One of the most compelling and significant characteristics that each leader or manager should have is the ability to motivate and inspire others. Whether you’re leading a team, aiming to be more effective, or merely trying to climb to the top of a career ladder, having proper leadership skills is a priority to succeed.
The Gallup Organization, known for its public opinion polls, has found that the most important variable in employee productivity and loyalty is not pay, incentives or benefits. It’s also not the workplace environment. Although these factors are quite essential, they’re not the prime concern. Can you guess what is?
It’s the quality of the relationship between employees and their direct supervisors, and how the personnel are led.
So, if you’re looking for a drive or new ideas to spur the determination and energy of both you, and your team to the roof, here are 21 famous quotes that could just be the missing piece to achieving your organizational goals.
1. “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
2. “Teamwork makes the dream work, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team.” —John C. Maxwell
3. “Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.” —Colin Powell
4. “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing–that’s why we recommend it daily.” —Zig Ziglar
5. “One of the best paradoxes of leadership is a leader’s need to be both stubborn and open-minded. A leader must insist on sticking to the vision and stay on course to the destination. But he must be open-minded during the process.” —Simon Sinek
6. “The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” —Mark Zuckerberg
7. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something–your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” —Steve Jobs
8. “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” —George Patton
9. “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
10. “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, and live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.” —Swami Vivekananda
11. “There is only one way to avoid criticism: Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” —Aristotle
12. “Opportunity is always knocking. The problem is that most people have the self-doubt station in their heads turned up way too loud to hear it.” —Brian Vaszily
13. “You grow up the day you have your first real laugh – at yourself.” —Ethel Barrymore
14. “A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.” —Max Lucado
15. “A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.” —David Brinkley
16. “Entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures before final success. What sets the successful ones apart is their amazing persistence.” —Lisa M. Amos
17. “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” —Albert Einstein
18. “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” —Milton Berle
19. “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
20. “We live in a society obsessed with public opinion. But leadership has never been about popularity.” —Marco Rubio
21. “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” —Steve Jobs
By: Menna Mahdy
Photography: Mahmoud Mansi
EDITOR: Sarah Shalaby