Leadership Quotes

September 2017

You need to get to the future, ahead of your customers, and be ready to greet them when they arrive.

– – Mark Beniodd, CEO Salesforce.com

August 2017

You never see a conductor play an instrument.

– – Larry Steinhauer

July 2017

Leaders are not paid to make the inevitable happen.

– – Anonymous

 

June 2017

Leaders are not paid to make the inevitable happen.

– – Vince Langley

May 2017

If you can’t change the people, change the people.

– – Michael Canic

April 2017

CEO’s job is to grow it, not run it.

– – Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinkos

March 2017

Decide democratically, implement dictatorially.

– – Peter Schutz, CEO of Porsche 1981-1986

February 2017

If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.

– – Jim Rohn

January 2017

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

– – Winston Churchill

December 2016

You control your future, your destiny. What you think about comes about. By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands – your own.

– – Mark Victor Hansen

November 2016

Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what
will be.

– – Khalil Gibran

October 2016

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

– – Albert Einstein

September 2016

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

– – Ralph Waldo Emerson

August 2016

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

– – George Bernard Shaw

July 2016

Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.

– -Warren Bennis

June 2016

I love listening. It’s one of the only spaces where you can be still, and moved, at the same time.

– -Nayyirah Waheed

May 2016

Be decisive.  Right or wrong, make a decision.  The road of life is paved with flat squirrels who couldn’t make a decision.

– -Unknown

April 2016

A leader that won’t listen to others will eventually be surrounded by people that have nothing to say.

– -Andy Stanley

 

March 2016

Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different. When you assume negative intent, you’re angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed.

– -Indra Nooyi, Chairman/CEO Pepsi

February 2016

Courage is not limited to the battlefield. The real tests of courage are much quieter. They are the inner tests, like enduring pain when the room is empty or standing alone when you’re misunderstood.

– -Charles Swindoll

 

January 2016

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.

– -C.S. Lewis

 

 

 

November/December 2015

We should try to be the parents of our future rather than the offspring of our past.

– -Miguel de Unamuno

 

 

October 2015

Today you will get something that was not guaranteed. One more day. Out of which to create the ‘you’ that works for you. And to decide what that day will be, and who you will be. You can write one more blank check, and let others fill in the amount;
or, you can decide on the payees in your life, and what and how you chose to give. No magic. We all get this choice every day.

– -Larry M. Cassidy, Vistage Master Chair

 

 

September 2015

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

– -Gilbert K. Chesterton

 

 

August 2015

Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought.

– -Albert Szent-Györgyi

 

 

July 2015

If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.

– -Jack Welch

 

 

June 2015

What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.

– -Dwight Eisenhower

 

 

May 2015

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

– -Dale Carnegie

 

 

April 2015

If we only focus on fixing what’s wrong, we forget to notice and build what is good and strong.

– -Rebecca Wilkinson

 

 

March 2015

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

– -Mark Twain

 

 

February 2015

Compete with things to come – not with things that were.

– -Carlos Rizowy

 

 

January 2015

Innovation is hard because ‘solving a problem people didn’t know they had’ and ‘building something no one needs’ look identical at first.

– -Aaron Levine

 

 

December 2014

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

– -Jack Welch

 

 

November 2014

Of the many, many things about which we are unclear, or of which we are unaware, our impact upon others is at or near the top.

– -Larry Cassidy, Vistage Master Chair

 

 

October 2014

Yesterday’s Home Runs don’t win today’s games.

– -Babe Ruth

 

 

September 2014

Your peer group are people with similar dreams, goals and worldviews. They are people who will push you in exchange for being pushed, who will raise the bar and tell you the truth. They’re not in your business, but they’re in your shoes. Finding a peer group and working with them, intentionally and on a regular schedule, might be the single biggest boost your career can experience.

– -Seth Godin

 

 

August 2014

Success is when you add value to yourself. Significance is when you add value to others.

– -John Maxwell

 

July 2014

Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.

– -Joel A. Barker

 

June 2014

We must lose sight of the shore if we do, in fact, hope to discover something new.

– -Gary Belmonti

 

May 2014

Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.

– -Chinese Proverb

April 2014

You can tell whether a person is clever by
his/her answers. You can tell whether a person is wise by his/her questions.

– -Naguib Mahfouz

March 2014

It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed.

– -Harvey S. Firestone

February 2014

Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.

– -Bruce Lee

 

January 2014

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

– -Albert Einstein

December 2013

Leadership:  The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

– -Dwight D. Eisenhower

November 2013

If I only had one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem,and only five minutes finding the solution.

– -Albert Einstein

 

October 2013

Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself.

