Proven Leadership Quotes

In the modern workplace, you gotta be a jack-of-all-trades. Mastering your career is all about being adaptable, versatile, and always learning.

Want to make waves in the business world? Then you gotta be bold, take risks, and always be ready to pivot.

President Abraham Lincoln said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

They say that success is a journey, not a destination. But let's be real, the destination is pretty sweet - especially if it comes with a six-figure salary and a company car.

Don't just climb the corporate ladder, master it! And if anyone tries to push you off, show them who's boss and climb even higher.

Success is not just about hard work, it's about working smart. So, take a break from the grind and strategize like a pro.

They say that the first step to success is setting clear goals. Well, I've got plenty of goals - like finally getting that corner office with a view, and firing my most annoying colleague.

To achieve career mastery, you must first master yourself. Take the time to assess your strengths, weaknesses, and goals, and then chart a course for success.

If you want to achieve career mastery, then you need to be willing to put in the work. But don't worry, the view from the top is totally worth it.

If you're not driving business growth and profitability, then you might as well be a houseplant. So get out there and make some money, honey!

Professional development is important, but let's not forget about the most important kind of development - personal brand development. Because in the modern workplace, it's not what you know, it's who knows you.

Position is a poor substitute for influence.

Nobody achieves anything great by giving the minimum. No teams win championships without making sacrifices and giving their best.

The challenge of leadership is to create change and facilitate growth.

The modern job market is like a game of musical chairs. You need to be the one with a chair when the music stops, or you're out of luck.

The workplace is like a battlefield, and you need to be a warrior to survive. So arm yourself with knowledge and fight for your place in the corporate world.

Self-leadership always precedes team leadership.

Making appointments with yourself and scheduling other things around them is key to proactive self-management.

You can’t afford to limit your joy. It has been proven several times that angry people are never happy people.

There are proven ways to win the loyalty of tough, strong, ferocious men: play on the certain knowledge of their superiority, the mystique of secret covenant, the esprit of shared suffering.

When people follow a leader because they have to, they will do only what they have to. People don’t give their best to leaders they like least. They give reluctant compliance, not commitment. They may give their hands but certainly not their heads or hearts.

There are two types of people in the business community: those who produce results and those who give you reasons why they didn’t.

How we lead ourselves in life impacts how we lead those around us.

Your values are the soul of your leadership, and they drive your behavior.

Don’t worry about making friends; don’t worry about making enemies. Worry about winning, because if you win, your enemies can’t hurt you, and if you lose, your friends can’t stand you.

To foster a solution mindset, tell employees that you are not interested in who or what caused the problem. You are only interested in hearing how we plan to go beyond the problem.

Leadership ultimately is about influence and leverage. You are, after all, only one person. To be successful, you need to mobilize the energy of many others in your organization.

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

When you like people and treat them like individuals who have value, you begin to develop influence with them. You develop trust.

How could the pearls of grace and wisdom he [Mike Pence] had brought to the table retain any value when they were constantly being sloshed with more and more foul-smelling slime? If anyone deserved better––aside from the American people themselves and women as a whole––it seemed to me that it might have been this man who had proven to be such a capable champion and ally.

Moreover, events often move too quickly to allow for precise calculation; leaders have to make judgments based on intuitions and hypotheses that cannot be proven at the time of decision. Management of risk is as critical to the leader as analytical skill.

Since the debt limit simply accommodates debt that has already been incurred, raising it should, in theory, be perfunctory. But politicians have found it a useful shibboleth for showing their fealty fiscal discipline, even as they vote to ratify the debts their previous actions have a beginning the country to pay. The symbol of railing against debt has proven politically beneficial, even if not substantively meaningful.

By nature, blogs feature longer-form content, which offers deeper thought leadership.

The goal of leadership is not to be likable or loved but to be proven trustworthy and respected.

Success is the result of actions. Stop wishing and start doing.

You won this job because you were the best for the job. You are smart, quick to learn, and can quickly acquire any skill you might be lacking.

