John C. Maxwell Quotes

Leadership is service to others.

To me, leadership is about encouraging people. It's about stimulating them. It's about enabling them to achieve what they can achieve - and to do that with a purpose.

I can't be everywhere, but I'm always in one of my kitchens, and hopefully I'm motivating and inspiring.

In motivating people, you've got to engage their minds and their hearts. I motivate people, I hope, by example - and perhaps by excitement, by having productive ideas to make others feel involved.

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.

If you want to make a difference in the lives of the people you lead, you must be willing to walk alongside them, to lift and encourage them, to share moments of understanding with them, and to spend time with them, not just shout down at them from on high.

My mentor said, 'Let's go do it', not 'You go do it'. How powerful when someone says, 'Let's!'

Leadership isn't about simply being in charge and treating your people like soldiers and barking orders. Leadership is sharing your knowledge and your direction so that others grow and reach their potential.

Choose great people and shine in their shadows

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.

I don't believe in just ordering people to do things. You have to sort of grab an oar and row with them.

Average leaders inspire people to punch a time clock. Great leaders inspire industry and passion.

Leadership does not mean domination

Leadership contains certain elements of good management, but it requires that you inspire, that you build durable trust. For an organization to be not just good but to win, leadership means evoking participation larger than the job description, commitment deeper than any job contract's wording.

Leadership is an individual sport, one that has to be fine-tuned to each of the people that reports to you. Leaders also need to provide the direction, energy, encouragement and inspiration for each person who reports directly to the leader as well as for the overall organization.

Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power. And I try to model that in all of my interactions.

Unless and until you inspire the people, you will not get results. Imposition will never give you the results. Inspiration will always give you the results.

I just want to be a leader.

That's part of being a leader, being the guy that people look to and making everybody around you better.

Leadership is a position where you want to create the opportunity to inspire people to walk along beside you, not listen to what you say.

The leadership of Christine Rampone goes without saying. She is the definition of a what a leader is.

What makes a leader great is not the fact that she (or he) has all the answers, but the ability to inspire and empower us to find the answers.

Leadership is more about clarity than it is about control.

To me, leadership is helping people do their best. If you define leadership that way, I don't think it's overrated.