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a “transformer” in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader.” — Stephen R. Covey
• “I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.” — Lao-Tzu
• “If you have no character to lose, people will have no faith in you.” — Mahatma Gandhi
• “It’s true that charisma can make a person stand out for a moment, but character sets a person apart for a lifetime.” — John Maxwell
• “Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character; it requires moral rather than athletic or intellectual effort, and it imposes on both leader and follower alike the burdens of self-restraint.” — Lewis H. Lapham
• “Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.” — Norman Schwarzkopf
• “Over time, is it easier or harder to sustain your influence within your organization?  With charisma alone, influence becomes increasingly more difficult to sustain. With character, as time passes, influence builds and requires less work to sustain.” — John Maxwell
• “The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” — Jim Rohn
• “The greater a man is in power above others, the more he ought to excel them in virtue. None ought to govern who is not better than the governed.” — Publius Syrus
• “The real leader has no need to lead — he is content to point the way.” — Henry Miller
• “The three C’s of leadership are Consideration,Caring,and Courtesy.Be polite to everyone.” — Brian Tracy

Communication

• “Diligent follow-up and follow-through will set you apart from the crowd and communicate excellence.” – John Maxwell
• “Earn the right to be heard by listening to others. Seek to understand a situation before making judgments about it.” – John Maxwell
• “Great communication depends on two simple skills—context, which attunes a leader to the same frequency as his or her audience, and delivery, which allows a leader to phrase messages in a language the audience can understand.” – John Maxwell
• “Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.” — General Colin Powel
• “Leadership is about magnetic communication. Leaders have a way of communicating that draws people toward the vision and the horizon.” — Doug Firebaugh
• “Persuasive communication involves enthusiasm, animation, audience participation, authenticity and spontaneity.” — John Maxwell
• “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” — Theodore Roosevelt
• “Take the emotional temperature of those listening to you. Facial expressions, voice inflection and posture give clues to a person’s mood and attitude.” – John Maxwell
• “The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and will to carry on.” — Walter J. Lippmann

Connection

• “A big man is one who makes us feel bigger when we are with him.” — John C. Maxwell
• “A good leader can’t get too far ahead of his followers.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
• “A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.” –  John Maxwell
• “As a leader you should always start with where people are before you try to take them to where you want them to go.” — Jim Rohn
• “I light my candle from their torches.” — Robert Burton
• “I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.” — Indira Gandhi
• “High sentiments always win in the end, The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.” — George Orwell
• “Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.” – John Maxwell
• “The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.” — Colin Powell
• “The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.” — Woodrow Wilson
• “To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.” — Charles de Montesquieu
• “To lead people, walk beside them.  As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate.  When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves.’” — Lao-Tsu

Conviction

• “A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.” — Ralph Nader
• “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.” — Rosalynn Carter
• “A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.” — Max Lucado
• “Consensus is the negation of leadership.” — Margaret Thatcher
• “Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to cut all sources of retreat. Only by doing so can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a burning desire to win which is one of the essentials to success.” — Napoleon Hill
• “I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure: which is: Try to please everybody.” — Herbert B. Swope
• “If I have the belief that I can do it, I will surely acquire the capacity to do it, even if I may not have it at the beginning.” — Mahatma Gandhi
• “In this world a man must either be an anvil or hammer.” — Henry W. Longfellow
• “Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise.” — Woodrow Wilson
• “Let him who would be moved to convince others, be first moved to convince himself.” — Thomas Carlyle
• “My leadership began to take flight when I allowed myself to press people to change—whether they thanked me or cursed me.” – John Maxwell
• “Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.” — Samuel Johnson
• “With the power of conviction, there is no sacrifice.” — Jim Rohn
• “We will either find a way or make one.” – Hannibal

Credibility

• “A highly credible leader under-promises and over-delivers.” – John Maxwell
• “Credibility is a leader’s currency. With it, he or she is solvent; without it, he or she is bankrupt.” – John Maxell
• “Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon them and to let them know that you trust them.” — Booker T. Washington
• “Most people who want to get ahead do it backward. They think, ‘I’ll get a bigger job, then I’ll learn how to be a leader.’ But showing leadership skill is how you get the bigger job in the first place. Leadership isn’t a position, it’s a process.” — John Maxwell

