101 Motivational Business Leadership and Teamwork Quotes

Reading Time: 8 Minutes

At Deliberate Directions, our mission is to create abundance in our business community by helping leaders build strong, thriving businesses.

We recognize that leaders and team members may need some extra motivation at times. That is why we have compiled a list of 101 motivational business leadership and teamwork quotes.

  1. “A good leader leads the people from above them. A great leader leads the people from within them.” ~ M.D. Arnold
  2. “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” ~ Lao Tzu
  3. “Doing what is right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what is right.” ~ Lyndon B. Johnson
  4. “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” ~ Harry Truman
  5. “Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.” ~ Warren Bennis
  6. “You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.” ~ Henry Ford
  7. “To build a strong team, you must see someone else’s strength as a complement to your weakness and not a threat to your position or authority.” ~ Christine Caine
  8. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” ~ Harold R. McAlindon
  9. “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
  10. “There are no office hours for leaders.” ~ Cardinal James Gibbons
  11. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” ~ President John Quincy Adams
  12. “Synergy – the bonus that is achieved when things work together harmoniously.” ~ Mark Twain
  13. “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” ~ John Maxwell
  14. “The ratio of we’s to I’s is the best indicator of the development of a team.” ~ Lewis B. Ergen
  15. “What you do has far greater impact than what you say.” ~ Stephen Covey
  16. “The price of greatness is responsibility.” ~ Winston Churchill
  17. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ~ Maya Angelou
  18. “In teamwork, silence isn’t golden, it’s deadly.” ~ Mark Sanborn
  19. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” ~ African Proverb
  20. “The leader has to be practical and a realist yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.” ~ Eric Hoffer
  21. “You manage things; you lead people.” ~ Grace Murray Hopper
  22. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead
  23. “No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” ~ H.E. Luccock
  24. “Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
  25. “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” ~ Bill Gates
  26. “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
  27. “It takes two flints to make a fire.” ~ Louisa May Alcott
  28. “Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position.” ~ Brian Tracy
  29. “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” ~ Henry Ford
  30. “Outstanding leaders go out of the way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” ~ Sam Walton
  31. “Don’t necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.” ~ Donald Rumsfeld
  32. “Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.” ~ John C. Maxwell
  33. “The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.” ~ James Cash Penney
  34. “Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life forever.” ~ Amy Poehler
  35. “Average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire others to raise their own bar.” ~ Orrin Woodward
  36. “Education is the mother of leadership.” ~ Wendell Willkie
  37. “The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.” ~ John Buchan
  38. “Success isn’t about how much money you make; it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.” ~ Michelle Obama
  39. “Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together.” ~ James Cash Penney
  40. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” ~ Steve Jobs
  41. “People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.” ~ John Maxwell
  42. “It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” ~ Napolean Hill
  43. “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” ~ Ralph Nader
  44. “None of us is as smart as all of us.” ~ Ken Blanchard
  45. “A leader must inspire or his team will expire.” ~ Orrin Woodward
  46. “Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.” ~ Stephen Covey
  47. “To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
  48. “If you can laugh together, you can work together.” ~ Robert Orben
  49. “True leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed… Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection.” ~ Sheryl Sandberg
  50. “Leadership is an action, not a position.” ~ Donald McGannon
  51. “I think one of the keys to leadership is recognizing that everybody has gifts and talents. A good leader will learn how to harness those gifts toward the same goal.” ~ Ben Carson
  52. “Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision, the ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. ” ~ Andrew Carnegie
  53. “A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see.” ~ Leroy Eimes
  54. “A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.” ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
  55. “Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership.” ~ James Humes
  56. “When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality.” ~ Joe Paterno
  57. “A good leader leads the people from above them. A great leader leads the people from within them.” ~ M. D. Arnold
  58. “Many hands make light work.” ~ John Heywood
  59. “The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.” ~ Tony Blair
  60. “Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.” ~ Seth Godin
  61. “Teamwork is the secret that makes common people achieve uncommon results.” ~ Ifeanyi Onuoha
  62. “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” ~ Ronald Reagan
  63. “The task of the leader is to get their people from where they are to where they have not been.” ~ Henry Kissinger
  64. “A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to praise the skills of others.” ~ Norman Shidle
  65. “You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.” ~ Ken Kesey
  66. “The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.” ~ Ray Kroc
  67. “The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.” ~ Henry Kissinger
  68. “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” ~ Harvey S. Firestone
  69. “If you take out the team in teamwork, it’s just work. Now who wants that?” ~ Matthew Woodring Stover
  70. “It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.” ~ Madeleine Albright
  71. “A leader is a person you will follow to a place you would not go by yourself.” ~ Joel Barker
  72. “A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” ~ Rosalynn Carter
  73. “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” ~ Helen Keller
  74. “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.” ~ Vince Lombardi
  75. “Efficiency is doing better that what is already being done.” ~ Peter Drucker
  76. “Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.”~ Stephen Covey
  77. “Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.” ~ Bill Bradley
  78. “If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” ~ Booker T. Washington
  79. “Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not ‘making friends and influencing people,’ that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” ~ Peter F. Drucker
  80. “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
  81. “Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it.” ~ David Star Jordan
  82. “Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
  83. “The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing people around a shared vision.” ~ Ken Blanchard
  84. “Lead and inspire people. Don’t try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be led.” ~ Ross Perot
  85. “True leadership lies in guiding others to success–in ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well.” ~ Bill Owens
  86. “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
  87. “Don’t tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” ~ George S. Patton, Jr.
  88. “To lead people, walk beside them. As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence … When the best leader’s work is done, the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!’” ~ Lao Tzu
  89. “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” ~ Jack Welch
  90. “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
  91. “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” ~ George S. Patton, Jr.
  92. “If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.” ~ Dolly Parton
  93. “Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” ~ Steve Jobs
  94. “Whatever you are, be a good one.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
  95. “Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal.” ~ Walt Disney
  96. “One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” ~ Arnold Glasow
  97. “There are three essentials to leadership: humility, clarity and courage.” ~ Fuchan Yuan
  98. “I invite everyone to choose forgiveness rather than division, teamwork over personal ambition.” ~ Jean-Francois Cope
  99. “Remember, teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.” ~ Patrick Lencioni
  100. “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” ~ Edith Wharton
  101. “A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see.” ~ Leroy Eimes

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I'm Allison Dunn,

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