It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.

– -Warren Bennis

 

September 2013

Create goals, not for what you’ll achieve,

but for who you’ll get to be in the process.

 

August 2013

Vision without execution

is hallucination.

– -Thomas A. Edison

 

July 2013

The art of being wise is the

art of knowing what to overlook.

– -William James

June 2013

Leadership is not magnetic personality — that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not ‘making friends and influencing people’ — that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its  normal limitations.

– -Peter F. Drucker

May 2013

Most people need repetition

more than instruction.

April 2013

Our job as marketers and leaders,

is to create vibrant pockets, not to hunt for mass.

– -Seth Godin

 

March 2013

What you do speaks so loudly,

I can’t hear what you say.

– -Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

February 2013

To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.

– -Benjamin Franklin

January 2013

What we do today, right now,

will have an accumulated effect on all our tomorrows.

– -Alexandra Stoddard

November 2012

There are only 2 ways to influence human behavior,

you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.

– -Simon Sinek

 

October 2012

Sooner or later,

those who win

are those who think they can

– -Dr. Paul Tournier

 

September 2012

The best way to predict the future

is to invent it

– -Peter Drucker

 

August 2012

We cannot become what we need to be

by remaining what we are

– -Max Depree

 

July 2012

Giving people permission to fail

is more important than giving them the tools to succeed.

 

June 2012

I am part of all whom I have met.

– -Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

May 2012

The key is not to prioritize

what’s on your schedule,

but to

schedule your priorities.

– -Stephen Covey

 

April 2012

We are what we think.

All that we are

arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts

we make the world.

– -Dhammapada

 

March 2012

Those who failed to oppose me,

who readily agreed with me and accepted all my views,

were those who did me the most injury.

–Napoleon Bonaparte

 

February 2012

How you do anything

is

how you do everything.

 

January 2012

all communities eventually get to a place

where business as usual cannot be tweaked any more

it is then, that we need a new story

a new paradigm

a new system

for the future we wish to live into

 

December 2011

Forget past mistakes.

Forget failures.

Forget everything except

what you’re going to do now

and do it.

–William C. Durant, Founder, General Motors

 

October 2011

Don’t look out the window for reasons you can’t succeed,

Look in the mirror for the key to success.

–Steve Yastrow, Vistage Speaker

 

September 2011

A desk is a dangerous place

from which to view the world.

–John le Carré

 

August 2011

The best advice we will ever give won’t be written or spoken;

it will be in the example of how we live our lives.

What are you an example of today?

–Mike Scott, Vistage Speaker

 

July 2011

We are shaping the world faster than we can change

ourselves, and we are applying to the present,

the habits of the past.

–Winston Churchill

 

June 2011

The poorest person in the world

is not the one without money

but one without vision.

–Ghanaian proverb

 

May 2011

The goal is to manage agreements,

not people.

People don’t like to be managed.

—Rod Burkett

 

April 2011

There is only one success:

to be able to spend your life

in your own way.

— Christopher Morley

 

March 2011

Come mothers and fathers

throughout the land

and don’t criticize

what you can’t understand

your sons and your daughters

are beyond your command

your old road is

rapidly aging

please get out of the new one

if you can’t lend your hand
for the times they are a-changin’.

–Bob Dylan

 

February 2011

Commitment

to each other is critical.

Let’s make our deadlines and due dates mean something.

For changes to occur, we have to embrace them over and over.

Take it step by step —-

but keep moving forward —-

and a year from now,

we’ll find we’ve moved from here to there.

–Rhonda Abrams

January 2011

When one door closes, another opens;

but we often look so long and so

regretfully upon the closed door

that we do not see the one which has

opened for us.

–Alexander Graham Bell

 

December 2010

If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities.

If you believe it won’t, you’ll see obstacles.

–Jon Alama

 

November 2010

Sometimes life presents a series of great opportunities, disguised as insoluble problems.

–John Gardner

 

October 2010

The very essence of leadership

is that you have to have vision.

You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.

–Theodore M. Hesburgh
Former President, Notre Dame

 

September 2010

Half the failures in life arise from pulling in one’s horse as it is leaping.

–Julius Hare 1795-1855

 

August 2010

Every organization must be prepared to

abandon everything it does,

to survive in the future.

–Peter Drucker

 

July 2010

Discipline is the bridge

between

goals and accomplishments.

–Jim Rohn, business philosopher

 

June 2010

If we are not a little uncomfortable every day,

we’re not growing.

All the good stuff is outside our comfort zone.

–Jack Canfield

 

May 2010

Creativity is an infinitely renewable resource

– you are not going to run out of it

– so don’t be afraid to use it.

