Whether you’re leading a huge team or just trying to climb the career ladder, these inspirational and motivational management quotes can help provide some useful wisdom on how best to deploy your leadership strategy.
Sometimes all the inspiration you need can be found in a few simple words of wisdom – a single idea can really change the way we think, the way we feel, and the way we live. Here are 52 of our favorite inspiring leadership quotes for work to empower you and your team throughout each week of the year.
1. “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” ~ John C. Maxwell
2. “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” ~ Jimmy Dean
3. “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” ~ Vince Lombardi
4. “There is little success where there is little laughter.” ~ Andrew Carnegie
5. “Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent of how I react to it.” ~ Charles Swindoll
6. “Don’t find fault, find a remedy.” ~ Henry Ford
7. “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” ~ Albert Einstein
8. “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.”~ Maya Angelou
9. “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” ~ William Arthur Ward
10. “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
11. “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” ~ Albert Einstein
12. “Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~ Dalai Lama
“Eighty percent of success is showing up.” ~ Woody Allen
14. “You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” ~ Christopher Columbus
15. “Either you run the day, or the day runs you.” ~ Jim Rohn
16. “There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” ~ Aristotle
17. “Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart.” ~ Ancient Indian Proverb
18. “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.” ~ Sheryl Sandberg
19. “Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” ~ Joshua J. Marine
20. “Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless.” ~ Jamie Paolinetti
21. “I didn’t fail the test. I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
22. “The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it.” ~ Chinese Proverb
23. “Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” ~ Gloria Steinem
24. “You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” ~ Beverly Sills
25. “You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note.” ~ Doug Floyd
“In teamwork, silence isn’t golden. It’s deadly.” ~ Mark Sanborn
27. “The secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven.” ~ Knute Rockne
28. “I don’t want yes-men around me. I want everyone to tell the truth, even if it costs them their jobs.” ~ Samuel Goldwyn
29. “I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles, but today it means getting along with people.” ~ Mohandas Gandhi
30. “I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I sure can pick smart colleagues.” ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
31. “Power isn’t control at all ~ power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own.” ~ Beth Revis
32. “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
33. “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” ~ Albert Schweitzer
34. “Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.” ~ John C. Maxwell
35. “Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flow charts. It is about one life influencing another.” ~ John C. Maxwell
36. “Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.” ~ Colin Powell
37. “Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas?” ~ Margaret Thatcher
38. “A leader is a dealer in hope.” ~ Napoleon
“The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”~ Colin Powell
40. “I cannot give you a formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: try to please everybody.” ~ Herbert Bayard Swope
41. “The challenge of leadership is to be strong but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” ~ Jim Rohn
42. “Average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire others to raise their own bar.” ~ Orrin Woodward
43. “My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.” ~ Steve Jobs
44. “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” ~ Andy Warhol
45. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle
46. “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” ~ Van Gogh
47. “The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.” ~ Linus Pauling
48. “Dealing with complexity is an inefficient and unnecessary waste of time, attention and mental energy. There is never any justification for things being complex when they could be simple.” ~ Edward de Bono
49. “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” ~ George S. Patton
50. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” ~ Peter Drucker
51. “When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.” ~ Henry J. Kaiser
“Earn your leadership every day.” ~ Michael Jordan
So there you have it: An inspirational quote for work to inspire you and your team for every week of the year. From all of us at Scoro, we wish you a happy and productive New Year!