Great Collection Of Leadership Quotes To Remember

Recently I read a post by John Rampton which collected 50 amazing leadership quotes by some of the most influential people that have lived or live on this planet. I wanted to share this list with you all, as this is something worth keeping around for when we need a little inspiration in our daily battles. 

These quotes will serve you, wether you're an employee of an organization, an entrepreneur, an athletic coach, small business owner, or any ordinary person going through the challenges that life puts us through. 

Enjoy and keep them handy!

1. "A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be." – Rosalynn Carter

2. “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.” - Lao Tzu

3. "It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse." -  Adlai E. Stevenson II

4. "Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand." – Colin Powell

5. “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.” - Max DePree

6. "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." – John Quincy Adams

7. “A leader is a dealer in hope.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

8. "A leader...is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind." - Nelson Mandela

9. “He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.” - Aristotle

10. "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

11. "As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others." – Bill Gates

12. “A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit." - John Maxwell

13. “Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position.” - Brian Tracy

14. "The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic." – George Orwell

15. “I start each day by telling myself what a positive influence I am on this world.” - Peter Daisyme

16. “Earn your leadership every day." - Michael Jordan

17. "Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others." – Jack Welch

18. “Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” - Peter Drucker

19. "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

20. "The led must not be compelled. They must be able to choose their own leader." – Albert Einstein

21. “Great leaders find ways to connect with their people and help them fulfill their potential.” - Steven J. Stowell

22. "To have long-term success as a coach or in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way." - Pat Riley

23. "If you think you are leading and turn around to see no one following, then you are just taking a walk." – Benjamin Hooks

24. “The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” - Jim Rohn

25. "A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd." - Max Lucado

26. “To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

27. "It is absolutely necessary...for me to have persons that can think for me, as well as execute orders." - George Washington

28. "Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work." - Vince Lombardi

29. “A cowardly leader is the most dangerous of men.”  - Stephen King

30. "A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason."- J.P. Morgan

31. “Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.” - Chinese Proverb

32. "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

33. “No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.”  - Andrew Carnegie

34. "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

35. "Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob." – Oscar Wilde

36. “Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” - Sam Walton

37. “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” -  Albert Schweitzer

38. “If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.” - Dolly Parton

39. “I am reminded how hollow the label of leadership sometimes is and how heroic followership can be.” - Warren Bennis

40. “In this world a man must either be an anvil or hammer.” -  Henry W. Longfellow

41. “It is absurd that a man should rule others, who cannot rule himself. (Absurdum est ut alios regat, qui seipsum regere nescit.)” - Latin Proverb

42. “The history of the world is but the biography of great men.” -  Thomas Carlyle

43. “A ruler should be slow to punish and swift to reward.” - Ovid

44. “You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader” - Henry Ford

45. “Rely on your own strength of body and soul. Take for your star self-reliance, faith, honesty, and industry. Don't take too much advice — keep at the helm and steer your own ship, and remember that the great art of commanding is to take a fair share of the work. Fire above the mark you intend to hit. Energy, invincible determination with the right motive, are the levers that move the world.” - Noah Porter

46. "Don't blow off another's candle for it won't make yours shine brighter." Jaachynma N.E. Agu

47. “I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.”  - Herbert Swope

48. “He who has learned how to obey will know how to command.”  - Solon

49. “If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.” - Maya Angelou

50. “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” - Theodore Roosevelt

Bonus:

“Screw it, let’s just do it.” - Richard Branson

Pay Yourself Last

Getting a business off the ground and selling your products is the easy part... keeping that momentum and growing your presence in the market to keep your products and services flying off the shelves for years to come (remember that entrepreneurs dream??:), while scaling, is much more difficult. Maintenance for long term profitability of a business is very difficult and requires a certain level of discipline; stay grounded when it comes to your finances. In my years of business and ventures, watching businesses come and go, a lack of staying on top of key financial metrics is the one thing that kills most businesses. Being able to manage your finances- payroll, vendors and supplies, inventory, etc.- is a difficult part in any business for someone who has never done it. Many people are just not cut out for this, but as an owner, you gotta learn it.

Here are some of the basics. Handle them, stay focused on the bottom line and watch your business grow.

