John W. Gardner Quotes

People don't follow titles, they follow courage.

I like guts in my leaders.

Leadership is of the spirit, compounded of personality and vision

The essence of leadership involves a clear sense of what you want to achieve, the ability to do what may be unpopular … and a willingness to step up

A real leader does not rely on consensus. He builds consensus.

I am a tough minister.

Boldness and decision command, often even in evil, the respect and concurrence of mankind.

Well, I think that - I think leadership's always been about two main things: imagination and courage.

Leaders do not sway with the polls. Instead, they sway the polls through their own words and actions.

In politics, guts is all.

For a long time, I operated under the Chinese proverb that there are four kinds of leaders: those who you laugh at, those who you hate, those who you love and those who you don't even know that they're leaders.

Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.

I am and always will be a leader.

To be a leader, you have to make people want to follow you, and nobody wants to follow someone who doesn't know where he is going.

The leader of men in warfare can show himself to his followers only through a mask, a mask that he must make for himself, but a mask made in such form as will mark him to men of his time and place as the leader they want and need.

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

Men ever follow willingly a daring leader: most willingly of all, in great emergencies.

Managers will tell people what to do, whereas leaders will inspire them to do it, and there are a few things that go into the ability to inspire.

I hate to change leaders in battle, but the new leader is better than a timid one.

A Stevenson with balls

Real leaders do not follow polls. Real leaders change polls.

The true measure of a leader is what it takes to stop him.

Courage breeds leadership.