The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.

Woodrow Wilson

It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear.

Dick Cavett

The way to get people to build a ship is not to teach them carpentry, assign them tasks, and give them schedules to meet; but to inspire them to long for the infinite immensity of the sea.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Knowledge speaks but wisdom listens.

Jimi Hendrix

One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody’s listening.

Franklin P. Jones

The ultimate measure of a man [woman] is not where he [she] stands in moments of comfort, but where he [she] stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

Stephen Covey

A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he [she] gets to know something.

Wilson Mizner

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

Henry David Thoreau

There is no such thing as a worthless conversation, provided you know what to listen for. And questions are the breath of life for a conversation.

James Nathan Miller

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

Winston Churchill

I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders not more followers.

Ralph Nader

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

Colin Powell

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

It is the province of knowledge to speak. And it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

John F. Kennedy

No man [woman] will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself [herself], or to get all the credit for doing it.

Andrew Carnegie

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he [she] wants to do it.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

A boss creates fear, a leader confidence. A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions. A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting.  A boss is interested in himself or herself, a leader is interested in the group.

Russell H. Ewing

The real leader has no need to lead. He [she] is content to point the way.

Henry Miller

I learned that a great leader is a man [woman] who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do and like it.

Harry S. Truman

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.

John Kenneth Galbraith

I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening.

Larry King

What chance gathers she easily scatters. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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

A ruler should be slow to punish and swift to reward.

Ovid

Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise.

Woodrow Wilson

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

George Patton

If a rhinoceros were to enter this restaurant now, there is no denying he would have great power here. But I should be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatever.

G.K. Chesterton to Alexander Woollcott

Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.

Harold Geneen

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.

Jack Welch

Leadership is intentional influence.

Michael McKinney