Encouragement and Empowerment

• “A boss creates fear, a leader confidence. A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions. A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting. A boss is interested in himself or herself, a leader is interested in the group.” — Russell H. Ewing
• “As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” — Marianne Williamson
• “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” — Bill Gates
• “Coaching isn’t an addition to a leader’s job, it’s an integral part of it.” — George S. Odiorne
• “I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.” — Charles M. Schwab
• “If you are going to help people reach their potential, they need to be recognised and rewarded. Everyone needs that.” — Jacqueline Norcel
• “If you wish a general to be beaten, send him a ream full of instructions; if you wish him to succeed, give him a destination, and bid him conquer.” — Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare
• “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” — George Patton
• “No general can fight his battles alone. He must depend upon his lieutenants, and his success depends upon his ability to select the right man for the right place.” — Philip Armour
• “Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise.   They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.” — Sam Walton
• “People change when they hurt enough that they have to, learn enough that they want to, or receive enough that they are able to.” – John Maxwell
• “Talented performers flock to the best and brightest leaders, and these leaders in turn lift the lids off their people and uncork the latent talent inside of them.” – John Maxwell
• “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” — Theodore Roosevelt
• “The people who are lifting the world onward and upward are those who encourage more than they criticize.” — Elizabeth Harrison
• “The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.” — John Buchan
• “The way to develop the best that is in a man is by appreciation and encouragement.” — Charles Schwab
• “There is no more noble occupation in the world than to assist another human being to help someone succeed.” — Alan Loy McGinnis
• “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• “Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Example and Leading by Example

• “A leader leads by example not by force.” — Sun Tzu
• “Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily;even if you had no title or position.” — Brian Tracy
• “Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing.” — Albert Schweitzer
• “I think leadership comes from integrity – that you do whatever you ask others to do. I think there are non-obvious ways to lead. Just by providing a good example as a parent, a friend, a neighbor makes it possible for other people to see better ways to do things. Leadership does not need to be a dramatic, fist in the air and trumpets blaring, activity.” — Scott Berkun
• “Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.” – Proverb
• “Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.” — Thomas J. Watson
• “The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do.” — Andrew Carnegie
• “True leaders always practice the three R’s: Respect for self, Respect for others, Responsibility for all their actions.” — Anonymous

Fear and Failure

• “Don’t buy into the notion that mistakes can somehow be avoided. They can’t be.” – John Maxwell
• “’Failing forward’ is the ability to get back up after you’ve been knocked down, learn from your mistake, and move forward in a better direction.” – John Maxwell
• “Failure is not a one-time event; it’s how you deal with life along the way. Until you breathe your last breath, you’re still in the process, and there is still time to turn things around for the better.” – John Maxwell
• “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” — Babe Ruth
• “Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them. “ — Robert Jarvik
• “Seek advice, but make sure it’s from someone who has successfully handled mistakes or adversities.” – John Maxwell
• “The leader has a clear idea of what he wants to do professionally and personally, and the strength to persist in the face of setbacks, even failures.” — Warren G. Bennis
• “You are the only person who can label what you do a failure. Failure is subjective.” – John Maxwell

Following

• “A man is only a leader when a follower stands beside him.” — Mark Brouwer
• “Every leader needs to look back once in a while to make sure he has followers.” – Anonymous
• “He that cannot obey, cannot command.” — Benjamin Franklin
• “He who has learned how to obey will know how to command.” – Solon
• “He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.” – Aristotle
• “If you want to lead, first learn how to follow.” — Rick Beneteau
• “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” — Steve Jobs
• “Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.” — Tom Peters
• “Look over your shoulder now and then to be sure someone’s following you.” — Henry Gilmer
• “One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you.” — Dennis A. Peer
• “Take care, don’t fight, and remember: if you do not choose to lead, you will forever be led by others. Find what scares you, and do it. And you can make a difference, if you choose to do so.” — J. Michael Straczynski
• “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” — Ralph Nader
• “The height of ability in the least able consists in knowing how to submit to the good leadership of others.” — François de la Rochefoucauld
• “The leader is one who mobilizes others toward a goal shared by leaders and followers … Leaders, followers and goals make up the three equally necessary supports for leadership.” — Gary Wills
• “The led must not be compelled, they must be able to choose their own leader.” — Albert Einstein
• “Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.” — Oscar Wilde
• “To lead the people, walk behind them.” — Lao-Tzu
• “You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.” — Sam Rayburn