People who repeatedly find career success learn to broaden their perspective and understand that there are always several roads to getting where you want to go.

if you tell a child it can do absolutely anything, or that it can’t do anything at all, you will in all likelihood be proven right. Lars has no leadership style.

To be effective, leaders must always be learners. You can never arrive - you can only strive to get better.

Clearly, if leaders have a strong set of ethical values and live them out, then people will respect them, not just their position. Immature leaders try to use their position to drive high performance.

I state in my book Put Your Dream to the Test that the more valid reasons a person has to achieve their dream, the higher the odds are that they will. Valid reasons also increase the odds that a person will follow through with personal growth.

When we buy into those limiting and marginalizing stories, our souls are in exile. We spend our days worrying about pleasing others rather than doing what’s right for us—and, ultimately, what’s right for our families, our community, and our world.

At times we think it might be easier to play small, to hide, and, for a time, it might be. But the soul’s calling is much more powerful. It never goes away. Listening to it brings us energy, peace, and a sense of excitement. Denying it—resisting our calling—is a path into the abyss of despair. We then look to food, alcohol, and unhealthy sexual partners to soothe our agony.

Hitler’s style of leadership functioned precisely because of the readiness of all his subordinates to accept his unique standing in the party, and their belief that such eccentricities of behaviour had simply to be taken on board in someone they saw as a political genius. ‘He always needs people who can translate his ideologies into reality so that they can be implemented,’ Pfeffer is reported as stating. Hitler’s way was, in fact, not to hand out streams of orders to shape important political decisions. Where possible, he avoided decisions. Rather, he laid out – often in his diffuse and opinionated fashion – his ideas at length and repeatedly. These provided the general guidelines and direction for policy-making. Others had to interpret from his comments how they thought he wanted them to act and ‘work towards’ his distant objectives. ‘If they could all work in this way,’ Hitler was reported as stating from time to time, ‘if they could all strive with firm, conscious tenacity towards a common, distant goal, then the ultimate goal must one day be achieved. That mistakes will be made is human. It is a pity. But that will be overcome if a common goal is constantly adopted as a guideline.’ This instinctive way of operating, embedded in Hitler’s social-Darwinist approach, not only unleashed ferocious competition among those in the party – later in the state – trying to reach the ‘correct’ interpretation of Hitler’s intentions. It also meant that Hitler, the unchallenged fount of ideological orthodoxy by this time, could always side with those who had come out on top in the relentless struggle going on below him, with those who had best proven that they were following the ‘right guidelines’. And since only Hitler could determine this, his power position was massively enhanced.

As we lead organizations—businesses, nonprofits, and churches—size doesn’t matter as much as another crucial factor. The biggest difference between leaders of large organizations and small organizations isn’t their location, the size of their building, the scope of the vision, the number of staff members, or their talent. In fact, some of the best leaders I’ve ever met have small organizations. But in all my consulting and conferences, I’ve seen a single factor: leaders of larger organizations have proven they can handle more pain.

Positive psychology is the study of what constitutes excellence in individuals, communities, and workplaces. It incorporates the study of productivity, resilience, motivation, emotions, strengths, team dynamics, and more.

It is never an idea, technology, market forces, or access to capital that makes a company innovative. What differentiates an innovative company from an average company is the people working inside the company.

Almost seventy-five percent of our leaders have come right out of Willow. These are people who have proven their character, competence, and chemistry fit while serving in volunteer positions within our ministry.

Eliciting the user stories is a dynamic collaborative endeavor which supports the concept of value. Essentially, just gathering requirements will populate the backlog with unnecessary user stories that do not contribute value.

that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.  It is, however, greenest where most watered.

Leadership ultimately is about influence and leverage. You are, after all, only one person. To be successful, you need to mobilize the energy of many others in your organization. If

You are capable of much more than you realize.  It’s behind a locked door in your mind accessible with the key of confidence that is within us all.  If this eludes us then we must pretend to be confident until we become so. 

How can we harness the wind of change for growth? How can we thrive in times of worldwide change? And more specifically, how can leaders turn a crisis into a business opportunity?

