

It's a difficult concept to define, perhaps because it means so many things to different people.

Here are 100 of the best ways to define leadership--choose the ones that fits best for you.




4.    "You don't need a title to be a leader." --Mark Sanborn 


6.     "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." --John F. Kennedy 


8.     "Successful leadership is leading with the heart, not just the head. They possess qualities like empathy, compassion and courage." --Bill George

9.     "The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already." --John Buchan

10.  "A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together."--Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

11.  "When the leadership is right and the time is right, the people can always be counted upon to follow--to the end at all costs." --Harold J. Seymour

12.  "Leaders must be self-reliant individuals with great tenacity and stamina."--Thomas E. Cronin 

13.  "Leadership: The capacity and will to rally people to a common purpose together with the character that inspires confidence and trust." --Bernard Montgomery



16.  "Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen, despite the obstacles." --John Kotter


18.  "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

19.  "Leadership is the capacity to influence others through inspiration motivated by passion, generated by vision, produced by a conviction, ignited by a purpose." --Myles Munroe

20. "Leadership is unlocking people's potential to become better." --Bill Bradley

21. "The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes." ----Tony Blair  

22.  "Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes."  --Peter F. Drucker  

23. "One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you." --Dennis Peer

24.  "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." --Steve Jobs

25. "Leadership is simply causing other people to do what the leaders want. Good leadership, whether formal or informal, is helping other people rise to their full potential while accomplishing the mission and goals of the organization. All members of an organization, who are responsible for the work of others, have the potential to be good leaders if properly developed." --Bob Mason



28. "Leadership is the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations." --James Kouzes and Barry Posner





33. "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 Drucker


35.  "Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you're in control, they're in control." --Tom Landry 

36.  "A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way."  --John Maxwell


38.  "My definition of a leader... is a man who can persuade people to do what they don't want to do, or do what they're too lazy to do, and like it." --Harry S. Truman


40.  "A leader is a dealer in hope." --Napoleon Bonaparte

41. Leadership is the collective action of everyone you influence. Your behavior--your actions and your words--determines how you influence. Our job as leaders is to energize whatever marshals action within others. --David Caullo



44.  "The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been." --Henry Kissinger

45. "Leadership is about service to others and a commitment to developing more servants as leaders. It involves co-creation of a commitment to a mission." --Robert Greenleaf

46. "Leadership is working with and through others to achieve objectives." --Paul Hersey

47. "Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing." --Tom Peters

48. "Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy." --Norman Schwarzkopf 

49.  "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

50. "Leadership is unlocking people's potential to become better." --Bill Bradley

51. "Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out."  --Stephen Covey


53. "Leadership is the key to 99 percent of all successful efforts." --Erskine Bowles  

54.  "Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do it." --Frances Hesselbein

55. "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

56. "Leadership is getting people to work for you when they are not obligated." -- Fred Smith


58. "Leadership is the art of influencing others to their maximum performance to accomplish any task, objective or project." --W.A. Cohen

59. "A good leader is a caring leader -- he not only cares about his people, he actively takes care of them." --Harald Anderson

60. "There are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept." --Ralph Stogdill

61. "The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership." --Harvey S. Firestone

62. "Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others." --Robert Louis Stevenson

63. "Without passion, a person will have very little influence as a leader." --Michele Payn-Knoper 

64.  "Leadership is an intangible quality with no clear definition. That's probably a good thing, because if the people who were being led knew the definition, they would hunt down their leaders and kill them." --Scott Adams.

65. "Leadership is doing what is right when no one is watching." --George Van Valkenburg

66. "Leadership is someone who demonstrates what's possible." --Mark Yarnell

67.  "Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions."--Harold Geneen

68. "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity."  --George Smith Patton

69. "Leadership by example is the only kind of real leadership. Everything else is dictatorship." --Albert Emerson

70.  "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

71. "The leader must know, must know that he knows, and must be able to make it abundantly clear to those around him that he knows."  --Clarence Randall

72. "Leadership is about taking responsibility and not making excuses." --Mitt Romney

73. "Leadership is difficult but it is not complex." --Michael McKinney

74. "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." --Lance Secretan

75. "Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal." --P.G. Northouse

76. "Followers are the gem cutters of leadership coaxing out its full brilliance." --Ira Chaleff

77. "A leader cannot lead until he knows where he is going." --Anonymous 

78. "Leaders aren't born, they are made." ―Vince Lombardi

79.  "The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men, the conviction and the will to carry on." --Walter Lippmann

80.  "The function of a leader within any institution: to provide that regulation through his or her non-anxious, self-defined presence."  --Edwin H. Friedman




84. "Leadership consists of picking good men and helping them do their best." -- Chester W. Nimitz


86. "Leadership requires using power to influence the thoughts and actions of other people." --A. Zalenik

87.  "The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones." --Brandon Sanderson

88.  "Our work is our most important resource to develop our people." --Jim Trinka and Les Wallace

89.  "Successful leaders see the opportunities in every difficulty rather than the difficulty in every opportunity." --Reed Markham

90.  "The most important thing about a commander is his effect on morale." --Viscount Slim

91.  "While a good leader sustains momentum, a great leader increases it." --John C. Maxwell


93. "He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader." ―Aristotle






99. "To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less." --Andre Malraux

100. "Leadership is leading people with your whole heart." - Lolly Daskal