Heart

• “A ruler should be slow to punish and swift to reward.” – Ovid
• “Great leadership usually starts with a willing heart, a positive attitude, and a desire to make a difference.” — Mac Anderson
• “He is greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.” — Henry Ward Beecher
• “It is impossible to imagine anything which better becomes a ruler than mercy.” – Seneca
• “People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.” — John C. Maxwell
• “People don’t mind being challenged to do better if they know the request is coming from a caring heart.” — Ken Blanchard
• “The ability to summon positive emotions during periods of intense stress lies at the heart of effective leadership.” — Jim Loehr
• “The power is detested, and miserable the life, of him who wishes to be feared rather than to be loved.” — Cornelius Nepos
• “They may forget what you said, they may forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” — Carl W. Buecher

Influence

• “He who has great power should use it lightly.” – Seneca
• “I strongly believe that the responsibility of leadership is to shape the debate—to practice and project the right attributes—whether in a business enterprise, in our society, and even in our religions.” — Farooq Kathwari
• “Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small.” — Edmund Spenser
• “In the past a leader was a boss. Today’s leaders must be partners with their people … they no longer can lead solely based on positional power.” — Ken Blanchard
• “No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.” — Abraham Lincoln
• “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” — Kenneth Blanchard
• “There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple, and useful life.” — Booker T. Washington
• “What makes leadership is the ability to get people to do what they don’t want to do and like it.” — Harry Truman
• “What you cannot enforce, do not command.” – Sophocles
• “You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.” — Ken Kesey

Inspiration and Hope

• “A leader is a dealer in hope.” — Napoleon Bonaparte
• “A person, who no matter how desperate the situation, gives others hope, is a true leader.” — Daisaku Ikeda
• “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” — John Quincy Adams
• “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.” — Warren Bennis
• “Lead and inspire people. Don’t try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be lead.” — Ross Perot
• “Nobody rises to low expectations.” — Calvin Lloyd
• “One cannot consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar.” — Helen Keller
• “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle, or to be the mirror that reflects it.” — Edith Wharton
• “We should seize every opportunity to give encouragement. Encouragement is oxygen to the soul. The days are always dark enough. There is no need for us to emphasize the fact by spreading further gloom.” — George M. Adams
• “Where there is no hope in the future, there is no power in the present.” — John Maxwell

Leadership Is …

• “Leadership is action, not position.” — Donald H. McGannon
• “Leadership is based on a spiritual quality; the power to inspire, the power to inspire others to follow.” — Vince Lombardi
• “Leadership is getting people to help you when they are not obligated to do so.” — John C. Maxwell
• “Leadership is getting someone to do what they don’t want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.” — Tom Landry
• “Leadership is influence.” — John C. Maxwell
• “Leadership is much more an art, a belief, a condition of the heart, than a set of things to do. The visible signs of artful leadership are expressed, ultimately, in its practice.” — Max Depree
• “Leadership is no longer about your position. It’s now more about your passion for excellence and making a difference.  You can lead without a title.” — Robin Sharma
• “Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart. Leadership is about inspiration — of oneself and of others. Great leadership is about human experiences, not processes. Leadership is not a formula or a program, it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. It is an attitude, not a routine.” — Lance Secretan
• “Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.” — Harold S. Geneen
• “Leadership is the ability to establish standards and manage a creative climate where people are self-motivated toward the mastery of long term constructive goals, in a participatory environment of mutual respect, compatible with personal values.” — Mike Vance
• “Leadership is the ability to get extraordinary achievement from ordinary people.” — Brian Tracy
• “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” — Warren G. Bennis
• “Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average.” — Jim Rohn

