Embrace Your Inner Leader in Everyday Life: 41 Leadership Quotes to Inspire You

Leadership plays a role in everyday life—in every little thing we do. Want to step up your game? Here, we've gathered 41 leadership quotes to help you do just that.

It could be as simple as setting a good example, such as starting off Mondays on the right foot or meeting challenging times with a positive attitude. Or perhaps you can guide your team through an unexpected change of course without, as business management expert Tom Peters puts it, "a bead of sweat."

In every moment, our actions determine whether we're stepping into the role of leader or follower. Are we the ones setting the precedent and inspiring, motivating, and coaching others? Or are we the ones being led to try new things, to discover our greatest potential?

However you answer those questions, there's always room for embracing the qualities of a good leader. It will help set yourself and others up for success in the long run, even if you stumble (see quote #30 for Arianna Huffington's wise words about failure being part of success).

Ahead, you'll find leadership quotes from founders, CEOs, scientists, political leaders, activists, and more to inspire you along the way.

The Best Quotes About Leadership

1. "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

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

3. "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do." —Eleanor Roosevelt

4. "The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." —William Arthur Ward

5. "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

   —Steve Jobs
   

   
   

6. "Don't follow the crowd. Let the crowd follow you." —Margaret Thatcher

7. "I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail." —Muriel Strode

8. “Today’s headlines and history’s judgment are rarely the same.” – Condoleezza Rice

9. "Mastery is great, but even that is not enough. You have to be able to change course without a bead of sweat, or remorse." —Tom Peters

10. "Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway."—Eleanor Roosevelt

11. "The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails."—John Maxwell
    

12. "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

13. "Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you." —Oprah Winfrey

14. "The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one who gets the people to do the greatest things." —Ronald Reagan

15. "You are never too small to make a difference." —Greta Thunberg

16. "Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence." —Frances Frei
    

17. "A leader... is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind."

    —Nelson Mandela
    

    
    

18. "Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want." —Dianne Feinstein

19. "You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand." —Woodrow Wilson

20. "It’s okay to admit what you don’t know. It’s okay to ask for help. And it’s more than okay to listen to the people you lead–in fact, it’s essential." —Mary Barra

21. "Leadership should be more participative than directive, more enabling than performing." —Mary D. Poole

22. "Do not be afraid to make decisions. Do not be afraid to make mistakes." —Carly Fiorina

23. "Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position." —Brian Tracy
    

24. "The most effective way to do it is to do it!" —Amelia Earhart

25. "The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves." —Ray Kroc

26. "Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm." —Publilius Syrus

27. "One of the criticisms I’ve faced over the years is that I’m not aggressive enough or assertive enough or maybe somehow, because I’m empathetic, it means I’m weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong."—Jacinda Ardern

28. "Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it." —David Starr Jordan

29. "If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader." —Dolly Parton
    

30. "We need to accept that we won't always make the right decisions, that we'll screw up royally sometimes—understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it's part of success." —Arianna Huffington

31. "I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier." —Oprah Winfrey
    

32. "Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership." —James Humes

33. "I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through—then follow through." —Edward Rickenbacker

34. "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." —Carl W. Buehner

35. "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done because he wants to do it."—Dwight D. Eisenhower
    

36. "Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality." —Warren Bennis

37. "One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency." —Arnold Glasow

38. "I have this ability to find this hidden talent in people that sometimes even they didn't know they had." —Berry Gordy

39. "Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult." —Warren Bennis

40. "No man will make a great business who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit of doing it." —Andrew Carnegie

41. "Leadership is about the team—the culture they keep and embrace, it’s about empathy for your customers, clients, employees, and the communities where you do business, it’s about doing the right thing for the right reasons, being confident enough to take risks and responsible enough to think of those who your decisions and risks may affect." —Kat Cole

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