–Biz Stone, co-founder, Twitter

 

April 2010

If you don’t know where you

are going,

You will wind up somewhere else.

–Yoggi Berra

 

March 2010

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions.

All life is an experiment.

The more experiments you make, the better.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

February 2010

Good people strengthen themselves ceaselessly.

–Confucius

 

January 2010

I have learned that people will forget what you say,

people will forget what you do,

but people will never forget how you made them feel.

–Maya Angelou

 

December 2009

The purpose of a goal is not to achieve it,

rather it’s purpose is to be a magnet to draw you toward it.

–Beverly Potter

 

November 2009

In times of great change, the learners inherit the earth,

while the learned find themselves uniquely equipped for a

world that no longer exists.

–Edward Hoffer

 

October 2009

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage.

–William Ellery Channing, Minister/Psychologist

 

September 2009

Allow yourself to graduate, every five years.

–Cathy Guisewite

 

August 2009

If change is happening on the outside faster than on the inside the end is in sight.

–Jack Welch

 

July 2009

Being listened to is so close to being loved

that most people cannot tell the difference.

–David Oxberg

 

June 2009

Masters in the art of living make little distinction

between their work and their play, their

labor and their leisure, their mind and their

body, their information and their

recreation, their love and their religion.

They hardly know which is which.

They simply pursue their vision of excellence at

whatever they do, leaving others to

decide whether they are working or playing.

To them they are always doing both.

–James A. Michener

 

May 2009

I like the dreams of the future

better than the history of the past.

–Thomas Jefferson

 

April 2009

Over the years I have learned

that a closed mind is like a fist.

It cannot do much of anything

other than clutch resentments

and fight against

whatever fails to fit one’s mindset.

–Charles Wilkinson

 

March 2009

Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity.

–Michael Porter

 

February 2009

Do not wait to strike until the iron is hot;

but make it hot by striking.

–William Butler Yeats

 

January 2009

At the beginning of the day, it’s all about possibilities.

At the end of day,

it’s all about results.

–Bob Prosen

 

November 2008

Coming together is a beginning.

Keeping together is progress.

Working together is success.

–Henry Ford

 

October 2008

…there is only one situation in which you need to modify your behavior,

when you are dealing with other human beings…

–Stuart Friedman

 

September 2008

Always Assume

Positive Intent

 

August 2008

What is Hustle?

Hustle is doing something that everyone is absolutely certain can’t be done.

Hustle is getting the sale because you got there first,

or stayed after everyone else gave up.

Hustle is shoe leather and elbow grease and sweat and missing lunch.

Hustle is getting a prospect to say “yes” after they have said “no” twenty times.

Hustle is doing more unto a customer than the other guy is doing unto him.

Hustle is believing in yourself and the business you’re in.

Hustle is the sheer joy of winning.

Hustle is being the sorest loser in town.

Hustle is hating to take a vacation because you might miss a piece of the action.

Hustle is heaven if you hustle.

Hustle is hell if you don’t.

 

July 2008

The hardest thing in life is to know

which bridge to cross and which to burn.

–David Russell, Classical Guitarist

 

June 2008

Judgment is the

on-ramp to resentment;

release of judgment

the on-ramp to joy.

 

May 2008

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

 

April 2008

In most organizations,

the bottleneck is at the top of the bottle.

–Peter Drucker

 

March 2008

Of the many, many things about which we are unclear,

or of which we are unaware,

our impact upon others is at or near the top.

–Larry Cassidy, Vistage

 

February 2008

You are the master of your own destiny.

Use your strengths well.

They are the keys to your destiny and your success in life.

Once you know yourself and take action to realize your dreams,

you can unlock the doors to your own potential.

–Neil Somerville

 

January 2008

It is not the strongest of

the species that survive,

nor the most intelligent;

rather it is the ones most

responsive to change.

—Charles Darwin

December 2007

…you must be the change,

you wish to see in the world…

–Nelson Mandela

 

November 2007

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues,

but the parent of all the others.

–Cicero

 

September 2007

With most people unbelief in one thing,

is founded upon

blind belief in another.

–Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-99)

 

August 2007

The greatest danger for most of us

is not that our aim is too high

and we miss it

but that it is too low,

and we reach it.

–Michelangelo (1475-1564)

 

June 2007

The person who sends out positive thoughts

activates the world around him positively

and draws back to himself positive results.

–Norman Vincent Peale

 

May 2007

We don’t see things the way they are;

we see them as we are.

–Anais Nin

 

March, 2007

The time to act

is
when you hear the falls

not

when you are about to go over them.

The secret is to listen for them.