Your overriding goal in getting up to speed and taking charge is to generate momentum by creating virtuous cycles, and to avoid getting caught in vicious cycles that damage your credibility. Leadership ultimately is about influence and leverage.

PROVEN BIAS HAS COME TO BE THE VIRTUE OF A LEADER. Bias has become the first qualification to join a party, and extreme bias the virtue to become a leader.

Companies prefer to work with individuals who demonstrate initiative, are persevering, self-confident, and have proven people leadership skills.

I learned that when you can turn a presentation into a conversation, you have won the battle of converting a client; and second, I learned that the real Carla was my best competitive weapon and my key personal advantage.

Leadership Leadership has a lot more to it than simply telling people what to do, keeping track of efforts, penalizing those who are late or who disrupt, and hiring / firing. Great leaders are also great workers with a level of competence and confidence learned on the job that others accept and are willing to follow. These leaders are good at working with themselves, they have developed discipline, an ability to delay gratification, curiosity as to why people think or do things the way they do, and are open minded and accepting of change. Just look at any sports team, military unit or successful company and you will read or hear about all the leaders that make up the company. Most frequently these leaders are not the ones with a title, but the ones who make the place run through their efforts, focus, determination and ability to overcome obstacles. It is from these ranks that titles are granted and rewards given. These people have proven that they can lead by example, are able to shoulder the load and have what it takes to lead others, helping them grow just as they were helped on their way. My book entitled YOU Working With YOU is all about you, helping you to become the leader that you are capable of becoming. Just showing up to work might keep you employed, stepping up and leading by example is what others will notice and align with.

Don’t complain of terrible circumstances. It has been proven several times that they are the sources of celebrated trophies.

Far too many companies are focused on the product and not the experience. We need to replace our brain with our heart, because that’s often how people make decisions. Studies have proven that the essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action and reason leads to conclusions.

It doesn’t matter how smart you are – you can only accomplish finite with two hands and one brain. To scale heights, you need help from others.

Though I am not pleased with the responses regarding another factor in leadership development, integrity demands that I report it. Only three out of ten of those we interviewed indicated that college or seminary training positively impacted their leadership development. And four out of ten told us the influence was slight or not a factor at all.

Don't Hire Good....Hire Great.

You Work For Your Team, They Don't Work For You.

Micromanagement could have unintended consequences. Instead of getting people in line, it may cause them to leave.

You can't run at your maximum if you're always pushing your limits. Neither can your team.

Contrary finding: The best leaders we studied did not have a visionary ability to predict the future. They observed what worked, figured out why it worked, and built upon proven foundations. They were not more risk taking, more bold, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons. They were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid. ………. Entrenched myth: A threat filled world favors the speedy; you’re either the quick or the dead. Contrary finding: The idea that leading in a “fast world” always requires “fast decisions” and “fast action”—and that we should embrace an overall ethos of “Fast! Fast! Fast!”—is a good way to get killed. 10X leaders figure out when to go fast, and when not to. Entrenched myth: Radical change on the outside requires radical change on the inside. Contrary finding: The 10X cases changed less in reaction to their changing world than the comparison cases. Just because your environment is rocked by dramatic change does not mean that you should inflict radical change upon yourself.

There is a wealth of research that underlies the value of diverse teams and shows that being around people who are different from us makes us more creative, more diligent, and harder-working,6 and has also been proven to make companies more innovative and successful.7

By the time you reach a final, the hard, physical work has already been done. Many teams have lost a final after changing what had worked for them and brought them to within touching distance of glory. They come up with new strategies and plays, and then find it difficult to execute those plans against a team that stuck to its proven formula.