Learning and Growth

• “Confront your inadequacies and push your personal boundaries: It’s the surest way to grow, improve and expand the scope of your influence.” – John Maxwell
• “Education is the mother of leadership.” — Wendell Lewis Wilkie
• “Every relationship in your organization will affect you one way or another.  Those who do not increase you will inevitably decrease you. “ – John Maxwell
• “It all comes down to this: If you want one year of happiness, grow grain, if you want 10 years of happiness, grow trees, if you want 100 years of happiness, grow people.” — Harvey Mackay
• “In order to be happy, human beings must feel they are continuing to grow. Clearly, we must adopt the concept of continuous improvement as a daily principle.” — Tony Robbins
• “Leaders don’t rise to the pinnacle of success without developing the right set of attitudes and habits; they make every day a masterpiece.” – John Maxwell
• “Leaders never outgrow the need to change.” — John Maxwell
• “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” — John F. Kennedy
• “Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.” — Harold Geneen
• “The better you are at surrounding yourself with people of high potential, the greater your chance for success.” – John Maxwell
• “The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone.  You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.” — Elaine Agather
• “The more seriously you take your growth, the more seriously your people will take you.” — John Maxwell
• “The most important part of being a leader is maintaining the desire to keep on learning. That means learning about yourself, about your peers, and about the people you serve.” — Brian Koval
• “The most valuable “currency” of any organization is the initiative and creativity of its members. Every leader has the solemn moral responsibility to develop these to the maximum in all his people. This is the leader’s highest priority.” — W. Edwards Deming

Self-Leadership

• “It’s amazing how many cares disappear when you decide not to be something, but to be someone. “ — Coco Chanel
• “Personal leadership is not a singular experience. It is, rather, the ongoing process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with those most important things.” — Stephen Covey
• “The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands.” — Robert M. Pirsig
• “To be able to lead others, a man must be willing to go forward alone.” — Harry Truman
• “Whatever you are, be a good one.” — Abraham Lincoln

Servant Leadership

• “A person who is worthy of being a leader wants power not for himself, but in order to be of service.” — J. Ervin, Jr.
• “Earn your success based on service to others, not at the expense of others.” — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
• “Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” — Martin Luther King Jr
• “Men are governed only by serving them; the rule is without exception.” — V. Cousin
• “Servant-leadership is more than a concept, it is a fact. Any great leader, by which I also mean an ethical leader of any group, will see herself or himself as a servant of that group and will act accordingly.” — M. Scott Peck
• “The adventure of life is to learn. The purpose of life is to grow. The nature of life is to change. The challenge of life is to overcome. The essence of life is to care. The opportunity of like is to serve. The secret of life is to dare. The spice of life is to befriend. The beauty of life is to give.” — William Arthur Ward
• “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.” — Max DePree
• “True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not to enrich the leader.” — John C. Maxwell

Teamwork

• “Coming together is a beginning, and staying together is progress, but only when teams sweat together do they find success.” – John Maxwell
• “It is the very essence of good leadership to give away all credit for positive achievement, to identify only team goals and always to refer to them as such.” — Joe Klock
• “Remember the difference between a boss and a leader; a boss says ‘Go!’ … a leader says ‘Let’s go!’  — E.M. Kelly
• “Teams make you better than you are, multiply your value, enable you to do what you do best, allow you to help others do their best, give you more time, provide you with companionship, help you fulfill the desires of your heart and compound your vision and effort.” – John Maxwell
• “The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say ‘I’. And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say ‘I’. They don’t think ‘I’. They think ‘we’; they think ‘team’. They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but ‘we’ gets the credit…. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.” — Peter Drucker
• “The goal of an effective leader is to recondition your team to be solution focused rather than problem focused.” — Jim Rohn
• “Values hold the team together, provide stability for the team to grow upon, measure the team’s performance, give direction and guidance and attract like-minded people.” – John Maxwell

Vision

• “A leader’s job is to look into the future and see the organization, not as it is, but as it should be.” — Jack Welch
• “All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible.” — Orison Swett Marden
• “Big thinkers are specialists in creating positive, forward-looking, optimistic pictures in their own minds and in the minds of others.” — David J. Schwartz
• “Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.” – Goethe
• “Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” — John Welch
• “If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants.” — Isaac Newton
• “Leaders need to be optimists.  Their vision is beyond the present.” — Rudy Giuliani
• “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.” — Stephen R. Covey
• “The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.” — Eric Hoffer
• “The most elusive and desired quality of leadership is vision. Vision is the perfume of the mind.” — Harriet Rubin
• “The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.” — Theodore M. Hesburgh
• “Transmit your vision emotionally by gaining credibility, demonstrating passion, establishing relationships and communicating a felt need. Transmit it logically by confronting reality, formulating strategy, accepting responsibility, celebrating victory and learning from defeat.“ – John Maxwell

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This is my collection of Seth Godin quotes.  They’ll make you think and ponder as you wonder around from one idea to the next.

