Humility Leadership Quotes

No one is charismatic. Someone becomes charismatic in history, socially. The question for me is once again the problem of humility. If the leader discovers that he is becoming charismatic not because of his or her qualities but because mainly he or she is being able to express the expectations of a great mass of people, then he or she is much more of a translator of the aspirations and dreams of the people, instead of being the creator of the dreams. In expressing the dreams, he or she is recreating these dreams. If he or she is humble, I think that the danger of power would diminish. ~ Myles Horton

Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real. ~ Thomas Merton

If virtue does not equal powers, powers will be misused. ~ John Howard Griffin

Vision and persistence will take you to the top of the leadership mountain, but only humility will keep you there. ~ Orrin Woodward

The common soldiers did not blame him for his excessive grief. They knew him. They knew his flaws. Indeed, I think they loved him all the more because he was flawed, as they were, and did not hide his passionate, blemished nature. ~ Geraldine Brooks

Humility is a most excellent barometer," he said, "and ought to be looked for in all those we are made to look up to. ~ Alan Bradley

People who sneer at a half a loaf of bread have never been hungry. George Reedy ~ Robert A. Caro

Sense shines with a double luster when it is set in humility. An able yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom. ~ William Penn

Humiliation is the only ladder to honoring God's Kingdom. ~ Andrew Murray

Humility is a great quality of leadership which derives respect and not just fear or hatred. ~ Yousef Munayyer

A true leader must be able to command with an iron fist, not just a humble heart. ~ Evan Meekins

Persuasion is a strong but subdued outrider. ~ Harold Bloom

Talk about presidents "taking" the country hither and yon is part of the foam of presidential elections. ~ George F. Will

A commander's pride got his soldiers dead. ~ Tom Clancy

Nixon under pressure turned only to reporters from publications already favorable to him; Kennedy, in trouble, turned to those most critical and dubious of him, and if anything tended to take those already for him a bit for granted. ~ David Halberstam

I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility. ~ John Ruskin

Great leadership is a reflection of honest service ~ Lazarus Takawira

They loved the sound of their own voices. No decision would be reached anytime soon. ~ Stephen L. Carter

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

Almost alone among successful politicians, he took slights personally. ~ Rick Perlstein

...you cannot be a leader if no one is willing to follow and work alongside you. An arrogant person does not ask for help and is therefore helpless. An arrogant person claims to know everything and thus is clueless. A humble person attracts helpers and teachers. ~ Nick Vujicic

I have the charisma of the chipmunk. I never have thought I was smart. I thought the people I dealt with were dumb. ~ Hyman George Rickover

The factor that made him so powerful was also his greatest liability. ~ Peter Heather

The author describes megalomania as seen in Chairman Mao by saying that what he was familiar with, he was really familiar with. This zeal moved the megalomaniac with a complete lack of appreciation for what he DID NOT know. ~ David Halberstam

A visitor asked Lincoln what good news he could take home from an audience with the august executive. The president spun a story about a machine that baffled a chess champion by beating him thrice. The stunned champ cried while inspecting the machine, "There's a man in there!"Lincoln's good news, he confided from the heights of leadership, was that there was in fact a man in there. ~ Shelby Foote

John's standard maneuver to ask someone to help him, especially in a moment of crisis, ~ William R. Forstchen

Leadership was not an act of bravery but rather forbearance and the strength to move forward with humility in the belief of what is righteous ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

Your mission statement, vision statement, core values, and service standards provide a clear focus for all while keeping your team humble and hungry. It creates that family environment in which your employees enjoy coming to work and dealing with the challenges they face each day. ~ Amber Hurdle

Challenge is the opportunity for greatness. People do their best when there is an opportunity to change how things currently stand. Maintaining the status quo facilitates mediocrity. Those who embrace this practice do not wish to rest on their laurels. They motivate others to exceed their limits and look for innovative ways to improve the organization. ~ James M. Kouzes

When the purge of teacher individualism is unrestrained, eccentricity, initiative and individuality become the casualties. ~ Andy Hargreaves

To measur whether it is humility or depression, check whether you are advancing spiritually or going down. ~ Radhanath Swami

Bible Christianity is what I love ... a Christianity practical and pure, which teaches holiness, humility, repentance and faith in Christ; and which after summing up all the Evangelical graces, declares that the greatest of these is charity . ~ Hannah More