PREPARE YOURSELF—CHECKLIST If you have been promoted, what are the implications for your need to balance breadth and depth, delegate, influence, communicate, and exhibit leadership presence? If you are joining a new organization, how will you orient yourself to the business, identify and connect with key stakeholders, clarify expectations, and adapt to the new culture? What is the right balance between adapting to the new situation and trying to alter it? What has made you successful so far in your career? Can you succeed in your new position by relying solely on those strengths? If not, what are the critical skills you need to develop? Are there aspects of your new job that are critical to success but that you prefer not to focus on? Why? How will you compensate for your potential blind spots? How can you ensure that you make the mental leap into the new position? From whom might you seek advice and counsel on this? What other activities might help you do this?

ahead with others unless they are willing to get behind others. How can we do that? How can we become more likable? By doing the following: Make a choice to care about others. Liking people and caring about people is a choice within your control. If you haven’t already, make that choice. Look for something that is likable about every person you meet. It’s there. Make it your job to find it. Discover what is likable about yourself and do whatever you can to share that with every person you meet. Make the effort every day to express what you like about every person in your life.

The leader is the servant who removes the obstacles that prevent people from doing their jobs.

Leadership is not always an open or closed lid but the continuous action of leading. It is not a Win, Lose; Winner Takes All; but a Win, Win if you never stop learning to lead. A leader that falls short of the mark and uses the wisdom of their past history of pitfalls and blunders can develop into a more powerful leader than before. This successful leadership style can be proven and altered over time, therefore; nothing is instant gratification. It takes time, hard work, planning, and prayer to become a great leader and maintain leadership." – Terrance Robinson, Artist, Author, and Educator

Leadership is not always an open or closed case but the continuous action of leading. It is not a Win, Lose; Winner Takes All; but a Win, Win if you never stop learning to lead. A leader that falls short of the mark and uses the wisdom of their past history of pitfalls and blunders can develop into a more effective leader than before. This successful leadership style can be proven and altered over time, therefore; nothing is instant gratification. It takes time, hard work, planning, and prayer to become a great leader and maintain leadership.

90-day mark is a good rule of thumb), begin to discuss how you’re doing. This need not be a formal performance review, but it does need to be an open discussion of how things are going. What are you doing well, and what do you need to do differently? What skills do you need to develop to do the job better? Are there shortcomings in your leadership capacities that you need to address? Are there projects or special assignments that you could get involved in (without sacrificing focus) that could strengthen your skills?

Good leaders don't take anything for granted. They keep working and keep leading. They understand that leadership must be earned and established. They remain dissatisfied in a way, because dissatisfaction is a good one-word definition for motivation. Good leaders strive to keep the people and organization moving forward toward its vision. They recognize that organizations can sometimes be filled with appointments, but teams can be built only by good leadership.

In order to do anything new in life, we must be willing to leave our comfort zone. That involves taking risks, which can be frightening. However, each time we leave our comfort zone and conquer new territory, it not only expands our comfort zone but also enlarges us. If you want to grow as a leader, be prepared to be uncomfortable. But know this: the risks are well worth the rewards.

Who the person is and the work he does is what really matters. If the work is significant and adds value to people, then it doesn't need to come with a title. Many times we don't even have any control over whether we receive a title or an award. And for every person who has received recognition, there are thousands of others working without recognition who perhaps deserve even greater honor. Yet they continue to work without credit because the work itself and the positive impact on others are reward enough.

As a leader, my goal is to help people, not make them happy.

As you reflect on your values, you should settle what you believe in three key areas: Ethical values - What does it mean to do the right thing for the right reason? Relational values - How do you build an environment of trust and respect with others? Success values - What goals are worth spending your life on?

If you want to become a better leader, let go of control and start fostering cooperation. Good leaders stop bossing people around and start encouraging them. That is the secret to being a people-oriented leader, because much of leadership is encouragement.

When I'm swimming with the tide, my progress has little to do with the speed and strength of my strokes. It is determined by how fast the tide is moving. Swim with it and you make fast progress. Swim against it and you move very slowly, no matter how hard you work at it.

All great leaders are productive. However, it is possible to be a producer and not a leader. Personal success does not always translate into team success. Leadership is defined by what a person does with and for others. It is established by making the team better and more productive. It's measured by what the entire group accomplishes, not by the individual efforts of the person in charge. Good leadership is never based on what someone does by and for himself.