Seth’s sweet spot is marketing but his quotes easily span business, change, greatness, innovation, leadership, mediocrity, and strategy.  Seth’s quotes teach us that the individual is a powerful force, that multiplies when we dare to be different, take action, test our ideas, stay true to our authentic self, tell inspiring stories, make things meaningful, and lead tribes of like minds and shared values.

Perhaps the most important lesson we learn from Seth Godin is this:  Think and do great things.  And do the tough stuff, because it’s worth it.

Enjoy.

Top 10 Seth Godin Quotes

Here are my top 10 favorite quotes by Seth Godin:

1. “Are you a serial idea-starting person? The goal is to be an idea-shipping person.”
2. “Change is not a threat, it’s an opportunity. Survival is not the goal, transformative success is.”
3. “Don’t try to please everyone. There are countless people who don’t want one, haven’t heard of one or actively hate it. So what?”
4. “Expectations are the engines of our perceptions.”
5. “Go ahead, do something impossible. “
6. “Ideas in secret die. They need light and air or they starve to death.”
7. “If you could do tomorrow over again, would you?”
8. “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, you ought to set up a life you don’t need to escape from.”
9. “Why waste a sentence saying nothing? “
10. “You can’t shrink your way to greatness! “

Business

• “As an organization grows and succeeds, it sows the seeds of its own demise by getting boring.”
• “Choose your customers, choose your future.”
• “Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your ability to deliver the right story to the others.”
• “Developing expertise or assets that are not easily copied is essential; otherwise you’re just a middleman. “
• “Don’t try to be the ‘next’. Instead, try to be the other, the changer, the new. “
• “Everyone is not your customer. “
• “Fire the committee. No great website in history has been conceived of by more than three people. Not one. This is a deal breaker.”
• “Give up control and give it away … The more you give your idea away, the more your company is going to be worth. “
• “If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have either. “
• “In a world of free, everyone can play.”
• “It’s better to make a decision, even the wrong one, than to be in limbo.”
• “Lack of resources (payroll), time and competing priorities are why so many nonprofits haven’t done well. It’s that simple.”
• “Make a decision. It doesn’t have to be a wise decision or a perfect one. Just make one.”
• “Once you have permission to talk to someone, finding new products or services for them is a smart way to grow.”
• “One way to think about running a successful business is to figure out what the least you can do is, and do that. “
• “Playing safe is very risky. “
• “The application process changes the list of who applies. Your applicants reflect your methods.”
• “The best time to do great customer service is when a customer is upset.”
• “The market and the consumer and idea trump the system.”
• “Your best customers are worth far more than your average customers.”

Change

• “Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late.”
• “Change is not a threat, it’s an opportunity. Survival is not the goal, transformative success is.”
• “If you want to dig a big hole, you need to stay in one place.”
• “Knowing what to do is very, very different than actually doing it.”
• “Little changes cost you. Big changes benefit you by changing the game, but only if you go first.”
• “No, everything is not going to be okay. It never is. It isn’t okay now. Change, by definition, changes things”
• “Sometimes we spend more time than we should defending the old thing, instead of working to take advantage of the new thing.”

Choice

• “If religion comprises rules you follow, faith is demonstrated by the actions you take.”
• “If there’s time for an emergency, why isn’t there time for brilliance, generosity or learning? “
• “If you could do tomorrow over again, would you? “
• “If you’re not proud of where you work, go work somewhere else. “
• “Just saying yes because you can’t bear the short-term pain of saying no is not going to help you do the work.”
• “Saying no to loud people gives you the resources to say yes to important opportunities. “
• “We notice what we choose to notice.”
• “Who gets to decide what you want?”