I think the secret is to understand that you still want to be part of the game. To do so, you have to forget all the victories you've managed to get in the previous years and have a great humility. You also need to realise that, if you want to go on, you have to work hard. If you dwell too much on your past successes and say "well, I have won nine world titles and more than 100 races", you'd rather stay home. ~ Valentino Rossi

One of the reasons that may force you walk away from great opportunities is when your values are keep violated... ~ Assegid Habtewold

The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both. ~ Vaclav Havel

We have to recognize that however smart we are, we're not smarter than everyone else combined ... We can't lose sight of the fact that no matter how important our own contributions are, we couldn't have gotten anywhere without the help and hard work of lots of other people. ~ James M. Kouzes

Renowned management guru Peter F.Drucker looked back at his 65-year consulting career shortly before he died. He concluded that great leaders could either be 'charismatic or dull' or 'visionary or numbers-orientated,' but the most inspiring and effective managers he knew all had said we rather than I. ~ Robert I. Sutton

A lot of young people just starting out unskilled, as all Americans do when they're born here, come to this country, and so the business community is for immigration. Big businesses, small businesses, high-tech, low-tech, the communities of faith, and the Republican leadership. ~ Grover Norquist

Good leaders make heroes of others. ~ Mark Sanborn

Ronald Reagan?wasn't without leadership ability, but he lacked most of the management skills that a President needs. But let me give him his due: he would have made a hell of a king. ~ Tip O'Neill

An email cannot be ignored. You may wish an email was not sent to you, because you learned what you did not want to know, but it must be acted upon because there is now a permanent record linking you to that information. ~ Kent Alan Robinson

Why had he committed this terrible sin? Everything in the world was insignificant compared to what he had lost. Everything in the world is insignificant compared to the truth and purity of one small man – even the empire stretching from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean, even science itself.
Then he realized that it still wasn't too late. He still had the strength to lift up his head, to remain his mother's son.
And he wasn't going to try to console himself or justify what he had done. He wanted this mean, cowardly act to stand all his life as a reproach; day and night it would be something to bring him back to himself. No, no, no! He didn't want to strive to be a hero – and then preen himself over his courage.
Every hour, every day, year in, year out, he must struggle to be a man, struggle for his right to be pure and kind. He must do this with humility. And if it came to it, he mustn't be afraid even of death; even then he must remain a man.
'Well then, we'll see,' he said to himself. 'Maybe I do have enough strength. Your strength, Mother... ~ Vasily Grossman

I wasn't a very convenient person for the leadership. I had my own opinion about things and knew how to insist on this. ~ Gherman Titov

I rather choose to go through what will make me humble than to go for what will increase my pride to a level without limit ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

It isn't effective or productive to force your employees to do anything. Choice empowers people and makes for a more content workforce. ~ Richard Branson

But that is the nature of true grace and spiritual light, that it opens to a person's view the infinite reason there is that he should be holy in a high degree. And the more grace he has, and the more this is opened to view, the greater sense he has of the infinite excellency and glory of the divine Being, and of the infinite dignity of the person of Christ, and the boundless length and breadth and depth and height of the love of Christ to sinners. And as grace increases, the field opens more and more to a distant view, until the soul is swallowed up with the vastness of the object, and the person is astonished to think how much it becomes him to love this God and this glorious Redeemer that has so loved man, and how little he does love. And so the more he apprehends, the more the smallness of his grace and love appears strange and wonderful: and therefore he is more ready to think that others are beyond him. ~ Jonathan Edwards

To put up with ... distortions and to stick to one's guns come what may - this is the ... gift of leadership. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Bush promised a foreign policy of humility and a domestic policy of compassion. He has given us a foreign policy of arrogance and a domestic policy that is cynical, myopic and cruel. ~ Joe Klein

Tis skill, not strength, that governs a ship ~ Thomas Fuller

I think being vulnerable paves the way for humility. ~ Jonathan Sadowski

Humility is not an attribute but a key to development. ~ Zoltan Andrejkovics

Unless you have a definite, precise, clearly set goals, you are not going to realize the maximum potential that lies within you. ~ Zig Ziglar

Pastors spend a good bit of time helping people with their sin. Who helps them with their sin? ~ Johnny Hunt