While the things we have in common may make relationships enjoyable, the differences are what really make them interesting. Good leaders deal successfully with these differences and leverage them for the benefit of the team and the organization. Good leaders are able to look at hard truths, see people's flaws, face reality, and do it in a spirit of grace and truth. They don't avoid problems; they solve them. Leaders who build relationships understand that conflict is part of the progress. Often it is even constructive.

You must think of people before you try to achieve progress. To do that as a permissional leader, you must exhibit a consistent mood, maintain an optimistic attitude, possess a listening ear, and present to others your authentic self.

If you should observe an occasion to give your officers and friends a little more praise than is their due, and confess more fault than you justly be charged with, you will only become the sooner for it, a great captain. Criticizing and censuring almost everyone you have to do with, will diminish friends, increase enemies, and hereby hurt you affairs.

Prioritize the things that yield high return. What's the key to being productive? Prioritizing. To be an effective leader, you must learn to not only get a lot done, but to get a lot of the right things done. That means understanding how to prioritize time, tasks, resources, and even people. Effective prioritizing begins with eliminating the things you shouldn't be doing.

Progress always requires change.

As you lead your team, your goal should be to help every person get to the place where they are doing their should-dos and love-to-dos, because that is where they will be the most effective. As a rule of thumb, try to hire, train, and position people in such a way that: 80% of the time they work in their strength zone; 15% of the time they work in a learning zone; 5% of the time they work outside their strength zone; and 0% of the time they work in their weakness zone. To facilitate that, you must really know your people, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and be willing to have candid conversations with them.

Climbing to the higher levels of leadership isn't easy. It takes effort. It also requires sacrifices. You won't be able to win one level using the skills you used to win the last one. You'll have to give up some privileges and resources to move up. You'll have to give up doing some of the things you love that don't give a great enough return on your time. And some people you'd love to take with you to the top will refuse to go.

The mark of someone with potential to grow is openness to the process. When you look at people who are eager to learn more, you can bet they are on the right track. And when you talk to people who just don't want any more instruction, then they have pretty much hit the wall. They are done.

The purpose of life is not to win. The purpose of life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasures you have brought into other people's lives than you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them.

Make developing leaders a priority. It will require you to shift from doing to developing. It will require you to believe in people. And it will require you to share the load. Leadership is the art of helping people change from who they're thought to be to who they ought to be.

Plan to meet with your team at least weekly to give feedback on performance. Practice the Pareto principle. Set aside a block of time to make a list of all your responsibilities. Then put them in order of importance according to the impact they make for the good of the company. On a daily basis for the tasks you must do. On a weekly basis on the team's priorities. Make sure that 80% of efforts are focused on the top 20% in terms of importance. Set aside an hour daily or regularly to think of five ways to change things for the better. Accept your role as change agent.

As you look at potential leaders, try to assess their capacity in the following areas: Stress Management - their ability to withstand and overcome pressure, failure, deadlines, and obstacles Skill - their ability to get specific tasks done Thinking - their ability to be creative, develop strategy, solve problems, and adapt Leadership - their ability to gather followers and build a team Attitude - their ability to remain positive and tenacious amidst negative circumstances As a leader, your goal should be to identify what their capacity is, recognize what they think their capacity is, and motivate, challenge, and equip them in such as way that they close the gap between the two.

As you release tasks to the leaders you're developing, you need to trust them, believe in them, and hold them accountable.

Successful leaders help their people find their right seats. Sometimes that requires moving people around to find where they make the greatest contribution. Sometimes it means trying and failing. As a leader, you have to take it all in stride. Positioning people correctly is a process, and you have to treat it that way.

Leaders who have reached the top of their profession or the top of their organization cannot take anything for granted. No matter how good they've been in the past, they still need to strategize, weigh decisions, plan, and execute at a high level.

Leaders have to deal simultaneously with people issues and business issues, and they need to be able to do both effectively. That's an art. As you work to develop people, maintain a relational approach, valuing them and adding value to them. At the same time, do what you must to achieve a good bottom line.

Leaders recognize the abilities in people and work fluidly with them. They are able to mentor people with different talents, temperaments, and styles. While average leaders try to lead everyone the same way, level 4 leaders lead everyone differently. That takes creativity and confidence.