Greatness

• “Art is what we’re doing when we do our best work.”
• “Be personal. Be relevant. Be specific.”
• “Becoming a superstar takes about 10,000 hours of hard work.”
• “Doing justice to the work is your task, not setting a world record. “
• “Go ahead, do something impossible.”
• “If there isn’t a good reason, go home. If there is, then do something … loud, now, and memorable.”
• “Positive thinking is hard. Worth it, though.”
• “Tribes makes our lives better, and leading a tribe is the best life of all. “
• “When kids grow up wanting to be you, you matter.”
• “When the legacy you leave behind lasts for hours, days or a lifetime, you matter.”
• “When the room brightens when you walk in, you matter.”
• “When you see the world as it is, but insist on making it more like it could be, you matter.”
• “You are not your resume, you are your work. “
• “You can’t shrink your way to greatness! “

Ideas

• “Are you a serial idea-starting person? The goal is to be an idea-shipping person. “
• “Big ideas are little ideas that no-one killed too soon. “
• “Ideas in secret die. They need light and air or they starve to death. “
• “No organization ever created an innovation. People innovate, not companies.”
• “There’s no correlation between how good your idea is and how likely your organization will be to embrace it. “
• “You can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad ones.”

Leadership / Management

• “Are you a serial idea-starting person? The goal is to be an idea-shipping person. “
• “If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader. “
• “Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.”
• “Leadership on the other hand, is about creating change you believe in.”
• “’Teamwork’ is the word that bosses use when they actually mean ‘Do what I say’”
• “The easiest thing is to react. The second easiest thing is to respond. But the hardest thing is to initiate. – When people ask you to tell them what to do, resist.”

Marketing

• “Advertising is just a symptom, a tactic. Marketing is about far more than that.”
• “Bullhorns are overrated: having ten times as many Twitter followers generates approximately zero times as much value. “
• “But this is a remarkable egg, an egg worth talking about, an egg worth crossing the street for, an egg worth writing about. “
• “Good marketers measure. “
• “Good marketers tell stories. “
• “If you can’t make money from attention, you should do something else for a living. “
• “If you can’t sell to 1 in 1000, why market to a million? “
• “If you’re a marketer who doesn’t know how to invent, design, influence, adapt, and ultimately discard products, then you’re no longer a marketer. You’re deadwood.“
• “Low price is a great way to sell a commodity. That’s not marketing though, that’s efficiency.”
• “Market-driven design builds the success of the product’s marketing into the product itself.”
• “Marketing is the way your people answer the phone, the typesetting on your bills and your return policy.”
• “Marketing management is now tribal leadership. “
• “Most of the time, creative entrepreneurs lose interest long before their marketing message loses its power. “
• “People don’t believe what you tell them. They rarely believe what you show them. They often believe what their friends tell them. They always believe what they tell themselves. “
• “People rarely buy what they need. They buy what they want.”
• “Perhaps marketing is about to transition to a new kind of profession, one that requires insight, dedication and smarts. “
• “Relying too much on proof distracts you from the real mission–which is emotional connection.”
• “Selling to people who actually want to hear from you is more effective than interrupting strangers who don’t. “
• “The best marketing strategy is to destroy your industry before your competition does. “
• “The reason it seems that price is all your customers care about is that you haven’t given them anything else to care about. “
• “Why waste a sentence saying nothing? “
• “You can win with consistent benefits, delivered over time. You win by incrementally earning share, attention and trust.”

Mediocrity / Status Quo

• “’Good enough’ stopped being good enough a long time ago. so why not be great? “
• “If you make a difference, people will gravitate to you. They want to engage, to interact and to get you more involved.”
• “It’s uncomfortable to challenge the status quo.”
• “It’s uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle.”
• “In our desire to please everyone, it’s very easy to end up being invisible or mediocre.”
• “Once you free yourself from the need for perfect acceptance, it’s a lot easier to launch work that matters.”
• “Successful people are the ones who are breaking the rules. “
• “The reason they want you to fit in… is that once you do, then they can ignore you.
• “The status quo is leaving the building, and quickly.”
• “You can raise the bar or you can wait for others to raise it, but it’s getting raised regardless. “
• “You don’t have to settle. It’s a choice you get to make every day.”

Passion

• “If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do work that matters, this is it.”
• “If you have no wish, how can it possibly come true? “

Relationships

• “A long walk and calm conversation are an incredible combination if you want to build a bridge.”
• “Be with the ones you love (and the ones that love you.) Ignore everyone else.”
• “You can be right or you can have empathy. You can’t do both.”