Many churches approach ministry to people through the lens of an educational system instead of through the analogy of the family. ~ Ross Parsley

There exits within the ecclesia and among its citizens a phenomena I refer to as 'Spiritual Correctness'. Essentially it says: 'Don't say anything that could offend anyone, focus on what is right with the 'church' and its leadership, don't be critical, speak the truth in 'love', promote the status quo, don't make 'waves', don't call anyone 'out', respect 'authority', don't expose 'wrong-doing', cover those who 'spiritually abuse' others, keep it 'secret' within our family; don't ask any hard questions. Sounds exactly like the textbook definition of a highly dysfunctional family system. The only 'system' and its enablers that Jesus spoke out against vehemently was the religious system of His day and its leadership."

~R. Alan Woods [2013] ~ R. Alan Woods

Great leaders build trust from their team because the leader is willing to put his/her people "first." Once the team believes that, they will put their leader, and the company, first as well. ~ Beth Ramsay

Be the start of something that is good, revolutionary and powerful. Everything after that is a bonus! ~ Carlos Wallace

When you know in your bones that your body is a sacred gift, you move in the world with an effortless grace. Gratitude and humility rise up spontaneously. ~ Debbie Ford

Even the demons are encouraged when their chief is not lost in loss itself. ~ John Milton

You might think lunchtime at Willing would be different from other high schools. That everyone would be welcome at any table, united by the knowledge that we, at Willing, are the Elite, the Chosen, stellar across the board.
Um.No.Of course not.High school is high school, regardless of how much it costs or how many kids springboard into the Ivies. And nowhere is social status more evident than in the dining room (freshman and sophomores at noon; upperclassmen at one). Because, of course, Willing doesn't have a cafeteria, or even a lunch hall. It has a dining room, complete with oak tables and paneled walls that are covered with plaques going all the way back to 1869, the year Edith Willing Castoe (Edward's aunt) founded the school to "prepare Philadelphia's finest young ladies for Marriage,for Leadership, and for Service to the World." Really. Until the sixties, the school's boastful slogan was "She's a Willing Girl."
Almost 150 years, three first ladies, and one attorney general-not to mention the arrival of boys-later, female members of the student body are still called Willing Girls. You'd think someone in the seventies would have objected to that and changed it. But Willing has survived the seventies of two different centuries. They'll probably still be calling us Willing Girls in 2075. It's a school that believes in Tradition, sometimes regardless of how stupid that Tradition is. ~ Melissa Jensen

For me, walking in a hard Dakota wind can be like staring at the ocean: humbled before its immensity, I also have a sense of being at home on this planet, my blood so like the sea in chemical composition, my every cell partaking of air. I live about as far from the sea as is possible in North America, yet I walk in a turbulent ocean. Maybe that child was right when he told me that the world is upside-down here, and this is where angels drown. ~ Kathleen Norris

Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself. It's about advancing your team. ~ John C. Maxwell

Evaluation schemes that implicate 100% of the staff to detect a small % of incompetents are a waste of time. ~ Andy Hargreaves

The actor that taught me the most was Bernie Mac. I did my first big budget studio film with he and Angela Bassett, 'Mr. 3000' for Disney. Bernie taught me by example what creates success is humility and hard work. ~ Brian J. White

Americans talked about voters the same way Russians talked about Stalin. They had to be obeyed. ~ Ken Follett

In leadership writ large, mutually agreed upon purposes help people achieve consensus, assume responsibility, work for the common good, and build community. ~ Joseph C. Rost

In fact, the converse is true: At a time when the United States has been called on for a level of moral leadership, vision and inspiration not seen since World War II, we cannot afford to dissemble about crimes against humanity. ~ Adam Schiff

Good leaders teach you how to swim to the shore;
great leaders teach you how to walk on water. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting, and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked-up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem. ~ Ben Horowitz

Successful leaders see the opportunities in every difficulty rather than the difficulty in every opportunity ~ Reed Markham

The total vacuity of world leadership thinking has lead to the practice of claiming to heal the world through politicising unviable theoretical means of finding world peace,what we need is just to cement the differences between people and there will be a piece of peace at every doorstep ~ Mpho Leteng

A runner doesn't just show up and win a race. He trains long and hard. Do you just show up every day and hope to win? ~ Robin Sharma