John P. Kotter Quotes

Leadership is about setting a direction. It's about creating a vision, empowering and inspiring people to want to achieve the vision, and enabling them to do so with energy and speed through an effective strategy. In its most basic sense, leadership is about mobilizing a group of people to jump into a better future.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

Not everybody who has a vision is a leader, but every leader has a vision.

Genuine leadership comes from the quality of your vision and your ability to spark others to extraordinary performance.

Create a compelling vision, one that takes people to a new place, and then translate that vision into a reality.

Leaders create a sense of urgency. And along with that you have to create a sense of hope and a direction.

Leaders have to be dealers in hope.

To be a leader you must be able to create positive change.

Leaders are fascinated by future. You are a leader if and only if, you are restless for change, impatient for progress and deeply dissatisfied with status quo. Because in your head, you can see a better future. The friction between 'what is' and 'what could be' burns you, stirs you up, propels you. This is leadership.

Without a vision the people perish.

Whether you are running a business, an industry, or a nation - what is needed are insight, integrity, and inspiration.

Great leaders must have two things: a vision of the world that does not yet exist and the ability to communicate that vision clearly.

Leaders have two characteristics: first they are going somewhere, and second they are able to persuade other people to go with them.

The only way to lead people is to show them a future: a leader is a dealer in hope.

Vision is the most powerful weapon in the leader's arsenal.

I think that leadership more than anything is about setting a course and describing a vision for people.

Leaders need to be optimists. Their vision is beyond the present.

Leaders establish the vision for the future and set the strategy for getting there.

For me, leadership is making a difference. It's using your agency to bring about change.

Followers need to see how things will get better and what that future might look like. Leaders need to build that foundation of stability, and hope sits on top of that.

I was brought up in a family of leaders, and I think leadership is a life sentence. I like changing things that will shape the future.

You've got to have a vision. You've got to have a message.

There is something to this vision thing.

Successful reform requires a long-term vision, driven by political leadership.