Employees & Payroll

Don't pay yourself much, if anything, the first one to two years in your business... I've seen first hand, businesses that go down because the owners start paying themselves way too much. Employees are the most important part of growth and scalability, and you want to take good care of them.

Pay your employees first.

This is contrary to what we learn from leading finance or wealth building gurus or seminars out there. These pros say, "you pay yourself first." That's bull shit, you pay your employees first. As an entrepreneur, your payout is long term.

In all the years that I have been in business, I have never missed a single payroll, even when things were tough. I can't stand it when I hear things like, "My boss gave me a check that I can't cash till next week." Big no-no in my book.

I've heard stories of businesses going under because they didn't have enough money to pay payroll taxes. To me, that's poor management. You've got payroll and every two weeks you know you have to cut checks to your employees. Then you have to pay your payroll taxes, and depending on your payroll amounts, they may be monthly , quarterly or yearly; whatever your situation may be.

What should you do? Open Two Accounts- one for business and one for payroll.

Let's say you have a bi-weekly payroll expense of $10,000, with an additional $2,500 in taxes, put the full $12,500 and deposit it into your payroll account, and forget about it. Yes, I know that you may not have to pay your taxes until later in the year, but ultimately, this is a payroll expense and you owe it. So many people get into trouble with this... and I'm even referring to large companies with several hundred thousands of payroll taxes they couldn't pay. This went on for several quarters, and they had to close their doors because they couldn't catch up. Don’t be that guy.

When to Start Paying Yourself

When you start having a little bit of success, you can start to take a salary and/or increase your pay. Stay away from the mentality of spending a little bit lavishly, thinking that things will always be on the up and up is not guaranteed. Be patient with yourself, a day will come in your business where you’re making a decent profit and you will be able to rake in the benefits for your efforts.

Capitalize Your Business

Something very important that people don't realize is that you have to capitalize the business.

Throw money in the bank!

It's great to have the capital there so you have the option to take on big exciting opportunities, even acquire other businesses that will help strengthen your business, or simply help you through hard times.

Track Your Performance

I run across people in my life who don't even know how to balance a checkbook. How are these individuals expected to run a P&L or a Balance Sheet for their business and know what to do with it? Listen, this may be a surprise to many of you, but I have seen people at large corporations that don't have an idea of how to read a P&L or how to properly calculate gross profits for their business. It's a shame, but it's a reality.

Schools need to do a better job of educating our children on how to balance a checkbook, how to manage personal finances. Teach them what a P&L and a balance sheet are. Teach them the basics on how to manage personal and business finances. Until that happens, it is up to you to learn. You will find people that are amazing sales people, technologist, and amazing operators, but they will forget about the most important vital sign of a business, your finances.

Finances in your business is like the blood that courses through your veins. If you don’t know the financial status of your business, you will F-N die. Pay close attention to those dollars, make sure there is a healthy flow, and you will have a thriving, profitable business. And remember, pay your self last!

Epic Fail

Many years ago, my father gave me a book about a Latin American business man from Venezuela named Gustavo Cisneros. The son of Diego Cisneros, who's business boomed during the industrial revolution in Venezuela in the 1920’s. He is known for creating and leading what is now known as the world’s largest privately held media and entertainment organizations. By the 1940’s, the Cisneros Group were clearly established as one of Venezuela’s major corporate entities and because of this, they were able to represent big names like Pepsi and Studabaker. They owned a ton of companies in North and South America, and as a multi-billion dollar organization, the men who own and run the organization are amongst the world’s wealthiest businessmen.

I read that book with such enthusiasm. I was around 24 or 25 and was working at Overstock.com at the time. When I finished that book, I thought, “Shit, I am going to build a holdings company that will own all these different businesses I want to build.” I had found a new mentor in the pages of that book my dad gave me.

So what did I do?

I went out and had a smart friend of mine set up a company, The Zerimar Group, in Las Vegas Nevada. You may ask why Nevada? For the tax saving benefits of course. I needed a way to protect all these profits I hadn't made yet.

I look back at it now, and I laugh and think, "Man, I didn't know anything, I was clueless."

