Becoming a Leader With Leadership Quotes

I like the definition of leadership by Reverend Michael D. Noonan at Wikipedia. It says that leadership is "ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen." In my opinion, this is the essence of the concept of leadership. Think about it. Leaders create a way. They do not lag behind the crowd. They do not control the crowd. They do not command and annoy people. True leaders explore and create a way, so that their subordinates have the opportunity and the willingness within them to make something extraordinary happen.

Creating a way implies walking in front of others and not following them. You create a path on which others walk. You go first. Then others follow. As Sun Tzu wrote: "A leader leads by example not by force." Exceptional and true leadership goes even further and makes people follow you because they want to (not because they must). It is about creating and casting the vision which will send people into raptures. It also means providing people with all the possible resources to help them achieve the extraordinary.

I personally believe that good leaders are usually made and not born. In other words, all of the above is achievable. It can be learned and put into practice even if you do not pre-own leadership skills. Although such proposition is open for debate (even an academic one), I strongly believe that if you have the desire and the willpower, you can become an effective leader by acquiring specific set of skills. We can learn how to create a way for people.

The key method to acquire needed skills is certainly education. Formal and informal. However, in my short but intensive experience in leading people, I have found that leadership quotes were very useful mode of learning leadership skills. They often provided a quick insight into experiences and lessons that others learned through practicing leadership. Leadership quotes served me as instructive recommendations and advices I could use straightaway in practice.

Here are two examples:

"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

"Most bosses know instinctively that their power depends more on employee's compliance than on threats or sanctions." Fernanda Bartolme

The first quote above emphasizes the need to delegate and entrust tasks to other people. It also implies our faith and confidence in their abilities. In other words, we need to trust our subordinates that they are able to accomplish the task successfully, and when they do so, we need to recognize that and give them credit for it.

This is one of the ways I learn leadership, as quotes proved to be an effective way to gain some of leadership skills. They have the ability to help one become a better leader. Give it a try.