leadership humility Quotes

Leadership involves not so much marching gloriously at the head of a parade as paying quietly for the parade permit and the cleanup afterward. Leading the world means acting not as its Commander-In-Chief but as its concierge.

The true leader is always led.

It is hubris that has gotten us into trouble in Washington. It is humility, principled leadership, and unwavering faith in the power of the states, the people, and our Constitution that will get us out.

Communists should set an example in study; at all times they should be pupils of the masses as well as their teachers.

Leaders should lead as far as they can and then vanish. Their ashes should not choke the fire they have lit.

When you start thinking you're a big shot, you wash more feet.

We are not all leaders. We are called leaders.

[President Truman] was free of the greatest vice in a leader, his ego never came between him and his job.

Polls can change; people's opinions can change. Voting intentions can change, and I think it would be a silly leader, a silly political party, that would assume that we have it sewn up.

A leader should never compare his technical skills with his employee's.

In a healthy republic, there is a need for figures who understand that the presidency is not the be-all and end-all of the people.

Even a president makes mistakes.

This extraordinary arrogance that change must start at the top is a way of guaranteeing that change will not happen in most companies.

In 27 years of reporting from Washington, I've never heard a President admit he made a mistake.

I think that former leaders are best seen occasionally and not too often heard - particularly on the subject of their successors!

When I was interviewed after I got hired to replace Walter Alston, a future Hall of Famer, I was asked: 'Don't you feel pressure on you?' I said: 'Want to know something? I'm worried about the guy who's going to have to replace me.'

When a king begins to act like a king, it is not long before someone else is king! Serving is a way we can place value on one another. A wise man is a server.

We don't need giant personalities to transform companies. We need leaders who build not their own egos but the institutions they run.

Leadership starts with understanding responsibility, not ability. Leadership is a Stewardship, not a show.

I've found that South Africa has produced good leaders. These are people who realize that when there is danger, they should be in the forefront and when there is victory to be celebrated, they should be in the background, allowing their colleagues and the ordinary civilians - the man in the street - to rejoice and to celebrate that victory.

A true and safe leader is likely to be one who has no desire to lead, but is forced into a position by the inward pressure of the Holy Spirit and the press of [circumstances]... The man who is ambitious to lead is disqualified as a leader. The true leader will have no desire to lord it over God's heritage, but will be humble, gentle, self-sacrificing and altogether ready to follow when the Spirit chooses another to lead.

Men who find themselves late are never sure. They are all the things the civics books tell us the good citizen should be: partisans but never zealots, respectors of the facts which attend each situation but never benders of those facts, uncomfortable in positions of leadership but rarely unable to turn down a responsibility once it has been offered . . . or thrust upon them. They make the best leaders in a democracy because they are unlikely to fall in love with power.

In the kingdom, the greater our responsibilities, the greater is our need to see ourselves as servants.

A preacher who is too big for a little crowd would be too little for a big crowd.

I don't want people to think he [Eldridge Cleaver] is so important - our party is important because our party works for the people and no individual is important in our party, including myself.