I threw $15,000 I had in savings into the business and put in place an organizational structure that cost me more then the business activities I was performing. I was thinking big, but those are things you do when you have a tremendous amount of wealth, and you want to have tax savings on all that wealth.

I started a few different businesses that were held by The Zerimar Group. My goal: I'm gonna start all these different companies, and The Zerimar Group would be the holdings company of these different companies. At some point, I am going to build out a kick-ass management team that will work for the group. Together, we will manage all these different companies. That was the plan!

2 1/2 years later, after paying maintenance fees on The Zerimar Group, we ended up closing down the company. Note to self- Maintaining and closing a company like this in Nevada costs more to close than it does to open it.  This was sort of my first shot at creating this dream organization where I owned a bunch of different businesses where I was the head of this corporate group. OK, so that didn't go very far, but I kept on working, plugging away, starting businesses on the side, as I continued to work at Overstock.com. Even though I lost thousands through the efforts, I gained real working knowledge through these efforts.

I believe that if you fail, and fail hard sometimes, as long as you're paying attention, you will always come out on top. If not financially, then through the invaluable education you can only get from rock bottom.

Gotto Keep Going

Ever since I can remember, I have always had this drive and passion for business. Not so much the details of it, although I do love the minutia sometimes, but more so the possibilities business creates for people.

As a child, our family didn’t have much, which means I went without. I didn’t have the GT, RedLine or Robinson BMX bike like the other kids in the neighborhood, or the latest Vans or Nike shoes like my classmates. Was that shiny new bike and good looking shoes too much to ask? Yes. I couldn’t get these things from my parents, as these were considered luxuries.

The WANT drove me to go out and earn my own money by starting a business of my own. A business where I could earn what I needed to obtain the things I wanted, but I couldn't have if I stayed put and did nothing about it, so at the age of 10, I started a grass cutting grass in the neighborhood.

This was my first ever venture, which started with me hitting the streets of my neighborhood, knocking on doors and asking people to let me cut their grass for a fee of $15/cut. My success was almost instant. This effort led me to land 10 clients that paid me $15 per cut every two weeks. The first 5 clients I was able to handle myself, but as the customer base grew, I had to think about hiring help to scale the business. I ended up hiring some friends to help me serve these customers. I remember getting my first payment, I was like "wow, I have actually managed to get someone to give me their money for a service I am providing, this is something that can be big!, I am building an empire here". I had employees and was making real money. At the age of 10, I was dreaming about how I was going to establish a company that had all these "employees" cutting grass on my behalf, and eventually, we would expand it to other neighborhoods.

This business venture taught me one of my first business lessons on the distributions of equity in a business and the power of entrepreneurship. I charged $15/cut and paid my friends (employees) $5/cut, which seemed fair to me, as I was the one that knocked on the doors and got the customers. It was my idea and I executed on it, so why should I split the fees 50/50 with my friends that were helping me? This was a topic of conversation all the time with my friends, they wanted to know why they only got $5/cut vs. my $10/cut. At the time, I knew nothing about business, but I just knew instinctively that this was the right approach and one I needed to hold a hard position on. After all, I knocked on the doors and was the one with the business idea. I didn't have a co-founder.

As entrepreneurs we can sometimes get accused of being greedy, paying too little, not sharing the love with others that are helping us build the company, etc. Here is my take on that, as an entrepreneur we take LOTS of risk and put all we have at risk to build something that may or may not work, YES we have others that help us build the company for a salary that we pay them, even if it's not market rates, but they made the decision to take the job. As an entrepreneur and founder(s) of an enterprise, you deserve the line share of the business and you should never feel guilty about it.

You "knocked on the door' ;)

That grass cutting business lasted for about 8 months. Within the next couple of years, I nibbled away at other business ideas in Jr High and High School. I always had this dream of being a business man.

The other day I was going through some of my things and found this paper I wrote in 11th grade. The title of the paper, 'Business Man'. It's basically a paper describing me in the future. The purpose of the paper was for us to write where we saw ourselves when we graduated high school, what we wanted to be doing with our life and what our life is going to be like. I read through the paper, which was filled with grammatical errors, aside from those, I realized that this paper I wrote in high school, described what I had created in my life. I wrote about starting a business selling CD storage cases. Back in those day, CD’s had just come out, and there weren’t a lot of options for storing this new media.