Strategy

• “Don’t have any meetings about your web strategy. Just do stuff. First you have to fail, then you can improve. “
• “Put aside your need for a step-by-step manual and instead realize that analogies are your best friend.“
• “The scalable, profitable strategy is to change the game, not to become the most average.”

Seth Godin Books
Here is a roundup of Seth Godin books you migh enjoy:

• All Marketers Tell Stories
• Free Prize Inside
• Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
• Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync?
• Permission Marketing
• Poke the Box
• Purple Cow
• Small Is the New Big
• Survival Is Not Enough: Why Smart Companies Abandon Worry and Embrace Change
• The Big Red Fez: How To Make Any Web Site Better
• The Big Moo: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable
• The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)
• Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
• Unleashing the Ideavirus
• We are All Weird

My Related Posts

• Lessons Learned from Seth Godin
• Lessons Learned from the Dip
• Lessons Learned from the Bootstrapper’s Bible

Photo by jurvetson.

This is a collection of John Maxwell quotes you can use to inspire yourself and others.

As you’ll see in his quotes, John Maxwell flows inspiration and wisdom in a relevant way.  While many of John Maxwell’s quotes are focused on teams and leaders, he also tackles interesting topics like character, choice, and every day success,.  There is truly something for everyone.

Enjoy.

Top 10 Quotes

Here are my top 10 favorite John Maxwell quotes:

1. “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”
2. “Do not take the agenda that someone else has mapped out for your life.”
3. “Growth inside fuels growth outside.”
4. “Learn to say ‘no’ to the good so you can say ‘yes’ to the best.”
5. “Life is 10% of what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.”
6. “People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
7. “The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.”
8. “We all stand on the shoulders of the past generation.”
9. “You don’t overcome challenges by making them smaller but by making yourself bigger.”
10. “You must manage your thought life daily and then you can manage your life.”

Character

• “Character creates consistency, and if your people know what they can expect from you, they will continue to look to you for leadership.”
• “Character makes trust possible, and trust is the foundation of leadership.
  It’s true that charisma can make a person stand out for a moment, but character sets a person apart for a lifetime.”
• “Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent.”
• “Over time, is it easier or harder to sustain your influence within your organization?  With charisma alone, influence becomes increasingly more difficult to sustain. With character, as time passes, influence builds and requires less work to sustain.”
• “There are three qualities a leader must exemplify to build trust: competence, connection, and character.”
• “You build trust with others each time you choose integrity over image, truth over convenience, or honor over personal gain.”

Choice and Decisions

• “Everything begins with a decision. Then, we have to manage that decision for the rest of your life.”
• “If you don’t change the direction you are going, then you’re likely to end up where you’re heading… “
• “The law of the [Cub Scout] pack guides the boys to move in the direction of being helpful, friendly, courteous, trustworthy and promote qualities which parents and the community are looking for. The whole purpose of scouting is to help the children grow up making good decisions in life.”
• “There are two paths people can take. They can either play now and pay later, or pay now and play later. Regardless of the choice, one thing is certain. Life will demand a payment.”
• “We choose what attitudes we have right now. And it’s a continuing choice.”
• “You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.”

Communication

• “A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.”
• “Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.”
• “Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.”
• “People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.”
• “Relational skills are the most important abilities in leadership.”
• “Remember, man does not live on bread alone: sometimes he needs a little buttering up.”
• “Talk to people, not above them.”

Credibility

• “A highly credible leader under-promises and over-delivers.”
• “Diligent follow-up and follow-through will set you apart from the crowd and communicate excellence.”
• “Credibility is a leader’s currency. With it, he or she is solvent; without it, he or she is bankrupt.”
• “Don’t hide bad news. With multiple information channels available, bad news always becomes known. Be candid right from the start.”

Daily Impact

• “As you begin changing your thinking, start immediately to change your behavior. Begin to act the part of the person you would like to become. Take action on your behavior. Too many people want to feel, then take action. This never works.”
• “Doing the right thing daily, compounds over time.”
• “Doing the wrong thing daily, compounds over time.”
• “It is truly one day at a time.”
• “Stay focused instead of getting offended or off track by others.”
• “Success is not a destination thing, it’s a daily thing.”
• “The law of process says — leaders develop daily, not in a day.”
• “The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”
• “Today matters.”
• “What is the main event today? What do you want me to focus on today?”
• “What you are going to be tomorrow, you are becoming today.”
• “Where there is no hope in the future, there is no power in the present.”

