They said it best . . .

Need a little inspiration? Check out the quotes below. You’ll find wit and wisdom on leadership – and other relevant topics – from people who know, people who ought to know and even a few people who ought to know better.

Great quotes from Stephen Covey’s The 8th Habit, From Effectiveness to Greatness:

“Many have come to believe that the only thing we need for success are talent, energy and personality. But history has taught us that over the long haul, who we are is more important than who we appear to be.”

“Leadership is communicating people’s worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it themselves. Notice the words worth and potential. People must feel an intrinsic sense of worth—that is, that they have intrinsic value—totally apart from being compared to others, and that they are worthy of unconditional love, regardless of behavior or performance. Then when you communicate their potential and create opportunities to develop and use it, you are building on a solid foundation. To communicate people’s potential and give them a sense of extrinsic worth is a flawed foundation, and their potential will never be optimized.”

 

“When we say that leadership is a choice, it basically means you can chose the level in initiative you want to exercise in response to the question: What is the best I can do under the circumstances?”

 

“Deep within each one of us there is an inner longing to live a life of greatness and contribution—to really matter, to really make a difference. We may doubt ourselves and our ability to do so, but I want you to know of my deep conviction and you can live such a life. You have the potential within you. We all do. It is the birthright of the human family.”

 

“Your power to choose the direction of your life allows you to reinvent yourself, to change your future, and to powerfully influence the rest of creation.”

 

“Vision is seeing with the mind’s eye what is possible in people, in projects, in causes and in enterprises. Vision results when our mind joins need with possibility.”

 

Short Inspirations:

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.
- ELINOR SMITH

We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
- ARISTOTLE

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.
- MARK TWAIN

Leadership:

by John Buchan

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is

there already,

Dreams:

by Eleanor Roosevelt

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Attitude:

by Charles Swindoll:

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important that the past, than education, than money, than circumstance, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past; we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you: we are in charge of our attitudes.

Transformational Leaders:

by Bev Forbes:

Transformational Leaders lead from a foundation of values.  They value the ethics of care, interdependence, empowerment, diversity and social justice. Integrity, excellence and authenticity are their hallmarks. These leaders are risk-takers and in collaboration with colleagues they achieve unparalleled results. They are accountable.

Transformational Leaders honor intuition and feelings, humor and celebration.  They are comfortable with paradox and ambiguity.  Holistic in their outlook, these leaders attend to body, mind, emotion and spirit.

Transformational Leaders exhibit both feminine and masculine characteristics. They vary the leadership style to be effective.  Finally, transformational leaders are self-aware, are constantly learning and define success in their own terms.