Quotes about leadership

I had become someone they could look to for leadership and direction, who would shield from meddling from above, and would ask no act of them that he wasn't prepared to perform himself. I provided for my men a framework within which they were freed to use their own qualities of courage, resourcefulness and tenacity.

We have created trouble for ourselves in organizations by confusing control with order. This is no surprise, given that for most of its written history, leadership has been defined in terms of its control functions.

Leadership is always dependent upon the context, but the context is established by the relationships.

Although styles of leadership change with the times, one constant remains: people are always ambivalent about those in power. They want to be led but also to feel free; they want to be protected and enjoy prosperity without making sacrifices; they both worship the king and want to kill him. When you are the leader of a group, people are continually prepared to turn on you the moment you seem weak or experience a setback. Do not succumb to the prejudices of the times, imagining that what you need to do to gain their loyalty is to seem to be their equal or their friend; people will doubt your strength, become suspicious of your motives, and respond with hidden contempt. Authority is the delicate art of creating the appearance of power, legitimacy, and fairness while getting people to identify with you as a leader who is in their service. If you want to lead, you must master this art from early on in your life. Once you have gained people’s trust, they will stand by you as their leader, no matter the bad circumstances.

Perhaps I cannot make my people good, but I should at least try to make them a little less bad.

Man wants to be king of the rabbits, he best wear a pair o' floppy ears.

It's not the walls that make a lord, it's the man.

When your enemies defy you, you must serve them steel and fire. When they go to their knees, however, you must help them back to their feet. Elsewise no man will ever bend the knee to you. And any man who must say "I am the king" is no king at all.

It does not matter how brave or brilliant a man is, if his commands cannot be heard.

I told you what needed to be done, and left it to you to decide what it would be ... To lead men you must know them, Jon Snow. I know more of you now than I did this morning.

Men fight more fiercely for a king who shares their peril than one who hides behind his mother's skirts.

"Know the men who follow you, and let them know you. Don't ask your men to die for a stranger."