Failure

• “Don’t buy into the notion that mistakes can somehow be avoided. They can’t be.”
• “‘Failing forward’ is the ability to get back up after you’ve been knocked down, learn from your mistake, and move forward in a better direction.”
• “Failure is not a one-time event; it’s how you deal with life along the way. Until you breathe your last breath, you’re still in the process, and there is still time to turn things around for the better.”
• “Generally speaking, there are two kinds of learning: experience, which is gained from your own mistakes, and wisdom, which is learned from the mistakes of others.”
• “Seek advice, but make sure it’s from someone who has successfully handled mistakes or adversities.”
• “You are the only person who can label what you do a failure. Failure is subjective.”

Growth

• “A difficult time can be more readily endured if we retain the conviction that our existence holds a purpose, a cause to pursue, a person to love, a goal to achieve.”
• “A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.”
• “If we’re growing, we’re always going to be out of our comfort zone.”
• “Image is what people think we are; integrity is what we really are.”
• “The depth of your mythology is the extent of your effectiveness.”
• “Life doesn’t do anything to you. It only reveals your spirit.”
• “The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.”
• “The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.”
• “You must do right before you feel good.”

Leaders and Leadership

• “A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.”
• “A leader is great, not because of his or her power, but because of his or her ability to empower others.”
• “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”
• “A leader who produces other leaders multiples their influences.”
• “Believing in people before they have proved themselves is the key to motivating people to reach their potential.”
• “Encourage the many; mentor the few.”
• “Everyone is a leader because everyone influences someone.”
• “Leadership is developed daily, not in a day.”
• “Leadership is influence.”
• “Leaders must live by higher standards than their followers.”
• “Most People have a desire to look for the exception instead of the desire to become exceptional. “
• “Not everyone will become a great leader, but everyone can become a better leader.”
• “One is too small a number to achieve greatness.”
• “The first step to leadership is servant hood.”
• “The law of process says leaders develop daily, not in a day.”
• “The more credible you are, the more confidence people place in you, thereby allowing you the privilege of influencing their lives.”
• “We cannot lead anyone farther than we have been ourselves.”
• “What is the main event today? What do you want me to focus on today?”
• “You can’t become a leader in one conference.”

Success

• “Happiness simply cannot be relied upon as a measure of success.”
• “If you start today to do the right thing, you are already a success even if it doesn’t show yet.”
• “Once our minds are ‘tattooed’ with negative thinking, our chances for long-term success diminish.”
• “Successful leaders have the courage to take action while others hesitate.”
• “Successful people are willing to do things unsuccessful people will not do.”
• “To collaborative team members, completing one another is more important than competing with one another.”
• “True success comes only when every generation continues to develop the next generation.”
• “We all stand on the shoulders of the past generation”
• “You don’t become a success when you get your diploma, you became a success when you decided to go to college when you get your diploma you get the rewards of success.”
• “You have to sow excellent seeds to have an excellent life. You must start with sowing excellent thoughts.”

Teamwork

• “Coming together is a beginning, and staying together is progress, but only when teams sweat together do they find success.”
• “Talented performers flock to the best and brightest leaders, and these leaders in turn lift the lids off their people and uncork the latent talent inside of them.”
• “Teams make you better than you are, multiply your value, enable you to do what you do best, allow you to help others do their best, give you more time, provide you with companionship, help you fulfill the desires of your heart and compound your vision and effort.”
• “The best way to serve the individuals on the team is to see that the whole team wins.”
• “The Wrong Person in the Wrong Place = Regression. The Wrong Person in the Right Place = Frustration. The Right Person in the Wrong Place = Confusion. The Right Person in the Right Place = Progression. The Right People in the Right Places = Multiplication.”
• “Values hold the team together, provide stability for the team to grow upon, measure the team’s performance, give direction and guidance and attract like-minded people.”

My Related Posts

• Lessons Learned from John Maxwell