The paper described my business being a huge success, I had a hundred employees, a really nice car, and a 6,000 sq. ft. home. The teacher had encouraged us to cut out pictures of what we wanted, so in my paper, there were cut outs of the home I would live in and the car I would drive. I look back today and think, “WOW, It’s not that far from what I actually have accomplished in life.” Interesting that I could look back at a paper from 20+ years ago that actually worked out, minus the CD storage business. I actually wrote, back then, what I have become today.

I’ve always dreamt of doing what I am doing today. I've never given up. I have had many businesses failures, and I’ve never given up. Almost so much that my friends and family would think and say, “OK, what is Ivan up to this time?”

Now, I realize that you gotto keep going.

People will wonder what you’re up to, and wonder when you are going to actually “Be There”. You will get so excited about your idea, dump time and money into it, and pour all of your heart into it. You will experience great triumphs, and epic failures throughout your process. Realize, it’s yours and you gotto design your own life and keep going.

Get Off Your Ass and Just Do IT!

The toughest part of starting a business is actually getting off your ass and doing it.

There are so many people with great ideas, but they just don't execute. How many times have you heard people say, "I had that idea... first," or "They took my idea!" There's no fucking excuse that should hold you back from starting a business, just do it- get it done! Right? You gotta be a doer, and do, do, do.

I have heard excuses like; "I don't have experience in this,  "I'm not talented enough in that, or "I just haven't had the time to get started.", etc., etc." Guess what? This is BULLSHIT! No more excuses, just take the plunge and get started. When it comes time to celebrate, the procrastinators are going to be wishing they could have just made something happen, looking at the doers and hating on them cause they had the balls to do something.

Our VC firm Zerimar Ventures, just recently made an investment in a company called eMoov, a leading online estate agent in the UK. Russel Quirk, the founder, is a talented guy, loaded with love, passion, and humility with a knack for seeing and doing BIG. As a third generation estate agent, he knows the industry, and he knows how to make things happen in this space. When Russell started eMoov several years ago, he didn't know a single thing about technology, online marketing, and what it would take to build an online company, all he had was a vision to disrupt the estate agency space. This is a perfect example of a DOER who never made excuses for anything. He rolled up his sleeves, put his head down, and used the shit out of Google to learn those things he didn't know. No excuses baby, no excuses!

On one of my recent trips to London, my wife Angela and I went to visit the company offices in Essex, a county north east of London. It was so freaking cool to see the culture he's built in this company and what a great business they have built lacking all the expertise in things like technology, marketing, pr, etc. This is why we love this company so much and why we jumped in to be a part of this passionate group of people out to make a mark in the space. This is a great example of someone who looked at an existing process within an industry that's been around for decades, and saw a better and more affordable way to provide the service. However, the most important part about this example is that I am sure there have been many people with this idea, but guess what, Russell was one of the ones that did it without thinking of all the things he didn't know.

Russell Quirk is a DOER.

That's the hardest part of starting a business- finding or having somebody with that kind of drive and passion. That can take all the excuses and push all the naysayers off to the side. It's not capital which is the most important part of a business... It's not capital at all. It's a matter of executing- NO EXCUSES!

Look at Google...this is one, if not the best tool that's been introduced to society in the last few decades.  I always say that there is no such things as an ignorant person anymore, but there will be a lazy one. Many of the businesses and products being created today are not new concepts, they are old ideas that are being rehashed, improved, flipped on its head, or taking traditional businesses and computerizing them. Steve Jobs didn't create the mp3 player. There were hundreds of mp3 players out there on the market before the iPod came out, he just made them more user friendly and sexier than all the others. He also didn't create the smart phone, he just made it better and SMARTER than all the others. Look around you and look at things in a way no one has ever looked at them before. Don't think that because something exists, it's been  created and there is no room for improvement. There will always be room for improvement or different solutions to problems.

There world has many unsolved problems. We need to continue driving change in the world by looking at problems in different ways or improving upon existing processes that were set up years ago by those innovators of the past. Do something BIG, start thinking and looking at what surrounds you, the ideas are floating around, we just need to grab them and execute on them.

When are YOU getting started?

What are YOU waiting for?